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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ankh-Morpork Guard" data-source="post: 2068221" data-attributes="member: 10079">Chapter 163: All Grown Up...and Up.There were many levels of pain. Most people only ever experienced a few, and it was rarely anything that got into the deeper levels. Even most soldiers and fighters never lived long enough to experience most of the types of pain. Of course, those other levels of pain wouldn’t exist if someone in the galaxy didn’t experience them. Akan was now under the impression that a thousand years of people not experiencing the deepest levels of pain was now being handed over to him. It was such a deep and burning pain that every few minutes his body would become numb to it before it grew in strength again. How he was managing to stay conscious through it all, Akan was completely unaware of. His mind was so very focused on forcing himself to breathe that any other thoughts beyond ‘ow’ and curses directed at whatever created the universe were lost on him.    The truly amazing part, well, amazing when looked at from an outside point of view at least, was that every single Alraxian adult had gone through this. Alraxian children lived for roughly forty standard years before reaching adulthood. It was essentially a side effect of their natural ability to change shape. Alraxian ‘children’ were mostly androgynous, though as they grew older, more gender specific features would begin to develop. And then, at twenty cycles by the Alraxian calendar(forty by the rest of the galactic standard), everything kicked into overdrive. In roughly two hours, the equivalent of ten years of human development occurred. It was like going from thirteen to twenty three in the blink of a galactic eye.    And of course, it was no surprise that not every Alraxian survived it. Very many simply passed out from the extreme pain. It wasn’t long after that in which they suffocated, as the body’s usually involuntary action of breathing became the brain’s sole focus. It was a way to ignore the brunt of the pain and keep the brain occupied, but of course it was also a very dangerous thing. Not only that, but many Alraxians simply couldn’t take the pain and died of shock. A rare few died from bones growing too much or muscles not developing, but those genetic defects had been mostly bred or manually taken out of the population.    But none of that really mattered to Akan or Shadow. What did matter that it hurt. To Akan, this was unfair. He’d died once already and it sure hadn’t felt anywhere near as bad as this. Shadow had four times as much like experience on him, though. And she saw it that way simply because she had the combined life of Marix and Shadow. Sure, the first half of those lives were exactly the same, but experiencing it twice counted in their...her...whoever’s mind it was now.    And then something odd happened. Or at least, odd compared to the last two hours of white hot pain that continually got worse and worse. The unending pain just ended. Maybe it was gradual, maybe it had taken the whole third hour. Neither Shadow nor Akan noticed it, though. The pain was simply gone. Well, mostly gone. Enough that they could actually begin to see again and the cargo bay was coming back into focus. They were both face down, and Shadow was the first to groan into the durasteel deck.    “...my everything hurts...” Shadow’s voice sounded different to her ears...which did still hurt. But her voice was...was...something at least. Higher? More like her mother’s voice, a haunting non-voice stated through her mind. That got her entire body to shudder. And she couldn’t help but notice that it took longer for the shudder to travel through her entire body than usual.    Akan’s groan was next, and she was surprised at how much deeper it sounded. Not so much that he sounded like a completely different person, but at least enough that she did a mental double take. She then opened her eyes to see what Akan complained about next, “...what is all of this...?”    She tilted her head up to look at him, seeing that he was eyeing a small piece of white material that she soon realized was surrounding the both of them. There was also another substance that was mixed in with it, but Shadow did her best to ignore the fact that it was vomit and very near to her face. Though when she did identify what the white material was, she wasn’t all that surprise. [Morphsuits...they look dead.]    The best thing Akan could manage was a nod. That went a long way to explaining why he was so cold. Slowly, Akan managed to push himself up into a sitting position. Of course, he couldn’t help but notice that his sitting height was nearly at the level of where his shoulders used to be. He glanced to Shadow a moment, then suddenly found himself having to pry his gaze away. She was lying there on her stomach looking exhausted and growling at not being able to move and yet...his eyes kind of locked.    It was one of those times when clothes would have been helpful. Typical that the morphsuits were mysteriously destroyed. This also was one of those points where Akan could really have used an Alraxian mentality to go with the body he’d been given. But no, he was still a human at heart...well, mind. Which meant that he didn’t have the Alraxian lack of modesty. He’d learned of it the hard way more than once while back on Endor for those couple of months. When Shadow would just shed any clothes and dive into a river, he’d gone white and managed to look the other way.    