there's only so much I can turn into

[mswoods]

The thirteen-year-old girl is coming back home from school, on foot.

There's a cat following her. It's been following her for a while, but from a distance.

She decides to be friendly. She stops and turns around to look at it. It stops as well. "Mow?"

The girl's face- changes. It's still a human face, mostly, but now there's something different about it. More feline than anything. Whiskers grow, her pupils dilate and her eyes get a bit rounder, her bones move under her skin, their shape changing a bit. "Mew," she says, vocal apparatus having changed a bit, apparently.

The cat blinks and approaches cautiously. "Moow...?"

She doesn't giggle, but she feels like giggling. She's talking to a kitty! Well, kinda talking to a kitty, it's not like she can understand kitty-speech. But still! "Maw!"

Comments

[mrwoods]

"You're serious. You're actually- well, okay, why the heck should I be surprised, I'm bloody Mystique." He shrugs. "I would still very much like to know as much as I can about this thing I now must become if I don't want to be dead."

[taste_tester]

"It's pretty sweet, although you do get the occasional angstpire. Immortality, eidetic memory, ridiculously overengineered speed and strength, witchcraft upgrade where applicable. Unquenchable thirst for human blood, but, you know, you can't have everything."

[mrwoods]

"Let me process this. Can I process it aloud?"

[taste_tester]

"Be my guest."

[mrwoods]

"Alright. So, eidetic memory first, obvious yes, that's so useful. I don't care much for speed and strength, but I guess it's fun. Witchcraft update is an obvious yes as well, but 'where applicable' suggests that doesn't always happen?"

[taste_tester]

"Speed includes cognitive. And some vampires aren't witches at all and some witchcraft doesn't turn out to respond to the change, but yours ought to if only because of the mental upgrade."

[mrwoods]

"Okay, great, good, yes. Erm. Immortality, I'm pretty sure I'm immortal already, at least where diseases and old age and a variety of accidents are concerned, how much more immortal would I be?"

[taste_tester]

"Killing a vampire requires pulverizing them into little tiny pieces and then setting them on fire. And we're hard to pulverize."

[mrwoods]

"Okay, more immortal than I currently am. I wonder if I could make myself harder to pulverize, or maybe make myself fireproof..." He shakes his head quickly. "Later. This human blood thing... might be a problem. Can you qualify it? Are we talking True Blood, here, with little secret divey bars where humans go to be drunk?"

[taste_tester]

"I have never seen the show. Or encountered a volunteer lunch. The way you turn into a vampire involves venom," she licks her teeth, "so it wouldn't really... work."

[mrwoods]

He's pretty smart, or so he likes to think.

He's also pretty in control of his facial muscles.

"So you kill everyone you eat?"

[taste_tester]

"Guilty."

[mrwoods]

"How often do you have to eat?"

[taste_tester]

"Every week or three. Less, optionally, it takes a truly uncomfortably long amount of time to actually starve, but that makes the unquenchable thirst thirstier."

[mrwoods]

He's talking to a mass murderer.

He's talking to a mass murderer.

He's talking to a mass murder.

He's talking to a mass murderer.

He can't run, he can't call anyone, she has super speed and super strength, there is absolutely nothing he can do as a human to top that, his magic will take too long, if she notices him doing anything that'd render him harder to kill she'd kill him first, crap he has to become a vampire but he can't be a mass murderer can't can't can't-

"...can't you produce human blood while you're using my power?"

[taste_tester]

"I could, actually. But I didn't keep it all that long. Lots to do."

[mrwoods]

"Right. I'm mostly asking for. Me. Becoming a mass murderer: does not appeal."

He's quite calm, isn't he? Yes, he is. There's no use to losing his head now.

[taste_tester]

"Yeah, I figured if you had a complaint it'd be that one. That or the part where turning hurts like a motherfucker or the secrecy requirements. I've heard secondhand about oddball vampires who eat animals, so I suppose that's possible. Unappetizing, though."

[mrwoods]

Eating animals: also an option. Good to know. She could have mentioned that first. And her objection to it is that it's unappetizing what the frick. And vampires who do that are oddball?!

"Before the other parts, I have to ask, will my psyche change a lot when I turn?" Because if the majority of vampires are mass murderers either there is some very strong selection effect going on or something really freaky happens in their head.

[taste_tester]

"Nope. Stays put, we're very psychologically stable beasties. I couldn't've turned you when I found you, turning kids is super illegal, they don't develop and wind up laying waste to villages or what have you. Oh, but those of us who are not me do a mating for life thing, I'm pretty secure in my probable immunity but it's common elsewise."

[mrwoods]

"...if I may ask, if we don't change, why do most vampires kill people casually? That is not a thing most humans would do if given the chance."

[taste_tester]

"They're just that tasty and where required the rationalization engine does the rest. You don't believe me, and you will also not believe me about how much of a bitch turning is, but you'll see. Unless you'd rather just have a tragic accident falling down the stairs."

[mrwoods]

"I would very much not prefer to have a tragic accident, no. And given that my power can produce a steady supply of blood, I'm hoping just that tasty will only indicate that I ought to go to a secluded corner and start bleeding into a cup. Or bucket, as may be the case." He shakes his head. "Okay, so, turning is a bitch, can you be more specific? Do you think maybe if I turned off my nerves that'd help with the pain? ...actually couldn't I just get rid of pain qualia altogether? If I'm going to become that durable afterwards."

His eye does not twitch. It does not. Being in perfect control of his body language is a trivial application of his power.

[taste_tester]

"Maybe! If you can muster that kind of focus during, I mean, you might not be able to."

[mrwoods]

"...okay. I might do it before." He clears his throat. "And the secrecy thing?"