A Warhammer 40,000 Transformation Story
(Female to Tyranid Mawloc)
The first sound Y’lea heard was gunfire: the sharp report of a half-dozen lasguns being discharged. They were remarkably accurate, for humans. Each sharp crack was accompanied by a crimson lance connecting a Voidsman-at-arms to their erstwhile target.
Said targets sported the livery of a band of cultists serving the Greater Enemy. It only took Y’lea a glance to determine that they were servants of the Lord of Murder. The ritual scarring and fondness for bloodlust were a good indicator of that, but the banners they waved left little doubt as to their fell master.
“About time you got here!” The Voidsmen’s sergeant barked. Trasker never had a particular fondness for Y’lea, unable to overcome the inherent xenophobia of his kind. Nonetheless, she knew as well as he did that the small band of men needed reinforcement.
Though they were making good work of the cultists, there were still a few violet-clad uniforms scattered amongst the red of their foe. Worse, one of the Voidsmen’s weapons fell silent, the lasgun’s power pack drained. True to form, he dropped it in lieu of his sidearm—but that would only take him so far.
“Mon-keigh.” She acknowledged him with a tip of her head and a small grin of amusement. The Eldar strode with purpose towards him, heedless of the gunfire erupting around herself. She tried to put on a good show for the men, knowing that this was a rare chance to show off.
Her slender frame was a difficult target to hid, made even more so by her species’ prenatural agility. Even if only a fraction of the shots were close to hitting her, she didn’t see too much harm in dodging the luckier of the potshots for good measure.
“Witch.” Trasker replied curtly. He paused to rattle off a quick salvo, before turning his gaze to hers. “The Rogue Trader’s got you aboard for a reason, let’s see it. We’re low on ammo, and can’t move to primary target.”
Y’lea hazarded a look across the field, her sharp eyes barely making out the form of a pontificating human. He was thrashing his arms about, generally in their direction, and she was rather sure he was foaming at the mouth. Doubtless that left him a tad less coherent than his kind usually were.
“I see him.” She said in Gothic, the humans’ chosen tongue. Her accent was smooth and musical, as though every word was half-song. “That’s the one your Planetary Governor wants dead? This seems like more of a job for your militant forces, does it not?”
“Yeah, well the Trader’s got it in his head that having Her Excellency in his pocket would do us some commercial good. Besides, the nearest Militarum regiment’s…” He trailed off, looking Y’lea up and down for the first time. “Are you unarmed?”
A few choice expletives were directed in her direction, and Y’lea gave him a smile she knew would set his nerves on edge. “I realize you’d rather remain ignorant than ‘taint your soul’ with knowledge, but you really should read my profile.”
With that, the Eldar closed her eyes, beginning an ancient song. It was the reason she’d been exiled from her people, and the reason for Rogue Trader Gavin Dreiss taking a personal interest in her talents.
The wraithbone pendant she kept around her neck let out a faint glow, responding to her song in kind. Then it melted, spreading across her skin like smooth cream. Ordinarily, a bonesinger could use their song to create buildings, vehicles, and the backbone of infrastructure. Y’lea had a different use for it.
“What in the Emperor’s name?” One of the Voidsmen scrambled away from her, earning himself a round through his right shoulder. The Eldar made a mental note to apologize to him for that, assuming he survived the day.
The bone surrounding her took on a distinct spiraled shape, almost like a crude drill. She used this to bore deep beneath the troopers and their foes alike, away from the cacophony of combat. There her song continued, strengthening.
She was one with the wraithbone, and it was one with her. She could make it grow, and in turn would feel her own body stretching. She could mold it, mold herself, into any form she wanted. Presently, said form would be best suited as something larger, terrifying, and deadly.
Arms burst from her sides, three sets of spiked claws tipping each of her wraithbone limbs. Her torso heaved and cracked, rippling outwards and bringing these talons to the sides of her body. New limbs settled along her front, dozens of smaller taloned claws bursting from her stretching form.
Y’lea was growing longer, strong and sinewy. Muscles seared their way into existence along her form, and she coiled herself instinctively. She knew that her real body was kept perfectly safe within the skull of her new form, but that didn’t make this construct feel any less like her own. As far as she was concerned, her Eldar frame was really transforming.
She urged the changes on, faster and faster. A long tail curled from her backside, tipped with enameled, ridged plates. At its tip, a deadly pincer-like talon flexed and unflexed, easily parting the dirt behind herself. She’d need more, she’d need to burrow before herself as well.
Slowest of all, her construct’s head elongated. She could feel her teeth sharpening in her jaw, becoming aneven, jagged row of fangs. A ridged plate settled along the top of her skull, and her jaw bifurcated along its bottom. These fangs slid towards the sides of her head, leaving the bottom of her mouth a fleshy, hungry mess.
