I was born at the end of the year, in November. Why does that matter ? Because the most devastating thing that ever happened to my life happened the day of my birthday. It was the weekend, and my dad told me something like "We want to prepare things for your birthday's party, but we don't want you to see them for now. Can you check some of the furthest traps I have set please ? And bring back anything that was caught in it too while you're at it." Granted, he said that with more tact, I'll admit it, but it was clear that this was the reason why I was sent there.
It was Saturday, and my birthday was on Sunday. The trip I was sent on would last about the entire day. I went to complete the task normally, because I was oblivious to their "schemes" (never could understand second degree and other implied / secret meaning [Nd-Writer: not sure what he meant by that, sorry…]). Near the end of the trip, at around 5pm, I checked the last trap. It was under a tree that somehow was alone in an open field. There were no other trees around him for about 15-20 meters, but this specific tree always attracted a huge number of beasts for some reason. Whenever me or my dad choose to set a trap here, in less than a day there's already a beast trapped here.
When I checked the trap, I found a very rare pure white fox, almost as if he was an albino fox, or an arctic fox in its winter coat, except that its eyes were of a weirdly light sapphire blue. Although unlike other white foxes I ever encountered, this one didn't have a single spot. It was pure white, like a canvas or a mountain of snow. But, when I got close to him, its color changed suddenly, and the fox's fur became a patchwork of black and ginger. That was super weird and unexpected. Animals don't change fur color, except by magic. But foxes don't have magic abilities. Heck, almost no beasts have any magic abilities, and the one that does can barely make it do anything more complex than blasting it like a beam ! Except one in a million called "boss" or "master" of a place. But this forest is one of the least dangerous amongst the "dangerous places" exactly because no beasts ever managed to control their magic in a couple centuries !
Right when the fox's color changed, my magic perception caught a crazy big amount of magic. It was the same level of crazy as the teleportation field the school used to move every student from outside to inside the building, but with a weird intent attached to it. And the teleportation spell is powered by no less than 4 of the elders of the school, plus the school's mana core. Feeling that kind of power coming from a mere beast smaller than a border collie in one of the least dangerous wild places was unprecedented. I freaked out even more than the time I broke a tree and it almost fell on the house. I didn't know who or what charged the spell, but it didn't look like it was aimed at me, for some reasons.
Well, at first, before the spell was charging, I felt as if the trapped fox did have hecking huge swords for eyes and was about to slash me to pieces when it looked at me. Normal you'll say, he sees a potential predator and he's unable to move. but soon after the enormous amount of mana started to gather, the fox stopped looking at me and looked at the sky instead. The murderous intent from its eyes also stopped. Or at least it wasn't intentionally aimed at me anymore. I almost fainted. Especially when I felt my surroundings becoming darker and darker as if night time was happening in seconds or huge stormy clouds started to gather in the sky.
After that, everything is very blurry. After a couple of seconds, the fox, who up until that point was still coiled up in a furball, started to slowly get up and move closer to me. That freaked me out even more, it's a miracle that I didn't peed myself. I saw that he missed half of his right front paw, and that he bleeded from somewhere close to its butt, as if he was missing a tail or two. (Foxes, even mana beasts, don't have multiple tails for what I know…) The ground below where it was laying down was soaked in more blood than his little body was supposed to have. I didn't move, because I was still stunned by the unreal amount of mana that was gathered here. And then the lightning struck. Very close to me. And I lose consciousness.
When I woke up after… I don't really know how long I was out to be honest. The sun was still up before… Whatever happened, meaning it should have been around 5:30pm at the latest. Now it's night, and seeing where the moon is in the sky it shouldn't have been for a long time. So I woke up, yawned to clear my head a bit… And I yawned weirdly. It's hard to explain, but I felt like my jaws should have popped out, like it was opened too widely. I shaked my head, but my whole body shook with it ! I tried to get up, but… I saw my hand. And it was a paw. It was black with some red-ich undertone. Like the fox when it changed color.
I tried to get up, but I wasn't able to control my body properly. I felt low to the ground. And at the same time, I felt… Different. Not physically, but more in my head or something. I tried to look at myself, but for some reason, once my eyes glanced over my mana bracelet (that was on the ground close to me) my brain kinda turned off or something. I grabbed my mana bracelet in my mouth and started running back home, or at least "At my place where I felt protected" as I sought. When I was close to home, I regained full consciousness the moment I jumped on a tree's root that I used a lot to play hide and seek with my dad when I was way younger. I also did remember everything I did while I was traveling back. Somehow.
So, to summarize: I'm now a fox. Not any fox, but a two-tailed fox. Which is 2 times more than any other foxes I have ever read or known about. And the fox I am is also "melanistic". Meaning my fox's fur is more black than red, and some are even fully black. I fell down like a rag doll immediately after. Still not used to that new body... Although that makes me wonder how the heck did I manage to get here in the first place... I tried to get back up like a human, but those fox limbs just don't let you do that. They are flexible, but not in a way that would let you get up from your back.
