It was around five minutes walking in the corridor, looking into every room, that they heard a sound. “What is that?” asked Johnny, trying to pinpoint the sound. But coordinating sixteen sets of ears to find a sound wasn´t something he had any experience with.
“It sounds like scratching” Sei said as they all stopped moving to hear it clearer. “Maybe there is some kind of animal in one of the rooms?”
“Or maybe whatever makes that sound is Eric, and he is trapped in a room.” Mike said, hoping that Eric was okay.
“It comes … from the … right side … maybe the … fourth door” Ryan said slowly from behind them. He slowly grabbed one of his pinchers to drink some water. He already had felt heavier again, but not as much that he needed to drink something.
Nearing the door Ryan had pointed out, the scratching got louder. Also, there was a small growling as well. As Mike and Sei couldn´t open the door and Ryan was behind them, one of Johnny´s kobold bodies went to open the door carefully.
But the moment the door opened only a crack was enough for whatever was waiting inside to move. Like a flash something on all fours nearly ripped the door open from the inside, and only a second later something stood growling over Johnny in the corridor.
Before any of the other moved, the being, a three-headed, burning Cerberus turned towards the others, howling loudly from two outer of its heads. The middle head was silent.
“Move away from my brother” Ryan snarled at the Cerberus, stepping around the others. Even if Johnny had multiplied, Ryan wouldn´t let anyone harm any of him or the others.
Whatever they expected, the Cerberus moved backwards slowly, seemingly unsure of the movement, eyeing the big gargoyle. While the outer heads still growled, the middle head instead gave off a quiet: “Brother?”
The Johnny on the ground quickly jumped up and hid behind Ryan´s leg, too afraid of the Cerberus. “My little brother, yes” Ryan snarled as an answer.
“Calm down, Ryan. I don´t think a single Cerberus stood any chance against the three of us, and Johnny isn´t weak, he was just surprised” Mike said. While both he and Sei were angry at the Cerberus, attacking it now wouldn´t help them.
The middle head of the Cerberus looked at the group in shock. As the other two heads still growled aggressively at the group. “Silent” the middle head finally snarled at the other two heads, and they really stopped their growling. Then, the middle head turned towards the group again. “So, I´m not the only one? Sorry Johnny, I don´t have full control over my body” it said. Seeing the surprise and distrust, it added: “It´s me, Eric.”
While the others looked shocked at their burning friend, the Johnny on the ground slowly got back in front of Ryan and moved towards Eric. When the two outer heads didn´t growl at him, he finally calmed himself enough to respond: “It´s okay. I guess you had to defend yourself, we could have been dangerous. You had no way to know it is me or us.”
Seeing as his brother had accepted the apology from Eric, Ryan finally overcomes his shock. “And I´m sorry for snarling at you, Eric. But you see how small my brother has become right now, even if there´s more of him.”
Eric tried to laugh, but it sounded weird. It switched to confusion, however, when not only the kobold before him reacted with an annoyed “Hey”, but more voices identical did as well from the dragons back. “How?”
Realizing what he meant, Johnny explained his misfortune. Sei and Mike explained after him, with Ryan said what happened to him last, drinking another of his pinchers to stay hydrated.
“We already guessed that you could have changed as well, but had no idea into what” Mike said after Ryan was finished with his story.
Eric, for only interrupting them if one or both of his other heads started to growl again, was surprised by the different stories. But his changes had the same reason it seemed.
“After we had split up, I took a look into the rooms in this corridor. Until that room here, I didn´t see anything interesting, so I moved on. In here is some kind of collection of various animal-like figures. I went in and looked if there was anything interesting with them, until I found one that had dropped to the ground. And when I picked it up, it was as if it burned my hand.
I dropped it back to the ground and watched my hand, which was really burning. While I panicked to put it out, my body didn´t react. I could only watch the flame slowly creeping up my arm. But what shocked me even more then being burned was what happened to the burnt parts. My right hand had deformed in the flames into a black, paw-like shape, including dark grey paw-pads and stark white claws in the ends.
While the paw itself wasn´t on fire anymore, as you can see, my arm remained alight after the flames climbed up to my shoulder. I guess my arm under it was black like the paw on its end. From there, the flames traveled my whole body, and I still couldn´t move. It burned my clothes away, and left my body alight as well. My other arm and my legs followed my right arm, which my other hand and both feet turn into this paw shape, the only things not staying on fire by then.
For some reason it hadn´t spread on my head when it covered my body, but when the rest was covered by the flames, it started there too. It burned my hair away, burned my eyes out of their sockets, but I could still see. When all was burning, it started to deform my body more. I grew this muzzle and bigger ears, my bones cracking inside me painfully. You wouldn´t believe the pain inside was more intense then burning.
And when I thought the changes were over, I felt as if both my shoulders and my ass exploded outwards. That´s when these extra heads turned up, along with that burning tail behind me. I regained movement, instantly dropping to all fours, and had to fight for control against the other two heads. The flames started to decrease, but as you can see, the back of each head, my tail and the area of my former elbows and knees is still burning.
It took some time to have most control back, but they still can act on instinct and impulses, I guess. As I tried to get out of that room, I noticed the door was closed, and with these paws I couldn´t open it anymore, as there is no handle on the inside to push down. I was trapped in there until you came to release me.”
After Eric had finished his story as well, they stood there in silence for a minute, until the extra heads growled again. Something told Eric there was something nearing them, and as if his new instincts gained strength from that, he growled along them, unable to stop himself.
“Eric, what´s wrong?” Johnny asked, slowly backing away to his brother again. The others looked as confused as he was.
“Something is coming” Eric growled out.