This simple dragon hadn't ever been given quite such a rough time in her 17 thousand years as she had today. Her job has usually been to spawn in when summoned, peck away at some armor for 5 minutes, and spawn back to her native dimension. She was a mid-lower level dragon, and without any fire or spells, and limited flight ability. She was only ever used to keep a party occupied; to keep them on the defensive while her summoner prepared a strategy. This morning, however, every lunge of her teeth was met not with the face of a shield, but the blade of a sword.
"What the hell are you doing?!" Said a young man, his shield firmly raised.
"I'm gonna kill the dragon!" Said another young man, getting in every slice that he could.
"It's gonna de-spawn in like 90 seconds!" Said the first man back to him.
"I don't want this wiz-kid stomping around, thinking he can sick a dragon on people to get out of a fight!" Said the other, going in for a dramatic lunge.
The dragon, unversed in their language, nonetheless understood that the man on the left was urging the man on the right to stop attacking her back, and she agreed! It will take decades to fully heal the wounds she's incurred already, and there's sure to be some scars left behind. She hasn't felt pain like this in eons, and she just wants to throw-up! Just like the man on the left, all she can think about is how many seconds have to tick by before she can leave.
"This is it. Philippe's gonna get himself killed. I'm going to be all alone. I'm going to have to tell the others how he went out valiantly. Except he didn't. He went out REALLY STUPIDLY." Said the first man, his face going numb from the impending doom.
"Ugh, this JERK." Thought the dragon, as the brash swordsman, Philippe, lay clung to her right horn, repeatedly striking her in the head. This wasn't a terribly uncommon strategy for a human, and she always knew how it went. She would jostle her head back and forth a few times, before ramming her dome directly into the nearest boulder. The slow-witted would perish here, but Philippe struck her as the bright type who would anticipate that and jump out of the way at the last second. Wishing to throw the small creature off his game, the dragon elected to implement a far rarer technique. A technique that demanded perfect timing and accuracy.
Philippe caught his breath but for a moment as the dragon began to lower her head to the ground, as if offering him to slide off... before thrusting her neck backwards with terrifying speed. Philippe was launched directly upwards at over 80 kilometers-per-hour, breaking his right arm and right foot just from the acceleration. He barely maintained consciousness as he was propelled higher and higher into the air.
The one, brief, gravity-free second before falling down gave Philippe the moment of clarity he needed to restrategize. Catching his fall would be little issue. His Boots-of-Feather will make this about the same as falling about 5 feet. He looked down, and saw the gaping mouth of the dragon oriented directly up at him.
"I'll just be rid of this pest before it can give me any more trouble!" Thought the dragon to herself.
First order of business, thought Philippe, was to pop in a healing tablet and get his bones unbroken. With that issue swiftly resolved, he equipped his hyper-electron-charged iron-knuckles. This weapon hits harder with charged attacks that descend from above, doing damage proportional to the length of the fall, so the dragon was practically asking for it.
The dragon was eyeing Philippe's every move, ready to anticipate whatever line of attack he had in mind. As he neared 30 meters above the ground, the dragon sharpened her vision even closer.
"I can't let him get into my mouth and punch out my throat," she thought, "and I can't clamp down too early and let him strike out my teeth." She held her breath as the man approached 10 meters above her.
"It's all a matter," she thought as he reached 7, 5, 2 meters, "of biting instantly, at just the right time..."
Philippe vanished. In no time at all, he ceased to be in the dragon's view. He left behind only a few white leaves; the signature trail of a short-range teleportation.
"Oh..." Thought the dragon, turning her eyes and seeing him right next to her, in front of her face. She realized that this human must have been of a higher level than she thought. He was probably biffing her a lot gentler than he could have been, wasn't he?
"Dumbass!" Philippe roared, thrusting his fully-charged iron-punch into the dragon's stupid, hustled forehead. Her skull broke into fragments and lodged themselves into her brain, which itself was pressed into tar as the force thrust through and broke apart her jaw. Her neck flung outward; a shower of bones, brains and blood covering the rocky countryside.
Enjoying a fresh sprinkling of dragon fluids, Philippe's partner on the ground was unable to process what just happened, as Philippe's Boots-of-Feather brought him down with a relatively soft landing. It was going to take him a few more seconds to accept the fact that Philippe wasn't dead.
Already processing that he wasn't dead yet, however, being the type of genius who always finds a way to bring up his IQ in conversation, was the wizard who had summoned the dragon.
"Y-you can't- you can't do that!" The wizard screamed, in a tongue the two adventurers can't understand anyway.