I managed to somehow roll back on my stomach and… "get up" like a normal quadruped. I still had the bracelet on my mouth. Or jaws, I don't know. I tried to walk, but because I haven't crawled in more than a decade, I almost fell down again. After a couple minutes, I finally managed to walk somewhat properly and got to my parent's house. Now I'm very curious how the heck I managed to get there in the first place... And as I think that I trip and fall again on the stairs. Now, the problem: how to knock on the door. I can scratch at the door like a dog or a cat, I guess…
- "Did you hear something ?" asked my dad
- "Yeah, I think so… At the door ? Can it be our son finally coming back ?"
- "I'll check, but it looked like a beast scratching the door."
- "Yes, you're right, doesn't sound like him… Do you need my help ?"
-" Not really, I got my spear ready just in case."
Oh heck ! Didn't think about that ! I'm a beast now ! Should I hide ? Or run away ? Or should I stay here ?
- "You sure I don't need to charge a spell at least ?"
- "And scare whatever is at our door ? No, definitively no."
- "Ok, you do you."
And the door opened. And I was still frozen in place, still wondering if I should run away or stay here.
- "What's a fox doing here ?!" Exclaimed my dad when it saw me.
- "Japp !"
I jumped out of the range of its spear, which he threw at me almost immediately. Then I charge my signature spell, an electric and wind combined spell that boosts my speed by a lot. To explain it quickly: I create a permanent tailwind with a wind spell and I start controlling my muscles with raw electric impulses, which are mostly quicker than the normal way of moving because I ignore the limits set by my body. Problem: it's taxing, physically (my muscles are literally working at 180%) and magically (using 2 magic at one in conjunction is rare even for trained mages).
- "What is that fox doing ?!" yelled my mom. "How can he use magic ?!"
- "I don't know ! But that's not normal ! And why in the world does it have 2 tails ?!"
- "Most importantly, how can he use the exact same magic created by our son ?"
- "Didn't you say that even for a 5th circle mage it would be a chore to reproduce ? Not even talking about creating it from scratch ?"
- "Yes, I did say that ! And I still think that it would take me more than 10 years to create something remotely resembling that exact spell !"
I stopped the spell almost immediately after jumping tens of meters away from them, to spare my mana if I ever need to run away. I still have my mana bracelet in my mouth… Jaw… Whatever ! I'm a fox now ! It's my jaw ! Anyway. I still have my mana bracelet, and I decide to do something that I hope will prove who I am: I release the bracelet from my jaws and set it on the ground, just in front of me. My dad looks intrigued, but my mom is more puzzled. She starts a magic circle in the air pointed right at me, and the bracelet lights up. She then gasps and my dad looks at her weirdly.
- "It… It's our son's mana-boosting bracelet…"
- "WHAT ?!" yells my dad. "Wait, you're sure about that ??"
- "I put a spell on that bracelet. Mostly to track it back if our son loses it. You've seen it light up like me."
- "You're telling me that not only did our son die by that beast, it also took its bracelet as a sort of trophy ?!"
- "That…"
- "I'LL KILL IT ! THAT F*CKING BEAST KILLED MY SON !"
- "Japp !" (I forgot that I can't talk…)
Just after yelling that he wants me dead, my dad jumps at me spear first. My mom suddenly draws out her staff, a big branch resembling a magic staff from Lord Of The Ring, with a magic stone on one of its ends, and starts charging a spell. The stone on her staff isn't a good one, because the more she uses it, the more it breaks. And she said that her staff don't have lots of usages left, which can be confirmed by the visible cracks on it. While I re-enable my dual boosting spell to try to dodge my dad's attacks, I feel that my mother is gathering a weird amount of mana. The spell she charges doesn't seem to be a lethal one. It doesn't gather enough mana for that. And it charges up way too quickly. The wind starts acting up, but I still keep control over enough space around me to keep my spell working.
Suddenly, the ground starts rumbling, and soon after a huge stone prison surrounds me from a bit afar, before getting smaller and smaller. I try to launch an offensive wind spell into it, to try to break free. My wind blade didn't even make a den on the wall. Didn't slow down the shrinking process either. I don't use my electric element outside of my body, or physical contacts, so I just cancel everything and sit still like a dog. There's no point in struggling further, I can't do anything. After the cage became small enough to prevent me from fully jumping without hitting the roof or the wall, mud strings started to appear out of the ground and pin me to it, and soon after, the cage crumbled on itself as I could see outside again. My dad is grounded too, but by his feet only.
- "What are you doing ?!" shouted my dad. "That beast killed our son ! And it's a dangerous magical beast that can control its magic !"
- "Please…" that my mother says, with some sort of distress in her voice.
- "It can assimilate what it ate !"
- "SHUT UP !" that my mom yells all of a sudden, stunning my dad. "Please, thank you. I think there's more to it than what you think."
- "Explain it to me RIGHT NOW !"
- "I will, don't worry. But first, I need to check something."
She then got closer to me and… Pet me ? That's a surprise… Nevermind, she just places her hand on my head to start an incantation for a spell. I start glowing like crazy, but… I lost consciousness right after that. Yes, again. I blacked out 3 times in a day. Even if the 2nd one was only partial…