A group of sixteen little things, running around like headless chicken. As Sei and Mike neared, they could finally understand what the little creatures were mumbling.
“What do I do?” was audible from all of them at the same time, repeated in a panicked tone. And even if it sounded a bit different, Mike recognized the voice.
“Johnny?” he asked, and all of the sixteen creatures stopped at once, turning slowly towards the voice. “Huh?” escapes them all, as they all widened their eyes at the sight of the two-headed dragon.
Sei, who had looked surprised at Mike, turned towards them as well. As the little creatures still looked surprised and confused, he asked: “Are you really Johnny? It´s us, Sei and Mike.”
Now the little creatures all at once sat down while a sigh of relieve left them. Shortly after, all of them said at once: “Thank god, you had me fearing for my life right now. I guess whatever is happening here, has gotten you as well?” It sounded far calmer than before.
Mike chuckled: “It seems so. But while Sei and I share one body now, you have gotten a few to many. How is that?”
Again Johnny´s slightly off voice answered them from all sixteen mouths. “I bumped into that table over there, and touched that little figurine as it toppled over. I didn´t want it to break if it fell down. Seconds later, I started to change.” They started to explain.
By now Mike and Sei had looked over them, singling one out to watch at. Johnny had become some kind of kobold. His body was covered in little dark-blue scales, only his front was nearly white. He had gained a short tail with small stubs on them. Maybe a pre-stage of spikes. His feet looked much like their own, small dragon-like paws with three claws. His hands had remained mostly the same in form, they were only smaller, covered in blue scales and had small, pointy claw-tips. His face had, like theirs, pushed out into a short muzzle. His ears weren´t visible, his head itself looked like a ball with a muzzle and eyes.
“It didn´t take long, first my shoes and socks ripped, then my jeans were pushed down by that tail. As my face pushed forward, I saw my hair falling out at the same time. And when I thought it had stopped, I started to shrink. But at the same time, I felt like there was more to move, and suddenly there was a second me beside me. And that continued while I shrunk, each of us splitting a second time, then a third and a fourth. I ended up as sixteen little kobolds. And you two?”
Mike started to explain from how Sei turned into a dragon from some smoke out of a small statuette, until he touched Sei. Sei continued how Mike had been absorbed into him, how he changed further, and how Mike had grown as a second head next to him. Finishing with how they needed to work together to move around now.
“You need to coordinate to move as one, while I have problems as I have to move sixteen bodies at once. I can´t get one body to move, it´s always all of them.” The Johnny´s moaned annoyed.
“There must be a way to do that, Johnny. We will figure something out, but I think we should search the others first. Hopefully, Erik and Ryan haven´t changed already.” Sei said, and Mike nodded along.
Johnny looked at them, fear in his eyes. “You mean the others could also be changed? We need to find them. But I can´t work with all that bodies.”
Mike looked at the group of kobold Johnny´s, then back to his and Sei´s body. “Sei, do you think we could carry them all?” Sei repeated Mike´s movements before nodding. “I think so. Johnny, try to climb on our back with all of your bodies, okay?”
Johnny tried to do so, with not much success. Mike suggested maybe Johnny could try to think of each body separately, and move one after another. It only worked when Johnny had the eyes of all other fifteen kobolds closed through. With some trouble and much help from Sei and Mike, finally he got up over their tails. Now, two kobolds sat behind a spike each, eight pairs with each grabbing their neighbor and the nearest spike. Mike chuckled at the sight. “Looks like a bus full of school children now.” Sei wasn´t as amused as Mike. “Yeah, yeah, only we aren´t a bus, and we need to find the others. So, let´s get going.”
Lucky for the little Johnny´s that Sei and Mike didn´t trip on their search. He had enough problems staying on their back, eyes from all but the most back sitting one closed.