The question has barely left your mouth when you hear a shriek, as a woman about your age bursts through some bushes off to your side. Sticks and leaves fall from her t-shirt and shorts as she stumbles and flails to stay upright and looks over her shoulder in terror. She's quickly followed by a stark white latex bear that growls and lumbers after her. With her head turned away, the woman doesn't see the gnarled root sticking up from the ground. It catches her foot and sends her tumbling to the earth. Before she can recover, the bear's snarling form is almost on top of her.
"Oh god, we have to help her!" You exclaim to Tex.
"You sure? Your last run-in with one of those guys didn't go too well, remember?" She said, poking your trunk. "You might be changed even more, and that's not even with a guarantee of a successful rescue."
The bear is now is now straddling her with all four legs, jaws opening towards her face. But rather than biting or claw at her, it seems to just be slowly lowering it's body as if to lay on top of her. She yells while frantically punching and kicking at it to try to push it away.
"Please, what can I do?" You beg.
"Fine, if you're insistent, you may be able to do what you did to the elephant. If you can destabilize its form momentarily, you two may have a window to escape while it reforms. Just don't body slam it or anything. In fact, don't touch it at all if you can, or else..." She explains while pointing at the woman. Her hands and feet with which she was striking and pushing moments ago now seem to be stuck to the bear's belly, and she is struggling to pull them away.
Seeing that your window to rescue the woman is quickly closing, you hurriedly search around you for any kind of improvised weapon. To your right, you see a dead branch that doesn't look too rotten. You run over to it and scoop it up, feeling reasonably satisfied by the heft of it. You look back to your target and see that the bear has already enveloped the pleading woman's hands and feet and is now slowly inching up her wrists and ankles. You set the branch over your shoulder like a baseball bat and scream, partly in an attempt to intimidate the beast but mostly out of your own terror, then charge.
The bear finally seems to take notice of you and turns just in time to see you swing the piece of lumber. It connects with the bear's side, making a satisfying, wet THUNK, as the bear's midsection sloshes back with the swing. It doesn't quite splatter, but the impact sends ripples throughout the bear's form and knocks it sideways. The movement tilts it over until its center of balance is off and the whole animal topples onto its side, releasing the woman's appendages as it slides off of them and making a goopy splash as it's deformed. While the woman is coming loose from the bear, you first think that it has left some of itself behind. However, as she's completely released, you realize that where her hands and feet just were, she's now sporting 4 latex hooves like that of a horse, all the same stark white as the bear. The latex continues a few inches up her wrists and ankles where the bear progressed until it ends and her normal flesh begins again.
The woman watches in shock as the bear rolls off of her then looks up at you and screams again. Realizing that the sight of a weird elephant man may not have been the most reassuring, you quickly yell, "I-I'm human! Don't worry! But if either of us want to stay that way, we have to run right now!" She seems like she wants to ask questions, but before she can, you grab her right hoof and haul her up onto her... other hooves. She looks at the end of her arm in your hand in fear and confusion. You don't give her time to ponder it too much as you begin to pull her behind you.
She immediately stumbles and only manages to keep from falling with your assistance. "Something's wrong with my feet. They- they feel really weird," she says worriedly.
"It'll be okay. We won't move too fast, but try your best. The most important thing right now is to move as far away from here as we can."
The woman takes several unstable steps as the two of you retreat into the cover of trees, but her footing quickly begins to stabilize. Soon, she's moving at a shuffling jog, looking like someone trying to run in heels. Once you think she's past the point of falling down, you let her hoof loose and the two of you focus on running through the darkness.
After a few minutes, the two of you see a light ahead and run towards it. You emerge out of the heavy foliage to find yourselves back on the paved forest path beneath a streetlight. Panting, you both stop to catch your breath and the woman collapses to a seat on the ground and closes her eyes. You listen for a few seconds, and don't hear any footfalls chasing you. "I think we've lost him," you tell the woman before a familiar voice answers, "You did!" Turning toward the voice, you see Tex shooting at you out of the trees.
"Wow, Human! When you charged after that bear, I thought you were a goner for sure! But then you were all SWOOSH, and he was like 'NO!' SPLAT. I knew I picked you for a reason, and it wasn't just that inviting gullet. I can tell you'll give me a showing I haven't seen in at least three feasting cycles. Maybe even four," Tex says while beaming at you.
"Hey, uh, if we're safe, can someone please tell me what the hell is going on? And who are you, exactly?" the woman asks.
You turn to her to answer, but before you can begin, Tex flies in front of your face and exclaims, "Oh! How rude of me! I'm Tex, pleased to meet you!" Tex flies down and extends a hand to the lady. She extends her arm to shake the tiny hand without thinking, but stops upon seeing the hoof. "I-i'm Kate," she says without her eyes leaving the extremity. Seeming not to notice, Tex moves forward and grabs it with both hands, shaking it up and down slightly.
"And I-" you begin, before Tex dashes into your face, pushing your trunk into your mouth and muffling you. "Don't be silly, Human. You already introduced yourself. And first thing this time! I was so proud of your improvement." Kate raised an eyebrow at you, but you just shrugged at her in exasperation. "Anyway, Kate," Tex continued after interrupting. "Human, here is just like you. He also got attacked by one of those beasts and escaped, see?" She said, moving around the right side of your head to grab one of your ears and flop it back and forth. With her first chance to really take in your features, Kate looks up at your face in concern. She absentmindedly raises a hoof to her nose, jumping when it makes contact and thrusting it down to her lap. Tex chattered on, "Though his changes are much more dramatic, his bits didn't get eaten quite as much as yours."
"Wait, did you say EATEN?!" Kate exclaimed.
Tex then gave Kate a similar rundown to the one you had just received a few minutes ago. You occasionally made comments and offered additions where you thought Tex left out something important, typically eliciting a scowl at the interruption. Throughout the explanation, Kate continued examining her hooves in horror. She rubbed her 'hands' together several times, producing rubbery squeaking sounds from the friction of the latex. As she looked at her feet, she pressed her hand hooves against their 'soles'. You saw both her feet and hands deform slightly, reminding you more of the rubber from a pair of sneakers than the firmness that you expected of the parts if they were on an animal. "So Human's decided to try to get turned back, even if it will almost certainly fail," Tex finished.
Kate stared down at her hooves in silence for a few seconds before replying, "Well, if it's a chance, I guess I'll take it too, if you'll have me. I can't just go home. I can't even do anything with these," she said, holding her arms out in front of her.
"Oh, sure you can," Tex chided. "How would you even know? You haven't even had them for a half hour. And you're lucky you got them in such a pretty white. They could have been an ugly neon-seafoam color or like a sickly off-yellow," Tex said while flying down to pat them approvingly.
"Well, I'm glad to have the company. Maybe two of us stand a better chance than one," you reply hopefully. "Either way, we should probably get off of this path soon. We need to get moving if we're going to make any progress, and we're too exposed. It's the place where the most people are, so I imagine that makes it prime hunting ground."
Then,