This was originally intended to be a sequel to a transformation story that went unwritten. An synopsis of what that first part would have been has been provided, but keep that in mind.

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“Alright, that’s enough observation.”

Purah snapped a quick shot of a nearby Chu Chu, noting that the amorphous jelly-like blob was on good terms with the nearby tribe, drifting past unmolested. She was unsure of what the full extent of the relationships between species were, besides basic monster comradery from their days controlled by Ganon. Observing them might be her next hobby now that she had enough data from this particular tribe, not to mention the thorough questioning she planned to put Link and Zelda though.

Purah’s plan was, on paper, perfect, like most of her experiments until she actually tried them. She had invented a rune for the Sheikah Slate that could transform the user into any creature photographed and scanned by the Slate, although she had only tested it with creatures of similar mass so far. Eager to kill two birds with one stone, she had managed to convince Link and Zelda to be her test subjects for investigating a local Bokoblin tribe that was passive towards humans, piquing Zelda’s interest with the prospect of peaceful co-existence with monsters rather than extermination out of necessity. She may have accidentally given them the idea that the transformations were more of a disguise than a literal shift in biology, but that was their fault for not paying enough attention during her thorough explanation of the science behind it.

Things had gone well at first, right up until the part where they transformed into Bokoblins. Everything after that went a little off-course. Purah had underestimated the effects of the mental changes on, let’s say, a lesser intellect then hers, which had resulted in a domino effect until the two had gone from passive observers to active participants in the tribe, rapidly losing their human memories and reverting to a more primitive state concerned with immediate physical needs. Bokoblins had never mastered more than simple tools for a reason, and the two had been unable to figure out how to use the technology required to change them back, then lost the Slate entirely.

The only problem was, Link and Zelda had integrated into their tribe a little too well. The group was peaceful towards humans unlike most of their kin, but tended to flee when spotted, or otherwise become combative.Sensible behaviour from a group that wasn’t strong enough to drive off any determined humans who understandably assumed that they were out to get any travellers who passed them by. In their primitive state, it was unlikely that Link and Zelda would recognise Purah from a distance, and that was assuming that they were separated from their tribe. She could try to enlist the help of some of the villagers or lure them into a trap then restore them while in captivity, but she doubted the practicality of the latter and felt that Link and Zelda would be rather embarrassed by this little debacle going public.

No, it was much easier to infiltrate them using her invention, Purah thought smugly. Sure, this had ended in Link and Zelda being reduced to primitives and seemingly forgetting their Hylian lives and responsibilities, but Purah was confident that she would be the exception! She was more than confident that her genius intellect wouldn’t degrade far enough to stop her from getting in and out without complications, and she would be able to hold it over the two of them forever. The loss of the Sheikah Slate had proved an initial problem, but she had been able to get the Rune working on her Purah Pad without much trouble.

She had tested it in a controlled indoor environment a few nights before, noting her ability to hold onto human speech (in her mind that was, in reality she wasn’t quite able to contort her Bokoblin mouth to produce more than barks and grunts), retained the manual dexterity to competently use her Purah Pad, and although she lost the ability to decipher written language, was able to understand the simplified interface she had designed for the Purah Pad based on feedback from the local children, who had encouraged reducing the amount of text and increasing the size of the icons. After her own confirmation, she was confident that even the most dim-witted Bokoblin around could figure out how to use it. Hell, even a brainless Chu Chu could at least scroll to and select the correct option!

With nothing but confidence in her heart and an unstoppable grin on her face, Purah began to strip. She quite liked her outfit, and had no intention of it ending up like the tattered scraps she had found while searching for Link and Zelda. After neatly folding them into a pile hidden in a tree and being glad that it was a sunny day, the now nude save for a homemade loincloth Purah stood in an unnecessarily stylish pose as she worked her Purah Pad, turning on the simplified interface and with a flick of her finger, was on the screen-dominating transformation rune icon. She decided to leave her glasses on, figuring that Link and Zelda might more easily recognise her with them on, not to mention the fact that her vision was horrible even as a Bokoblin without them.

Her common sense summoned a few concerns as her finger hovered over the icon. Her test had been inside her lab, with the pad rigged to turn her back after twenty minutes if she couldn’t figure it out. And although she had been fairly intelligent for a Bokoblin, she found herself easily distracted by scents and sounds, and had spent almost fifteen of those minutes chasing a mouse that had gotten into her lab and scarfing down the fruit she had left on a table, and only once she was done with the latter did she regain enough focus to remember to turn herself back before the timer ran out. Out in the wild when exposed to a regular Bokoblin habitat…

Purah shook her head. In science, there was no time for hesitation! She pressed the button before she had time to fully ponder the consequences of this plan going wrong, and stood with her hands out waiting for her transformation to begin. And begin it did, with her whole body briefly glowing to indicate that the process had begun, and her fingertips beginning to turn blue. Purah was initially excited as her hand fully turned blue, but her smile began to fade. Blue? Why was she turning blue? She had registered a red Bokoblin to the rune, not a blue one! As the blue began to spread up her arms she considered that perhaps there was genetic variability to the rune.As her shoulders turned light blue, she found her mind racing at the theory that the person themselves determined the type of Bokoblin they turned into, although it made little sense why an admittedly physically feeble person like her was turning into a stronger Bokoblin variant instead of somebody like Link. More importantly, the colour was wrong! This was a strange light blue with a mottled pattern, not the dark colour of the stronger breed of Bokoblin, nor did it match the white pattern of the strongest ones.The colour almost reminded her of a…

