Vortagar raised his staff, his eyes glowing with cruel delight as he muttered an incantation under his breath. A sickly green light pulsed from the crystal atop the staff, and tendrils of magical energy spiraled outward, wrapping around Alex and Luke like constricting vines.
Alex and Luke immediately felt a strange tingling sensation ripple through their bodies. They instinctively tried to shake it off, but their muscles felt sluggish, as though they were moving through molasses.
"What the—what’s happening?" Alex groaned, feeling a weight settle deep in his chest. He glanced down at his arms, his eyes widening as his muscles began to twitch and expand unnaturally. "Luke, something’s wrong—"
Luke clutched his stomach, a look of shock spreading across his face. "I feel… weird," he stammered, his voice already beginning to take on a higher pitch, as though it were being squeezed from his throat. "I can’t… I can’t stop it!"
Vortagar’s laughter echoed across the clearing. "Oh, you’ll stop all right. You’ll stop being anything resembling warriors soon enough."
Alex stumbled backward as his legs began to thicken, his toned calves bulging grotesquely, the muscle turning into wobbling, sagging fat. His normally athletic build started to balloon outward, his firm chest softening as rolls of fat began to form under his shirt. His jawline disappeared, buried beneath layers of blubber, and his face puffed up, cheeks swelling like overinflated balloons.
"Ah—ugh—no!" Alex cried, his voice cracking. His hands had become stubby, his fingers short and thick, and soon his palms were stretching, darkening, and reshaping into cloven hooves. He struggled to move, to fight the magic, but the weight of his rapidly growing belly pulled him down to all fours. His shoes tore apart as his feet morphed into hooves, and a short curly tail sprouted from the base of his spine, twitching behind him.
Luke, meanwhile, was undergoing a similarly humiliating transformation. His lean, wiry frame filled out rapidly, his stomach expanding into a bulbous gut that strained his shirt until it finally ripped apart. His thighs swelled like dough, his arms turning flabby and useless as his hands deformed into pig-like trotters. His ears stretched out into floppy, rounded points, and his nose elongated into a short, wrinkled snout.
"I—this can’t—Alex, help!" Luke squealed, his words slurring into unintelligible grunts as his mouth reshaped into a pig’s snout. His once-sharp eyes glazed over with an animalistic dullness as bristly hairs sprouted all over his face and body.
Alex tried to protest as well, but only loud, panicked grunts escaped his swollen lips. His entire body had morphed into a rotund, waddling pig, his mind still reeling from the horror of the change. He glanced at Luke, now fully transformed, his friend’s small eyes blinking in confusion, his thick pink hide shimmering in the light of the fading spell.
Vortagar clapped his hands, his cruel laughter filling the air once again. "Ah, look at you now—nothing more than fat, squealing pigs! From teenage heroes to porky, powerless livestock. How delightful!" He walked over to Alex, who had fully succumbed to his porcine form, and nudged him with his boot. "Where's all that bravado now, hmm? You couldn’t even lift a hoof to stop me."
Alex grunted in frustration, his thoughts still racing. He tried to move, to charge at the wizard, but his new body was clumsy and heavy, his movements reduced to awkward waddles. Luke attempted to do the same, snorting in protest, but he too found himself rooted to the spot, his body betraying him with every flabby, sluggish step.
Vortagar crouched down next to them, a smug smirk on his face. "Oh, don’t be so sad, boys. You make excellent pigs. You’ll be much happier rolling around in the mud than saving the world, trust me. And Lord Skullface will be pleased to know that two of his greatest enemies are now nothing more than barnyard animals."
He waved his staff again, and a fresh wave of magic washed over Alex and Luke, making their bodies tremble and solidify further into their new piggish forms. The last vestiges of their humanity slipped away as they let out pitiful squeals, fully realizing that they had lost the battle, transformed into powerless swine under the sorcerer’s cruel spell.
With a final, mocking pat on their heads, Vortagar turned to leave. "Enjoy your new life, boys. I’ll make sure the rest of your little team knows what happened to you. After all, everyone deserves a good laugh!"