Long-term
"6" and "5".
Chris looked at the board ahead of him, his path taking him, once again, past Sid. The multicolored board was still mostly filled-in but he could feel an apprehension from the others about what a Black or Yellow space would do to the person who landed on it. After all, it wasn't the physical changes that he was quite so worried about -he could handle looking like that giant rabbit-thing from the movie, "Harvey"- but having his social life messed with...
That scared him.
He glanced at the hyper-muscular Sid and the tiny Tyler with some degree of gloom. He avoided staring at the Godlike Incubus across the table from him, if only to keep him from making matters even worse. They still hated him, he could tell, but they -too- were concerned about what might happen with a result of "MENTAL". Either yellow or black would bear that text and he wasn't so sure he'd want something as fundamental as his psychology changed.
Chris counted as his rabbit-shaped pawn slid along the board smoothly to an intersection. It stopped, the two possible directions blinking with their choice.
The outer track would take him to the third ring, one out from the center with fewer "CHANGE" spaces, while the other...
The rabbit winced. "CHANGE". If he stayed to the inner track, he'd end up on another one of those "draw-a-card" spaces... But the other way...
A Yellow space. He'd have to risk the unknown and also take a slower path across the board.
"C'mon, Chrissy," snarled the massive lion next to him, "hurry up and make your move: some of us still want to try and get through this, tonight!"
Chris felt one of his long, white ears droop and he swallowed hard at the tone from the lion. Maybe it was something in his new genetics or perhaps it was something the game did to him, but he could practically feel the hunger coming from the predator just to his left. He didn't dare look into those yellow, leonine eyes lest they paralyze him with fear and enable the beast to pounce upon him and...
And what?
Chris gulped and glanced at the massive arm that was just in view. He'd never thought about it like this before, but what would Sid do to him if he grew angry? Could he ...would he... try to eat Chris?
It made no sense; Sid wasn't a killer...
"I'll stay to the short path..." he said aloud, picked up his piece and moved it to the "CHANGE" space.
"Hey, what's the worst that could happen?" snarled Sid, unkindly.
Chris could feel the venom dripping off of the lion's words. Even if the massive feline weren't actively hating the rabbit, he could feel it ... Chris was now the prey and Sid the predator. What has this fucking game done to us...?!! he thought to himself, drawing a card.
"What's a blessing and what's a curse?
For you only time will tell.
This could be better or could be worse;
For most, though, Immortality's Hell..."
The silence around the board was palpable.
"Oh my God..." whispered Tyler, a shocked expression on his face as he looked at Chris. "Oh, God Chris, you don't think..."
Chris could only swallow and shrug. "I ... I don't know..."
"Let's test it," said the Incubus and Sid, simultaneously.
Fear gripped the rabbit's heart and he tensed, readying himself to spring away. To his left, the gigantic muscles of the lion flexed as Sid started to rise, a cruel smile on his face while, across from Chris, the Incubus also stood, lavender eyes glowing insidiously.
"GUYS!" Tyler leaped up and moved to push Chris back, interposing his body between his hated lover and his other friends. "ARE YOU FUCKING NUTS?!!"
"Hey, the game's not been wrong, yet," snarled Sid, standing up and looming over Tyler.
From the smaller man's perspective, it was like watching a carpeted cliff rise before him, looming over his mini-frame with the threat and menace of some Ice Age predator.
"You can't do this...! Sid, I'm warning you..."
The lion rolled his golden eyes and laughed, a deep, full-throated rumble. True, he didn't care about much anymore but he did know that he hated Chris and wouldn't mind taking out a few of his frustrations on the tasty-looking rabbit. "What are you going to do, Ty? Shrink at me?" He laughed and put a giant, meaty paw solidly on the diminished man's head. "Look at you: you're getting smaller as we speak!"
The Incubus nodded. "He means it, Tyler."
Chris gulped and tried to push Tyler away. "Look, Ty; I don't want you getting hurt over me..."
"Can't help it, love," said Tyler, regretting the dual arguments he now found himself in. "We're together, you and I, and I'm not letting these bastards take you from me..."
"Oh, I'm just going to nibble on him a little bit," snarled Sid with a feral grin.
"Yeah, and I'm curious about seeing what happens if I suck on him long enough..." added the Incubus. "What are you two worried about anyway? The game said he was immortal..."
Chris steeled himself and readied his powerful legs for a dash into Sid's bedroom, behind him; perhaps he could break the window and escape that way...
"NO!" shouted, Tyler, his body shrinking to a mere three-and-a-half feet tall.