Purah’s quick theory was proven unfortunately correct when her Purah Pad fell through her hands, sinking into them like jelly and passing out the other side with a wet pop and a thunk on the grassy knoll. How? Why? Why was she turning into a Chu Chu? Purah sunk to her knees looking for an answer, but found her hands unable to lift the weight of the Pad. Her fingers merged into two vaguely hand-shaped orbs that were unable to flatten or scoop under the pad, merely engulfing it in her body’s jelly, now spreading to her torso and engulfing the rest of her form. She attempted to touch the screen, figuring that the interface was simple enough that a few presses could undo her impending disaster, only to find that the touch screen didn’t react to her jelly-like composition! The Purah Pad was fully waterproofed and carefully tuned for finer inputs, and her hands had neither the from nor the property to interact with it. Quickly growing frustrated, Purah pounded on the screen, merely causing her hands to splatter against the device.

Not good, this wasn’t good, Purah grit her teeth, gnashing them until the spreading jellification caused them to mush against each other. She had just figured out why this was happening: the rune, still in prototype form, was set to transform the user into the last thing that was registered on it. In her case, it was that stray Chu Chu! Crouched down on her knees pressed against her chest, Purah gasped as her legs merged with her torso altogether, flopping forward into an awkwardly blobby form as her feet sunk into her new bodymass under the weight. She was left with two arm-like appendages and her head, and in her panic made the mistake of trying to grab her own central core orb, her spherical hands hitting herself with a wet slap and sinking in, robbing her of her own hands. Her head itself was starting to think, her eyes growing massive. Purah could feel her mind slowing as her brain turned to jelly, a mishmash of rapid scientific theorising and note-taking of her own transformation mixed with potential plans to undo it in her ungainly form began to blur together and then fade away into a bright blue soup, her face gaining a rather dopey expression as she let out a burbling giggle. She felt all light-headed, in a very different way to when she had been a bokoblin, which was understandable, given that one of her last coherent thoughts was that Chu Chus were among Hyrule’s dumbest creatures, in a context with stone Taluses for most primitive. Not even her mighty intellect could protect her from her brain vanishing entirely, replaced with a series of impulses that formed a Chu Chu’s consciousness. Her face’s expression smoothed over entirely as it melted into her blobby body, leaving only two massively oversized eyes remaining, each a pair of half-submerged spectacles stuck in front of them. Her final thoughts were that she wished that she had photographed a Moblin or a Lizalfos or, ideally, one of the more intelligent Wizzrobes… And then there was almost nothing.

Purah sat there for a moment, her thoughts reduced to the barest instincts and natural impulses. She began to slowly move forward, on the hunt for food to absorb into her body. The proud scientist, always with too many thoughts to fit in her head, found herself with none at all, beyond the most basic of stray thoughts in response to stimulus as she cruised into the forest, her Pad left far behind. The soft grass was pleasant on her underside, and the warm sun felt nice. Purah might have even considered it relaxing, had she the brainpower to ponder such things.  After drifting over to an apple tree and rolling over the fallen fruits, Purah basked in the sensation of her body dissolving it and absorbing its nutrients. She bumped herself against the tree, having instinctual knowledge that it didn’t take much jostling for the apples to come loose, making her rather intelligent by Chu Chu standards, which would have either unsuccessfully tried to scale the tree or given up entirely and foraged the forest floor for more apples.

It was there that she was handed an olive branch, or perhaps an apple branch. The tree she had selected simply for being the first one she saw was overripe and unharvested, half a dozen apples falling into her body with a plop and being quickly digested. The natural sugar raced through Purah’s body, and suddenly, provided with enough energy, she could think. The overdose of energy caused her bulging eyes to widen even more, and in a display that would have shocked anybody had they been around to see it, the otherwise normal Chu Chu began to change. A tube-like appendage burst from her spherical body, a symmetrical one coming out the other side. Although rubbery it could bend in the middle, and formed a mitten-like shape at the end that vaguely resembled a hand. Two more of these limbs sprouted from the bottom, pushing her round core upwards on unsteady feet. The core pinched inwards, morphing and contorting into a roughly humanoid form, followed by the eyes pushing upwards into a second distinct sphere, a simple head shape. It was a large, bubble-like head twice the size of a human one, but it was enough for her to regain a sense of identity. Her hips pushed out, and her primitive hands moved and spread to make a V-shape that was held in front of her face.

“Check it!” Came a burbling, distorted sound from a mouth-hole she sprouted, just barely recognisable by herself. She had done it! With the apple juice juicing her Chu Chu braincells, she could think! It was an incredibly fortunate coincidence, but one that might prove her salvation. Of course, the word “think” was still being generous. Her catchphrase was a raw expression of self rather than a consciously selected phrase, and there were no other words she could speak, nor was her new head filled with anything that could be considered proper human thought, merely a slightly more complex series of impulses. But with her incredible mind, she was able to squeeze far more out of it than the average person or Chu Chu would have. And so, she devoted her energy to trying to remember her goal.

