“How about making me part shark?” Mike said finally.
"Sure," Jeff started typing into the computer. "I don't see why not." He finished the sentence and then hit enter. The green progress bar loaded and then finished.
Mike stared down at himself for a second before looking back at Jeff. “Did it work?”
“You tell me.”
“I feel normal.” Mike shrugged and chuckled. “You really had me fooled for a minute there, Jeff! I’m gonna have a beer and watch the pregame show.”
“Okay dad.” Jeff smiled slyly.
Mike walked downstairs and opened the fridge. He smiled at the extra beers he had. Dave and his son Finn were coming over later to watch the football game. He liked to use that as an excuse to buy all the unhealthy things he could-nachos, hot dogs, beer, chips. Everything he normally couldn’t eat because of his diet.
Reaching into the fridge, Mike tried to grab at a beer bottle. But he briefly lost his focus as a pleasant warmness welled up in him, causing his hand to clang against a bottle that began wobbling around on the shelf.
Mike fumbled for the beer bottle, not noticing the skin on his hands started to shift from a human hue to a gray color, while the palm turned a creamy white. His hands trembled, almost dropping the beer, while bones cracked and flesh pulsed.
As his hands twitched, the shifted skin felt…plump and saturated. There was a building pressure as Mike’s fingernails became short, sharp black claws. The natural webbing between Mike’s fingers crept up to the second knuckle until all of Mike’s fingers were linked except his thumbs. Still in a daze, Mike didn’t notice that the hand grabbing at the bottle was easily twice as large as it was before.
Cold glass bumped against meaty flesh as Mike’s palm finally came into contact with the bottle. The bottle bounced off the rubbery skin of Mike’s palm, but before it could tip away, powerful fingers closed around it. A creak could be heard as growing muscles in Mike’s forearm caused his fingers to clamp down hard on the straining glass.
The expansion continued up his arms, causing his muscles to squirm and tense as new muscle fibers exploded into existence. Pecs heaved themselves forward, abs tightened into cobblestones. Mike’s ass was so muscular he could crack a walnut between the cheeks. A little nub formed at the base of Mike’s spine before quickly extending, a shark-like tail growing from the thick, muscular appendage.
He rolled his shoulders, feeling odd but not quite sure what was going on with him. The feeling of his shirt pulling against his chest made him briefly wonder if he’d accidentally put on some of Jeff’s clothes. But that thought was silenced as another feeling of pressure coming from between his shoulder blades made him realize that something was growing out behind him.
His shirt kept getting tighter and tighter, while a twinge of pain shot through the compressed flesh growing out of his back. Mike doubled over from the pressure as his dorsal fin grew out, the pain only increasing until the fabric of his shirt gave way – causing the new fin to rocket out behind him, taking on a shape that inspired fear in swimmers everywhere. His new appendage begin to itch. As he reached behind him to scratch his fin, , Mike felt rough skin beneath his claws. Though his skin appeared smooth and gray, in reality it felt more like sandpaper.
Mike set the beer on the counter, feeling strangely peckish. As he did, Mike felt a tingle in his jaw and around his mouth. He heard faint pops and watched his human teeth tumble out of his mouth, replaced by razor-sharp ivory triangles. His face suddenly came alive with more of that bizarre tingling sensation all around his lips and eyebrows.
There was a pressure and discomfort in Mike’s sinuses, like someone had driven an ice pick up Mike’s nose and was probing his brain. A few moments later, his skull started lurching forward, squish and popping Mike’s eardrums as the ears themselves disappeared, leaving behind only tiny holes.
With a gasp, Mike lean against the fridge for support.
Mike’s nostrils pulled apart as his nose and mouth were dragged forward into a snout. As his nose was tugged, a strange sixth sense tingled, turning his entire face into a tactile organ. It was very sensitive to the touch, capable of picking up electric waves from anything conductive around Mike.
The tingles descended lower, down to Mike’s neck, just above his arteries. An intense itching built there. Mike brought his claws up to scratch it, then flinched at the sudden, intense sensitivity of the inflamed flesh. The side of Mike’s neck rippled and opened, separating in fleshy pops. Something heavy attached itself to the sides of his neck, some kind of mechanical apparatus.
Mike gulped, tasting seawater in his mouth and sinuses. His gills were pushed open by the pressure of the re-breathers on his neck and aerated seawater ran through Mike’s slits, oxygenating his blood much faster than his lungs ever could. Mike reached up and felt the re-breather devices attached to his neck, feeling the water gush and eddy through them with every breath.
At least that seemed to be working fine.
It was so strange, the sensations felt old and new all at once. There was a noise at the stairs and Mike looked over and saw Jeff trying his best to conceal himself behind the banister. What had gotten into his son lately? Mike scoffed and shook his head. Probably just teenage things.
At long last, Mike’s muscles stop swelling, leaving him seven feet tall. The pile of ruined clothes on the floor reshaped into a pristine, wetsuit like device, before rematerializing back in his closet. As Mike ran a hand over his moist skin, he remembered that he had forgotten to put his wetsuit on this morning – he’d need to do that at some point to make sure he didn’t dry out.
But that could wait as a rumble in his stomach brought Mike’s attention back to the reason he’d come down here in the first place. The fridge. Mike reached inside and pulled out a chunk of raw pig thigh, letting his razor sharp teeth rip into the bloody meat, before tearing off a chunk and wolfed it down, enjoying the sweet and salty taste of blood on his new palate.
Mike picked up his beer and walked to the living room. Around him, the house shimmered before it shifted into something a bit more high-tech, necessary for an anthroshark like Mike. The carpet on the ground floor of the house was replaced with thick plastic that extended several inches up the walls, while small pipes and drains opened up throughout the house, circulating a thin layer of water across the floor.
He took a seat on the couch, not noticing it grow into something more comfortable for someone with a tail, the fabric gaining a similar water proof plastic coat.
The shark glanced at Jeff, who was staring around at the house in amazement. It was looking more like a submarine’s living quarters than a house in the middle of suburbia. And of course it was, because their house had just been relocated to the nearest Naval Base. Mike chuckled at his son’s shocked expression.
“W-what happened to the house?” Jeff exclaimed when he noticed his dad staring at him in amusement. “Why is it changing so much?”
As though responding to his voice, their entertainment center (which Mike had set up on the dry pad for entertaining mammals) grew larger and more expensive.
Mike frowned. Changing? Mike looked around just as reality settled into existence. Oh, Mike chuckled to himself, he must be referring to the new tech he’d just gotten in from the Navy. His mind stumbled. The Navy? A sharp, intense, burning sensation washed over both of Mike’s arms, chest and back as nautical tattoos prickled themselves into existence.
Of course, the Navy!
Mike grinned toothily, wondering how he could ever forget being in the Navy. Mike was the best of the best, one of the Navy SEALS, though he’d rather not be part of a group named after such a weak mammal. No one else could swim underwater like Mike did. Sure, he might be a bit of a freak, but at least the government saw him as an asset!
“Yeah, just got it while I was on leave in the Bahamas,” Mike gestured to the entertainment console, his voice deep and with an odd, bubbly timber, likely from the re-breather.
“Holy shit!” Jeff said, staring out a porthole.