Description
I made a bunch of grammatical edits to this one. I'm thinking of coming back to writing, it's fun.
“I’m telling ya Madison, if we just hired a couple’a guys-”
“No Lily, just no.”
“We won’t have to pay much at all! I mean come on, the downsides are practically nonexistent!”
“That is just straight up not true!”
“Well… I guess there’s no convincing ya until it happens.”
“What do you mean?”
“Weeeeeell…”
“You didn’t…”
“He’s coming in about two hours. His name is Jasper! I think he’ll make a cute-”
“Fine! We’ll take a look at him! And if I don’t like him, he is GONE.”
“Sure sure… we’ll take a look.”
Workin’ for the Prickly Sisters
A transformation tale by Transformingguy
Chapter 1 - On Brand
The sound of gravel under moving wheels overtakes my senses as I turn off the mostly deserted highway. My GPS manages to croak out “your destination is in 200 ft, Number 12, Angry Men Road,” before losing signal. Quite an out of the way place. I am no doubt going to get my organs stolen and sold on the black market here.
I get closer and begin to see the outline of where I’ll hopefully be working for a while. The house is actually surprisingly large for a farm home. Its wide roof is rather pointed, probably to match all the triangular windows. It almost looks like a jagged castle from off in the distance. It has a white coat of paint across each wall, and a decently sized window every few feet. As I arrive and turn left to pull into a dirt parking spot, I take a look at the barn off to the right side. It’s… long. It has to stretch about the length of a couple of baseball fields. It’s a very bright red, hardly a speck of dirt visible. Geez, hope I don't have to clean that.
Before I step out of the car, I take a look at myself in the rearview mirror. I see my slightly curly brown hair, my rounded face and jaw, my small, pointed nose. I'm looking mighty clean and like a proper working lad if I do say so myself. I adjust the mirror to look down at the pair of fine, blue overalls I’m wearing over a white shirt. Figure I’d get dressed for the occasion, plus I do love myself a good pair of overalls. Something about them is pure aesthetic fantasy to me. Same with farm work as a whole! I never wanted to be a farmer, but working on a farm for just the right amount of time each day always did sound alright to me. This way I could get a perfect chance to do some photography at work...
I step out of the car, my black boots hitting the ground. I can't deny, it is a lovely place. So lovely in fact, I slip my small digital camera out of my pocket and snap a few photos of the scenic, grassy hills and rows of yellow wheat, before deciding to search for my future employers.
“Hello?!” I call out. No answer. At least, for a few seconds. After a beat, I hear some clangs and rattles from the house and a loud "I'm cooooomiiiinnnng," from a bubbly voice inside. A few footsteps later and the door opens...
I blink a bit as the "girl" that opened the door bids me good afternoon.
"I was just preparing some lemonade, would you like some?" Asks the five foot tall, brown fur covered, overall sporting, round, black nosed, spikey-backed hedgehog. Her little pink snout bears an infectious smile, but it takes just a little too long for me smile back, due to the fact that my brain simply needs some time to fully process what exactly it is that I am looking at.
"Suuuuuure... thanks..." I say. I watch as she nods and turns to go back into her house, seeing the back of her overalls is mostly cut out, making room for her spikes that go down to about the middle of her torso.
She disappears back into the house, yet I continue standing there like an idiot, almost able to visualize a YouTube buffering animation above my head. I then get a second surprise in the form of a tap on my shoulder. I whirl around and look down see yet another five or so foot tall hedgehog, this one with darker fur and a gray snout. She's sporting a dark red flannel and a pair of jean shorts.
"Aye. You're the new hire?" She asks.
"I-I guess." I sputter out.
"You guess?" She replies, putting her hands (paws?) on her hips.
"I am ma'am, uh, Jasper Pinkman." I stick out my hand for her to shake, which she doesn't do, though I'm a little thankful for that.
"I know your name," she replies. "I'm Madison Prickly."
"Hi... Madison."
Just then, the other one pushes the door open and steps out onto their porch, a tray with a pitcher of lemonade and a few glasses in her hands.
"Jasper! Madi! Why don't you come on over here in the shade?"
"Sure thing." Madi says, though definitely not loud enough for the other hedgehog to hear. We walk up the dirt road and stairs, stopping at some chairs sitting off to the right side of the porch. Madison aggressively takes one to my right and the other hedgehog grabs the one right across from me, forcing me into the seat right next to Madison and her cold, suspicious gaze.
"So, Jasper, I'm Lily Prickly, we spoke on the phone." The hedgehog across from me begins, setting a glass of lemonade in front of me and reaching out her paw (yeah, it's definitely a paw.) This time I shake it, and I can't help but shiver at how foreign the sensation is. It looks just like a regular hedgehog paw, but much bigger of course, and the skin is so oddly smooth for someone working on a farm. Not the strangest thing I've touched, but definitely up there. Now I get why Sonic wears gloves.
"You're... hedgehogs." I say, looking between the two.
"Yeah, you got a problem working with hedgehogs?" Madison asks.
"Oh no! Not at all, some of my best friends were hedgehogs!"
"No they weren't." she replies.