A second set of lower teeth grew to replace her first, and she could feel more settling along the sail of her stretched jaw. She closed her mouth for now, knowing that when it was fully open it would look more akin to a toothed flower opening.
Chitin spread to cover her exterior, sharp and dangerous. New holes settled along her skull, from which she could smell and taste the earth around herself. Sensor spines grew from the back of her head and the underside of her jaw. Lastly, long breathing tubes snaked from her back, able to filter oxygen even from the tightly packed ground. With that, she was complete.
Y’lea was one of the Great Devourer, a beast the Mon-keigh referred to as Mawlocs. She let out a low rumble, struggling to perceive her original form within her new body’s mass. It was an old habit of hers, and as always she had as much luck sensing her lithe body as she normally would be able to perceive her brain.
The habit calmed her, and she started to dig. Her talons and wide jaw were able to make a long tunnel for her serpentine body, burrowing through the earth with ease. She could and uncoiled her body, able to tell where the warring combatants above her were by the motion of their feet.
The Voidsmen squad was dug in, so they spared very little movement. Nontheless, she could feel them bracing themselves for recoil, and occasionally seeking different lines of fire. In contrast, the encroaching cultists were an undisciplined mob, breaking from their cover to try and overwhelm the attackers.
They’d probably be successful, too, were it not for the appearance of a Tyranid beast within their midst. Throughout the entire transformation, Y’lea had grown. She’d started a head taller than the average human, but now was as large as one of their clumsy attempts at making a building.
Naturally, the humans screamed-both the cultist, and the Voidsmen. She trusted her comrades enough to know better than to open fire on her from behind. Even if they knew the creature was her, which she doubted, they were smart enough to know not to get the attention of such a terrifying foe.
That left her facing the cultists, who wasted no time in trying to take a few potshots at her terrifying form. Of course, it was like spitting in the face of a tsunami, but Y’lea respected the effort. She leaned in closer towards them, letting her mouth unfold and roaring as loudly as her body could.
It was all the warning the cultists would receive before she fell upon them. The sharp talons along her sides easily tore through the cultists like a sawblade through wet tissues, their tiny forms parting with ease.
Normally, she’d like to have a little sport with her kills. But she’d settle for making this a snack. Y’lea dove onto the closest-grouped cultists, curling her tail behind herself and bifurcating a pair with a quiet snip of her tail. The ones beneath her jaw were simply devoured, the petals of her mouth closing upon them and crushing them with bone-breaking force.
She could feel their weapons discharging in her mouth, little more than a tickle despite the potency of their firearms. Soon even these struggles ceased, allowing her to take stock of her surroundings. A single survivor remained, one which she crushed with an absent swipe of one of her belly-talons.
The main body of the Khornate force stood before herself, and she turned to them with a low growl. Apparently they moved up a stolen tank, because a shell erupted along her right flank, severing one of her talons and sending her screeching to the ground.
Y’lea glowered, burrowing into the earth and allowing them a parting potshot at her retreating tail. She had to move fast: any delay would mean the tank would retarget Trasker’s squad, rather than the hole she’d just left.
Fortunately, the tank’s engine gave away its position. Y’lea allowed herself a mental grin, digging beneath it, and making a vertical shaft straight below. While her form wasn’t capable of handling an armored vehicle, she certainly could allow gravity to lend a hand.
She lurched to the side just a meter from the surface, curling her tail and using it weaken the earth beneath the tank. Sure enough, she could make out the screeching of its treads as it pitched backwards, into the cavern she’d created.
The look on the cultist leader’s face was one that Y’lea would remember for the rest of her days. He turned from the hole where his tank had been towards the Mawloc that was at least twice its size, then let out what was no doubt the loudest shriek of his life.
Y’lea dove onto him, her massive body leaving what was doubtless a charismatic heretic as little more than an unpleasant stain on the pavement. His bodyguards were easy enough to tear through, her remaining rightmost limbs rendering them into meaty chunks.
With the backbone of their force crushed, the remainder of the cultists were a quick and easy mop-up. The echo of the last shots settled, and Y’lea allowed herself to open to her song once more. The beast of her body slumped to the ground, and her wraithbone crystal pushed from its skull.
It melted about herself, freeing her from its confines, and the Eldar woman patted the construct that had just been her body on the head. The Voidsmen across the field seemed to be reorganizing, and she offered them a cheery wave.
“I believe there was some question as to me being unarmed?” She called sardonically, receiving a gratifyingly obscene gesture from Trasker.