 Link… and Zelda. Those were the two names she was able to bring to mind, her brainpower burning through sugar and bringing her up to the IQ of a very small animal. She had to find… those two things, whatever they were. They could fix her… she thought. Purah was able to regain enough memory to acknowledge her situation and basic goals, and work towards them. She looked downward for her dropped Pad, realising that she had left it behind, and that she only remembered the gist of where she came from.

Only able to manage a few thoughts at a time, she quickly redirected it back to Link and Zelda. Even if she found her Pad, she wasn’t going to be able to use it. She had to get those two with their solid forms and opposable thumbs to use it for her! For better or worse, one of Purah’s core personality traits that had re-emerged was overconfidence, and she began to head deeper into the forest believing that if she could just find those two, things would work out somehow. She attempted to move forward one step at a time, but her humanoid-form lacked much integrity. Chu Chus had a simple round mass for a reason, and her legs wobbled and threatened to collapse under her until she merged it into one comfortable shape that she could cruise forward on.

Fortunately for Purah, she had only been a short distance from the Bokoblin tribe to begin with, and it wasn’t long before two of those familiar red creatures came into view, harvesting fruit to take back to the tribe’s camp. Even more fortunately, Purah was able to recognise them as Link and Zelda! Or at least,she was fairly confident they were. She could only just barely recognise the two based on their hair and physical characteristics, and her brain’s simple state was more able to piece it together based on how the two were acting particularly friendly to each other, the male Bokoblin doing most of the work while the slightly portlier female assisted and munched on constant offerings from the male.

Eager to reach them, Purah sped up. She would reach them, figure out how to communicate with them! Just a little closer, and then… Purah’s thoughts stopped. As if running out of batteries, her coherent thoughts dried up, and her determined expression returned to a vapid, brainless smile as her humanoid form simply collapsed, flopping over into a simple blob with a loud splash that startled the two Bokoblins, the male instinctively jumping in front of the female before the two realised it was just a common Chu Chu and relaxed.

 Her apples fully digested, she had exhausted all of the sugar that had supercharged her thoughts, and had burned it out even faster by contorting her body into an impractical form and racing forward. Without the extra energy she returned to the state of a very slightly more intelligent than usual Chu Chu, recognisable only by her firmly stuck glasses. Even worse, all of the nearby fruit had been scooped up by the Bokoblins, leaving her with no chance of getting the significant amount she needed to power her brain up.

However, the slightest amount of lingering will remained with her, and when the Bokoblin couple left to return to their camp, passing her off as an ordinary Chu Chu, she slowly followed behind them, feeling strongly that she had to stick close to those two…

–

A month or two later, Link and Zelda found themselves once more snuggled up next to a fire while the rest of the tribe snored away, joined by an unlikely new friend.

The Chu Chu jelly they had encountered that day had for some reason followed them back home, and indeed followed them around everywhere, much to the confusion of them and the rest of the tribe. They didn’t mind, as they were used to occasionally running into Chu Chus, but this one was decidedly odd in how it had attached itself to the tribe. No matter where they went, it would doggedly pursue them, and eventually they simply saw it as a new part of their life, identifiable from other Chu Chus by its strange eyewear. Link and Zelda felt like they vaguely recognised it, but were unable to place it, and lacked the intelligence to put two and two together. To Purah’s chagrin, the two were still primarily concerned with eating, sleeping, and mating. As long as they had those basic needs fulfilled, as well as each other’s company, they were largely unconcerned with anything else.

However, the mysterious Chu Chu had endeared itself to the tribe with a particular party trick. The tribe had begun feeding it their scraps, as if it were their pet, and one day after accidentally giving it an entire basket of apples, it had surprised them by suddenly transforming into a humanoid form, shocking and exciting the tribe. It seemed to try to communicate with them in that form, with the same gurgling sound and gestures each time. Link and Zelda had the feeling that when it was in this form it wanted something, something vaguely rectangular. However, it seemed unsatisfied with the rocks in that shape they presented, and the two were at a loss for what it wanted. And each time, after a few minutes, it would return back to its natural form, and show no particular desires besides following them around and occasionally glaring at them as if it was annoyed at them for not figuring it out. One time it tried to lead them somewhere, but changed back before it could reach its destination. It seemed that without an enormous amount of fruit, it simply wasn’t going to get anywhere.

Although Link and Zelda couldn’t figure it out, they felt like each time they grew closer to uncovering the mystery, particularly the mystery of that weird thing it kept on its eyes. Unfortunately, the seasons were changing, and fruit was becoming scarce. Link in particular was intent on fattening Zelda up for the lean months and hoarded food for her jealously. Soon the tribe had little food to spare for the brief amusement of it transforming, and it spent most of its time as a simple Chu Chu jelly. And once the snow began to fall, the Purah Pad was likely to be hidden, and the tribe unadventurous. Perhaps in the spring, when food was plentiful, Purah would get her chance…