After we’ve gone through the organizers’ list of questions, we open up for the audience to ask their own questions. There’s a short pause while some crew set up a microphone and make sure it’s NOT SO DAMN LOUD. While they do that a few people gather around the mic, and the first question when they give the thumbs up is:

“Thanks for the talk, I was wondering, can you show us those forms you mentioned? It’s a bit hard to visualize.”

“Show our forms? That’s a good idea.”

“Wait,” urges Peacock, “shouldn’t we wait until after the other questions?”

“Why?”

“It’s probably gonna take a while, so we should do the questions first. I don’t think there was anything scheduled in the rom for a while after this, right?”

She looks at a nearby crew member, who fumbles out their phone.

When she puts it like that, that’s a good point, actually. I would probably- no, it’s more or les guaranteed that I’d end up on a massive tangent of some sort. I could show the three forms I mentioned in as many minutes, but one innocent question about another form, and suddenly time flies.

The crew member, having found the correct page, states that the room is free for an hour after our talk, and remind us (and the audience) that there’s cosplay-like shapeshifting contests and meetups. That settles it, so we move on to the next question.

There’s a few question about clarifying this or that, and someone asks for how they should go about if they want to learn shapeshifting. That question is deferred to me, for fairly obvious reasons, I guess.

“How many forms do you have?” asks the next one.

“Six.” says the Black Cat Witch, Minos has five.

“I can’t really shapeshift,” starts Peacock, “but I turn back to human -mostly- and I can, uhm, lean into it and become a bird. I can also take on elements and become, like, a phoenix or lightning phoenix, but I don’t know if that counts.”

“I don’t have that many aspects I can shapeshift with, only seven, but you can combine them…” the guy from the Den says, looking over at me.

“As he says, you can combine aspects just about however you want. Like, would it be a different form if I grew scales on my hand? Where’s the limit? Half the body? The entire?”

“Something like a minotaur is obviously different, but there’s a sliding scale between that and this. For that matter, I consider this form my base form, and it’s more or less the one I was born with, but I’ve made several permanent changes. Is it still human? A different kind of human? That said, I have… uh, I,”

I pause to try to count my aspects, but just give up.

“Okay, so counting them would take a while, and I have some of what you could call merged aspects, but needless to say, I have at least several dozen aspects. As for forms, virtually infinite. Uh, I’ll stop waffling now. Next question?”

There’s a few more questions I’d file under ‘miscellaneous’, and then someone asks about permanent changes, referring to the ones I mentioned having. So I just list them, including a few I haven’t really made permanent, but use often. The biggest being drastic night vision: Great in darkness, but not so much when it’s already bright out…

Peacock didn’t change to her form voluntarily, and doesn’t even know how or why she changed, so despite having some control over her curse (or whatever it is), she can’t fully return to being human, but she also doesn’t care.

“If I decide I want to pretend like I’m a normal human, I could just learn from Lars.”

Ouch? I mean, on one hand that could be a compliment to my shapeshifting and/or teaching abilities, but, but on the other hand, it heavily implies I’m not a ‘normal human’. The others say they have no permanent changes, but I point out that most magic will influence you, and shapeshifting especially, both mentally and physically.

With ten minutes left of our allotted time, the questions stop coming, so it’s time to show off.

I…. should not be the first, that much is clear. The guy from the Den claims to not have any interesting forms, so he’s out too. Come to think of it, he never got around to answer the favorite forms question, did he? The Witch also does a ‘not me’.

The big guy suggests that Peacock should go first, but she seems a bit hesitant about shifting in front of an audience, so I lean over to her and whisper, “Is it a clothes thing?”

“Yes.”

“Oh. I have a big sheet of fabric in my bag I use to create anenclosure for that kinda stuff.”

She looks at me for a moment, at it strikes me just how inhuman her face is when I am completely unable to read her expression.

“Mm. Fire or lightning.” She asks out loud, so I pull back.

“Huh, of the elements?”

She nods.

“Lightning, I guess, it-”

She steps away from the rest of us, not bothering to hear the rest of what I have to say, and draw a deep breath while raising her arms. She pauses, for a moment, in that position, as the nearby ambient mana surges into her, and then she breathes out and drops her arms, body already changing.

Wait, uh, was I supposed to cover her? I mean, if that’s the case she should’ve told me, and now I don’t even have the time to pull it out, and if she gets any slimmer now-

Her clothes drop to the floor, except for her dress, held in place partially by her shoulders, mostly by magic. Her body has become covered in colorfully purple feather-scales, and grows rounder and even more lithe as her arms turn to wings.

“Woah…” and similar sounds are made.

Yeah, that’s… “magnificent.”

I can’t help but compare it to the literally awesome Great Serpent (though I’ve kinda gotten used to that one), but even then, only Big Words like that can do it justice. I reckon that if she had used fire for the element I’d call her an asian-style phoenix.

As it is, I can detect the aspect of electromagnetism, or the ‘electricity’ part, anyway, though with the small sparks across her body, you don’t need magic to figure that. I also sense some kinda bird, it’s not any of the aspects I have, and it’s incredibly intertwined with that of electricity.

I wonder what kinda bird it is though, if- wait, she doesn’t use aspects to shift, so wouldn’t that mean it’s the natural aspects of whatever the form is? Were it fire I’d call it phoenix, but I guess it’s a thunderbird? Bah, putting off a proper name for now (mental note: google lightning-related mythological birds later), I want to learn it.