"You are absolutely right, I have no I idea why I said that." I look down, the whites of my eyes on full display at this point.
"Oh silence Madison, not his fault he ain't never seen the likes of us. So, Jasper, we don't really have many questions for you. You were pretty much hired as soon as you made that phone call." Lily begins.
"Actually-" Madison is interrupted by Lily continuing.
"You were in construction before?"
"That is correct." I reply. Manual labor was always my calling, though I always hoped someone would notice my fine eye for picture-taking. Well, people notice, but not always the right ones.
"I can see, I guess that's where you got your muscle from, eh heh."
I nod in reply to that. "Among other things. I also spent some time as a mover, but all the driving wasn't for me. I do love the outdoors."
"See Madison? He's simply the most perfect candidate you could pray for, you might as well do it right now!" Lily says, looking over at her sister.
"Do what?" I ask.
Madison sighs. "You want this job, kid?"
"Uh, yes! I would, very much ma'am." I say.
She replies by reaching back and plucking out one of her quills and poking me in the arm with it. Yes, that is a sentence that I just wrote. No, it is not one I ever expected to write.
I yelp, shooting up from my chair. "What the hell?!"
"Madi! You didn't have to do it so abruptly! You coulda really hurt him!" Lily stands up, looking at her sister accusingly.
"Whoops." Madison says without an ounce of sympathy.
"Here, let me have a look at that." Lily walks over to me, taking my arm in her cold paws (or ARE they hands?). "Oh good, it looks just fine."
I turn my arm towards myself to look at the point she pricked me at. There, I see a thin layer of creamy brown fur.
"This is fine?" I ask pointing at it with my other hand.
"Yep!" Lily replies with a smile, brushing off her hands.
"...ok."
The fur continues growing up my arm, and I continue staring at it in shock. Then it starts going up my other arm too! Beginning at the wrist, it just keeps on growing and growing, like the whole world depends on it! When the fur growth reaches my hands, it snakes around my fingertips and my nails turn a deep black color and instantly feel a thousand times more solid. Not to mention, wherever the fur goes, my muscles seem to bulk right on up. Not Scottish Strong Man levels of bulk, but just enough to be noticeable.
"Here." Lily takes my arm once more, this time in an attempt to be comforting. "Why don't you sit down?"
I take her advice, but in my hazy state I squat down into my chair much too rabidly, so much so that I practically just fall onto it. The legs all bend outwards and snap like sticks when I place my weight upon them. Hitting the ground on my rear, I barely register Lily's apology as the lower part of my overalls begin to feel rather tight. I slowly reach down to roll up one pant leg and see my lower limb is also being taken over by fur.
"You wanna sit in my chair?" Lily asks me.
"No thanks, I think I'll just stay in this one."
My already somewhat loose boots begin to feel even loser as I feel a sensation in my right foot akin to it collapsing in on itself. I pull the right boot off, followed by my sock, and watch in shock and awe as my now black toenails combine themselves into one giant black nail, which slowly takes over my feet, encasing it in something that looks like one black shell that I soon realize is a hoof. A hoof! I'm not just growing strong and hairy, I'm going all animal! Taking off my other boot confirms my slithering suspicion that I have two of them now.
"You get used to them, I promise!" Lily says to me as I observe my feet like they're a pair of fine specimen under a microscope. I slowly nod back, still not 100% mentally back on Earth.
My transformation mobilizes underneath my overalls and shirt, which suddenly become just the slightest bit itchy. My muscles once again tone right up under there, and a thin layer of fat that once sat over my stomach feels as though it washes itself away beneath my skin, going to other points in my body and being replaced with a pair of abs. I then feel one of the more peculiar sensations of this whole affair, as a new appendage snakes its way out of the base of my spine. A furred tail with a decently sized tuft of hair pokes into the back of my overalls. I have to make myself reach back there and pull it out, bringing it around the right side of my hip so that I could both relieve the pressure it made and get a good look at it.
I feel my neck thicken up, widening so it practically fills out the space inside my collarbone and nearly blends into my head, which itself is becoming larger.
"Ohhhhh they do not prepare you for this in trade school." I say, patting my furry face as I feel my nose and mouth area begin pushing out in a cylindrical shape. My nose itself pretty much melts away into my head, turning rather moist and, I assume since I can't really see it, all black. I run my thickening tongue along my teeth as I feel them flattening out, losing any omnivorous pointiness they had to them. Guess I'm going vegan after all. As my mouth stretches out around this new muzzle o' mine, I gasp as I feel two more new items grow out of me, although these two had much less feeling in them than the tail. From my head of hair that I miraculously kept, two large horns poke out on either side in a sort of L shape. They're smooth to the touch, and their growth feels like it comes straight from the skull. I find myself unable to resist temptation and I poke the point with the soft part of my finger, making a little "ah" as I find that they are indeed rather sharp.
I look up and between the two porcupines.
"Next time, I'll be the one to administer the change." Lily says.
"Fine by me." Madison, who was seated through the whole thing, says with a shrug.
"So uh..." I trail off for a little while before my mind racing before somehow moving to thoughts of my job. "...do I start tomorrow?"