Shadow shook her head, trying to clear her mind of the echoes of ‘ow’ that were still there. Grumbling to herself about being broken, she pushed herself up off the deck floor and realized just how much longer her arms were. That got a grin on her face. If her arms were longer...that meant her legs were longer...which meant she might just be taller— but something was wrong. There was more...more weight than usual. Slowly, and slightly worried Shadow looked down. She managed a whimper. That wasn’t right! She shouldn’t...that shouldn’t...she whimpered again. In the back of her head, Marix made some comment about final proof that they were female. From the sound of it, there were bets riding on that.    But Shadow mentally glared at the voice. Traitor.    Ignoring the...problems, Shadow sat up and let her head stop spinning. For a long while, they just sat there in silence, trying to let the last echoes of the pain fade away finally. Akan had gone to staring at the X-Wing, finding that it was much safer than letting his eyes...wander. That had never happened before! Well, it had...but he was younger. A lot younger. He had gone through puberty once so he never had to experience it again! Yet another reminder was put up on a mental datapad to beat the creator of the universe silly when Akan met with it.    Eventually, he managed to speak, though trying to ignore how much different his voice sounded, “Its...cold...”    There was a silence in which Shadow’s mind caught up with that voice that was screaming about the cold. Then, she nodded suddenly, panicked about how cold it was. It was dangerously cold! She should have thought about that! They were in their morphsuits for so long that their body temperature was regulated and they didn’t even notice it! As quickly as she could, Shadow got to her feet.    She then realized that her head was a lot closed to the ceiling than it had ever been before. In fact, she had to be at least two point four meters tall now!! She was finally tall! Not the runt anymore, HA!  And then Akan stood up. In that short moment, her triumph was defeated as her eye level ended up even with his neck. His neck!! He’d grown more than she had! They should have grown the same amount! That wasn’t fair! That was cheating! He had cheated!    Roughly, she poked his chest, “You cheated!”    He just stared blankly at her, then realized he was staring and looked up. Shadow just rolled her eyes, not understand what had him so worked up and then walked out into the main corridor. She did so without stumbling, putting all of her will into walking straight. Besides, falling now meant a much longer fall and probably more pain. In a short time, she made it to her quarters and got out the few possessions she had with her. Out of a small bag, she pulled two morphsuits and tossed one of the small bundles to Akan.    Catching it, Akan still had the blank look on his face, “Um...aren’t these kind of...of...small?”    Shadow nodded and stretched the suit out, holding it against her, “It will take a few minutes but it should grow enough. The others...died because of the sudden growth. How they can stand morphing and not that is beyond me, though, so don’t ask.”    Akan just nodded, doing as she’d said more out of modesty than anything. Her tail flicked behind her, now much longer than it had been...as everything was now. Except for their surroundings, which all seemed to have shrunk. Eventually, he escaped to find Toby, seeing that the little jai(who was now very, very little in comparison) was curled up on Akan’s bed, purring loudly in his sleep. He couldn’t help a smile, though it was also from the fact that the morphsuit had finally grown to the correct size and he could wear one again.    The next few minutes were a blur. His mind hadn’t really caught up with all that had happened(and was also a bit..distracted with a certain image that had seemed to burn itself into his mind, but that wasn’t the point), and when the beeping noises that indicated the end of the jump through hyperspace had gone off, Akan had simply reacted. He used to other coordinates Shadow had plotted in and made five short, roundabout jumps through a part of space that the ship’s navcomputer had no data on. Jumping through hyperspace on the faith that Shadow knew what she was talking about.     Through the short last jump, his mind wandered again. Wandered through the chaos that he’d currently figured out what his life. The beeping sounded and he reached for the hyperspace levels again. But this time, when the starship reverted to realspace they weren’t in empty black.    “Shadow!!” he yelled back over his shoulder, not realizing how much louder his voice was than usual. That was going to take some getting used to. It only took her a minute to arrive with a questioning look on her face, but it took at least another minute for Akan to find his voice again. She looked...morphsuits had always been tight and figure hugging. However, Shadow now had a very, very definite figure now. Half of his silence was surprise, the other was something he tried to ignore before peeling his eyes away and pointing out the viewport, “What is that?!”    It was huge. A gigantic, bright silver ring which was shining in a soft blue from a nearby star. Blue...blue...always blue...but that wasn’t what was so amazing. The diameter of the ring had to have been at least twice the size of a Super Star Destroyer. It hung there in front of them, and Akan couldn’t help but notice that looking through the center of the ring showed no stars at all...while all around the exterior the little white dots could be seen far away.    “That,” Shadow said with a grin on her face, speaking in a voice that almost sounded happy, “That is the border. Fly in and find us a bay to land in!”</blockquote>

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