Setting aside my own (somewhat lacking) reaction, both the audience and the other panelists sound suitably impressed, and, yeah, I can see where they’re coming from. She trills and looks over the audience, and I leave the limelight to her, closing my eyes to focus fully on the aspect.

I seem to concentrate on it a bit too much, as I’m brought out of my focus by something nudging my side and someone asking what I’m doing.

I open my eyes and startle, only to keep looking into those beautiful red orbs staring back at me.

Okay, I might’ve understated just how… pretty that form is.

She nudges me again.

“Oh, you want me to do the thing so you can change back?”

She trills, and when I raise an eyebrow, nods.

Oh, okay then.

I stand up and walk off to the side, levitating her pile of clothes after me while I fish out the sheet. I throw the fabric into the air while holding onto a corner, using magic to fully and neatly open it. Next I form a hollow cylinder with her clothes within, and use a touch of mana to give her a nudge towards it.

As she makes her way inside, I bring out one of my focuses, a large crystal orb wrapped in bands of copper and aluminium, dotted with small pieces of suspendite to make it lighter. I tie the magic holding the sheets to the orb, then focus on spreading my mana around the enclosure to block other people’s mana and to weave a combined illusion and a ‘don’t mind me’ kinda spell. The sheet is already enchanted with both, and I attach the larger and stronger weave to the enchantment.

With the setup complete I sneak a tendril of mana inside to spy on her changing, but unfortunately she’s already back to her (mostly) human form, so there’s nothing to learn about the aspect, so I just disperse it.

Hmm, I should ask her if she’s willing to let me study the aspect of that form, and the phoenix form, if it’s different. Should be useful whether it’s the same or not, and I want it.

With her clothes back on she exits and walks up to the nearest mic, mumbling something about that being her lightning phoenix form, and gets a thundering round of applause.

The Black Cat volunteers to go next, and barely pops into the enclosure before a large black cat walks out. I’m…. I’m not sure what I expected, and that seems to be the audience’s reaction, too. She saunters over to the the table the way cats do, effortlessly leaping up on it.

Judging by how used she is to that form, she must’ve used to a lot. Aside form the strong magical signature, it magically seems just like a normal cat, though.

“What, a magical cat isn’t exciting enough?”

The voice confuses me for a moment, before I blurt out, “the fact that you can talk in that form is a bigger surprise…”

“Meow.” she says with both a look and tone.

“Hey, just saying. Unless I specifically make them able to, most of my forms can’t talk, and it’s really hard unless they’re close to human. Seems to be the case for the others too,” I finish with a nod towards the people in question, who all agree.

“Hmph.”

Yeah, given how her demeanor have changed for the arrogant, her variation of shapeshifting definitely affects her. Or it’s a ‘play your role’ kinda thing, it’s hard to tell even with my own shifting.

After ducking under the sheet there’s a spike of mana, and she returns as a raven, no, that’s a crow, and lands on the forearm I have outstretched under the hovering orb.

“You really look like some kinda sorcerer right now.”

“Is that so?” I reply to phoenix girl, trying to shake off the bird without dropping the orb

“I’m not even wearing my mage clothes; and if I wanted to look like a sorcerer or mage or wizard, I have both clothes and foci for that. Got enough bones and stuff that I could make some kinda necromancer or warlock kinda costume too.”

“Then what are those clothes!?”

“Comfortable, convenient, cuh- uh, shapeshifting friendly. All around very nice. But I guess that’s not the answer you were looking for?

“She refers to how they’re highly magical and mana flows between them and you with your every moment, silly.”

“Well yeah, they’re as enchanted as any other clothes I use, and I’ve currently bound them to me, so they’re basically part of, or at least an extension of, my body. Also,”

I make a grin and a thumbs up with my free hand. “Nice snarky familiar play.”

The crow looks more haughty than any other I’ve seen, even rolling her eyes, and she jumps up on my head, only to lift off and fly to the changing tube when I reach up towards her.

While we wait for her to change, we chat a bit more and discuss the forms we’ll show, getting audience opinions in the form of indistinct noise to each option, thanks to Minos. Has he worked somewhere you need to do that thing where you rile up the audience, like in concerts and stuff?

When the Witch finally comes out she’s beet red and looks a bit frazzled, so I suppose I should give her some relief and say to her in a low voice:

“I blocked both sound and mana while you changed, so no one will know.”

She makes wide eyes at that, and I probably should’ve phrased it in a way that couldn’t be interpreted as if I spied on her, but after pondering for a moment and touching the fabric with a stream of mana, she thanks me nonetheless.

Then it's Minos' turn, and after getting up he unabashedly pulls off his T-shirt and go from using the spirit of bull or whatever to be covered in feathers, with large wings.

“Just so you know, I sell flight-form friendly tank tops, as well as other shapeshifting gear. I can also point you to a few, uh, more experienced tailors who can do the same.”

He looks at me for a moment, then nods quietly. So he becomes more quiet in that form, hm?

He just poses for a bit, showing off his wings from multiple angles, then turn back.

“Your turn, Grand Shapeshifter.”

“Ugh, don't give me even more nicknames, the System already recognizes too many of those.”