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Pteranse-formation!

You focus your entire being into imagining yourself as a pteranodon. At first nothing happens, but soon you feel yourself growing shorter and thinner. Simultaneously, your T-rex hide changes, your scales shrinking to a fraction of their former size until they give they can no longer be distinguished from one another at distance. Your thick, long theropod legs shrink and turn thin while your digitigrade feet -er, paws- flatten and morph into the four-toed, plantigrade feet of a pteranodon. Your tail recedes back into your spine until it is merely a shadow of its former self, a short, narrow stub connected to your legs by a small membrane. You feel a pulling sensation as your snout changes, scales and flesh converting into a hard, narrow beak almost as long as your neck. Pain floods your mind as a result of your skull's transformation. There is barely any time to recover before a new wave of pain begins; a large crest is pushing backward from the top of your skull (long and pointed if you are male, short and round if you are female). A final wave of pain accompanies the transformation of your tiny arms. As they elongate, three claws on each hand are left erect while your fourth finger grows out into a long, gangling wing finger. A large, thin, leathery membrane replaces the scaly hide of your former arms, completing their transformation into wings. There are several audible pops as your skeleton changes to rebalance itself, forcing you to assume a fully quadrupedal stance, using the leftover three fingers on each wing as make-shift feet.

You inspect your new form and find that your hide is now grayish-brown on your back and the tops of your wings, with amorphous, white spots scattered about without any clear pattern. Your underside, however, is a uniform grayish-white. Your head, neck, and torso are also coated with a layer of pycnofibers.

The chamber around you seems much larger than it did a moment ago; you are now short enough to fit through the hatch. Only your wide wingspan is an obstacle now. You fold your wings in as close to your torso as you can. It looks like you will just be able to squeeze through the time machine's exit. You take a deep breath through the nostrils at the beginning of your bright yellow beak and prepare to face the perils of life in the Cretaceous period. Best of all, your squirrel companion no longer looks like dinner. Instead, you have a craving for fresh fish.

You ask Thomas what form he will choose, and what exactly you will be looking for. With all the other predators known to have lived in this period, it is fairly obvious that a squirrel would not survive at all.


Written by Pearson S. Ksenich

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