The sudden outburst startled everyone at the table, including Chris, who jumped back a couple feet, reflexively.
"No one's testing what the game said! For all we know you'd chomp him into bits, Sid, and he'd still be alive and in eternal pain...!"
"Wouldn't that be a shame," the lion said, sarcastically.
"Ok, I've had enough from you," shouted Tyler, walking up to Sid and glaring up at him. "I don't know what the Incubus sucked out of you, but -quite frankly- you'd better get a grip!"
"What? You want to suck on the big lion, too?" replied Sid with a sneer. "If I remember correctly, you were more a bottom than a cock-sucker, tiny..."
The Incubus snorted with a laugh and Tyler blushed.
"Ok, fine! Tell the world about what I do in bed! But it doesn't change the fact that you've changed, Sid: changed for the worse! I mean, you're ready to eat someone! How fucked-up is that?!"
Tyler continued to shrink, his clothes bunching up on his slender shoulders, chest and hips as he shifted from foot to foot, trying to hide his nervousness. From where he stood, Sid just kept getting bigger and more foreboding; even the lion's shadow felt like it should weigh a hundred pounds!
Sid's face fell and he grew quiet, his voice dropping to a more menacing tone. "Let's say you're right," he said with a sidelong glance at the demon. "Let's say the Incubus drained something out of me... What does it really matter?"
"It matters, Sid," interrupted Chris, stepping forward. The glare from the others told him he should shut up but he continued anyway. "Look, I'm not going to be so damn weak that I let Tyler fight for me!" He shivered. Deep inside, his instincts told him to run ... to dash away to someplace quiet, small and protective. He looked at that massive demon across the table from him and the even more muscle-bound lion, closer to him, and shivered. Every fiber of his being was vibrating with the urge to flee...
But he had to stay. While he couldn't be sure, it was almost as if the game were actively trying to get him to forfeit. God only knew what would happen, then...
"But," he continued, trying to hide his nervous stammer, "the game tricks us all the time. Things that we think are boons are probably curses. This one, most of all. But who's to say if ... if your act of hurting me isn't the game's way of fucking you over in a way you haven't seen yet..."
Chris felt Tyler's small hand grab his and he squeezed in return.
"Don't you see? You're letting yourself become the game's pawn; you've got to control yourself...!"
"Do I...?" asked Sid with menace.
A hand came to rest on the lion's shoulder. Blinking, he looked up to see the handsome, beautiful face of the Godlike Incubus there, looking down at him. "Actually, I think you do..." the demon said.
Sid looked confused.
"Look, I'm not fond of Chris and -sure- I think it would be fun to see how powerful this 'immortality' really is," he shot a truly evil glance at the rabbit before continuing, "but one thing I want to do is beat this game ... not have it beat us. And the bunny-boy's right: if we want to do that, we've got to hang on and not start second-guessing the game."
Sid slowly pried his eyes away from the towering sex demon and looked back at t he others. The contrast was startling. While the demon loomed more than a foot and a half taller than the lion, himself, Tyler and the rabbit looked so ... so tiny. So helpless. So ... delisc...
The lion gasped and stopped his thought, mid-track. "Oh, no..." he whispered. "What was I... I mean, how could I...?" He shivered, then, and slowly sat down in his chair, staring not at any of his friends but at the board, instead.
"Sid...?" Tyler was just shy of three feet tall, now, and was still having to look up at the lion even as the massively muscled feline sat in front of him.
"Look, I ... I don't know what the Incubus took from me, but ... but I think it's not permanent. It ... it just needs to be used, is all..."
The Incubus slowly backed off and sat down, watching the three of them intently.
"Guys, this isn't going to be easy. I mean, honestly, I ... I had the urge to try eating both of you!" Sid looked at the shocked expressions that both Tyler and Chris bore and felt the malaise that had been haunting him slowly return. "When I get emotional, I can act. Otherwise, well, I just ... just sort of have no drive... No impulse to do anything. But -well- when ... when I got angry just now, I ... I also got hungry..."
"And being a predator..." Chris let his sentence dangle as Tyler sighed and turned to go back to his seat.
Brushing off his lover's attempts to help him climb up into it, he soon sat down and looked at Sid. "Are you ready to continue? Round three awaits..."
Sid, after a minute of staring at his paws, soon nodded and picked up the dice. "Ok, but -guys- after this round, I'm going to need a break..."
With that, the lion rolled the dice.
What do you do now?
Legend: Nudity, Self pleasure male, M/M Sex, M/F Sex, F/F Sex, Self pleasure female, Sex beyond any of the above, Violence