"You don't just kill a familiar like that." The wizard thought to himself, shaking. "You DON'T..." He felt just about foaming at the mouth, he was so livid. What was he going to say to the upper-seniority in the clan? Worse, what was he going to say to his underlings?? He would have ignored these two idiots entirely had he known they were going to cost him so much! Now he has to form a trans-dimensional relationship with a dragon from scratch like he's back in summoner's school! Absolutely disgusting! Such lower level than him, these two... he'd have simply struck them both with a pair of Never-Miss Antimatter Darts had he known they would do something so stupid as to murder a familiar like that. And a short-term spawn, as well! The dragon only lasts five minutes! What was the bloody point of going after her like that?
No, no he can't kill them now, he has no choice but to subject them to a fate worse than death. Well, just the one with the sword. The other one was guarding quietly behind the boulder like he should have been, so he'll ignore him. If this wizard is not to not look like a total idiot, he must make sure that fool sets an example for the rest of his lessers back in the city, and sentence him to a lifetime of humiliation.
The wizard zeroed-in on Philippe with his hand and his wand, as he drew upon a few of the sparse words he knows in their language:
"Eat shit, fuzzball!" He erupted into cackling furor as a beam of multicolored light shot out of his wand.
Conrad and Philippe were excited, at first, to see such a gorgeous display of magic for the first time. They were accustomed to solid yellows, or blues. The almost rainbow-pattern emerging from this wizard must be a terrible, awful spell! Conrad and Philippe's excitement waned, however, when it was registered that this probably terrible spell had engulfed Philippe's person and started sending shock-waves into his body.
"Yeeaagghhhh!!" The wizard let out a howling scream in pure rage, before turning up his coat and running away. "Let him never forget. NEVER forget what he did!" He muttered to himself, disappearing into the hills below.
"Philippe!" Conrad exclaimed, running over. By the time he reached him, the lights and sparks had dissipated.
"Auw geeze, I feel... I feel weird." Philippe said, dizzy. He struggled to maintain his balance. "Does, uh... does anything look weird about me?" He asked, turning around to Conrad.
Conrad noticed that Philippe didn't look any different.
...except that his ears were fuzzy. And pointy.
A moment later, light, gray-brown fur began to grow all over Philippe's skin. A big, fuzzy tail sprouted out from behind him as his feet and nose reshaped themselves. As this was happening, Philippe's clothes began to look very loose. His pants started to droop on the ground, before falling down along with his underwear. His armor has all but crumbled to the ground around him, as his shirt now goes all the way down to his knees. A moment later, that same shirt covered his entire body, as he finally lost his balance and stumbled to the ground.
"Wh-what's going on...?" Philippe exclaimed. "What happened??" He asked. His questions only worried him further, as they didn't seem to be coming out of his own mouth. A child somewhere was speaking his own words in his place.
"Oh boy..." Conrad said, squatting down. "You changed shape." He said.
"Whadea mean, changed shape??" Philippe asked, starting to freak out.
"Come on, there's a mirror back at camp. See for yourself." Conrad said, more relieved than anything that Philippe was still alive.
"I just... but you... ugh, okay..." Philippe said. He tried to get up, but found his legs too tired to stand. He planted right back down on his bottom again, though found the fall to be a lot gentler than he expected.
"Oh, you're pretty tuckered out from all that, aren't you?" Conrad said. Philippe could only think how huge and imposing Conrad looked, squatting over him like this. Conrad sighed, and began to pick up all of Philippe's things, before picking up Philippe himself.
"Here, I'll take you there." He said as he began to carry him over.
Philippe was surprised how small he felt. Conrad was holding him against his chest, keeping him propped up with a single hand under his bottom.
Arriving at camp a few minutes later, Philippe found himself getting very upset and confused when he saw himself in the mirror. He was now an anthro fox. Seemingly a gray fox, specifically, based on his coat. Not only was he a different species, he was also a small cub.
"Yeah, you only look three, maybe four-years-old." Conrad said.
"But... but..." Philippe said, unable to form clearer words.
"Alright, dude." Conrad said, disassembling the tent. "We need to get back into town. You're in no position to be out in the open right now." Conrad hoisted everything into an overstuffed backpack. "Here, do you have the strength to climb in?" He asked, unzipping a pouch on the side.
Philippe was a little disoriented, but was drawn to the pouch if for no other reason than for how tired he was. He climbed up Conrad's legs and torso, and hoisted himself into the side of the backpack. His head poking out the zipper, Philippe lowered his eyes as Conrad began to trek along the path back into the city. The bobs and sways of Conrad's stride soothing him into an early afternoon nap.