Calm yourself, child. A soft voice suddenly echoed through Dan’s lobster brain. I-It was his grandmother! I will not allow you to be killed and eaten. Kat’s magic may be absolute on her birthday, the others may have fell under her brainwashing to forget you, but it is a weak magic. Untrained and easily countered. Pay attention now, this is your chance to escape.
Dan suddenly snapped out of the strange mental link and he felt his hard shellfish body starting to tingle. He kicked his scrawny legs harder and flailed his segmented body as hard as he could. He felt the sets of hands hauling him towards the pot struggle.
“Whoa, he’s a big fella all right!” A man’s voice commented. “All together now! Put your back into it!”
“Boy, is he getting heavier?” Another voice, a little worried, queried. Suddenly the four cooks hoisting him towards the pot started to grunt and lose their grip on Dan’s body. The rubber gloves begin to slip.
Dan realized what was happening! He could feel himself stretching and expanding as the seconds passed by. He was growing! He was growing too big and too heavy for them to put him in the pot!
“Holy mother of pearl!” One of the men screamed, “Put him down!”
The human hands dropped the giant six-foot long lobster and collectively gasped as they watched Dan getting larger and larger in the middle of the kitchen floor. The metal wires around his pincers strained and then suddenly snapped from the pressure. He was now seven feet long.
“Jesus!” A voice cried. Dan couldn’t hope to turn his head. “He’s… he’s GROWING!” Four confused and horrified men scrambled out of the kitchen, leaving Dan by himself. With his claws freed, he was able to easily snip off the muzzle constricting his face. Still he grew, taking up more and more space until he was just about as big as the entire kitchen floor. Eight feet long, nine feet, ten, eleven! He let out a pleasured squeak of joy. And flexed his body, shaking his hard segmented shell and stretching his legs, which clattered on the floor.
Ooh! Bigger still! Dan watched his reflection in the steel cupboards slowly but surely increasing into a jumbo lobster. But wait, the front of his body was starting to push up. There was a crackling noise as half of Dan’s body turned upright again, his neck grew, and he could flex his head once more! His legs enlarged to bear the load of his grown torso, and his tail slithered out, crackling as well, and grew longer and longer to support his new stance. He had to be twice his original length now! Quite a bit more streamlined, for sure.
Wow. Grandma was way more creative than Kat was! Dan was now standing as a twelve-foot tall lobster hybrid. Still he grew as his antennae bumped the ceiling and was followed shortly by his head. He felt a surge of reassuring strength and watched as his limbs and body thickened with inflated muscle. He sighed happily as he finally stopped growing at fifteen feet tall, a giant sized monster lobster anthro.
Somebody ran back into the kitchen holding a frying pan in self-defense. He took one look at Dan and went white. Dan decided he’d have some fun and flailed his claws menacingly, gurgling a hissing growl and lunging forward clacking his pincers. The enemy screamed, threw the frying pan at Dan (which bounced harmlessly off his impenetrable and spiky armored shell) and ran back to the dining room crying.
Thank you. Grandmother’s voice returned with a slight chuckle. I appreciate the compliment.
What? Dan asked, flexing and getting his bearing in the now cramped and oppressively hot kitchen.
You thought I was creative. I think so too! Now… why don’t you come out and say hello to your sister. She might find my magic is far more powerful than hers.
Dan would have grinned if he still had the capability to do so, and clacked across the floor, tiptoeing over the now tiny pot of boiling water awkwardly, and heading towards the big double doors of the kitchen.