“You vile fiend unhand me at once so I may finish this and kill you”, Javal would yell trying to jump and wriggle out of its tendril grasp.

But the glacier flea leader holds firm intent on taking him with it; he tries to kick at its face and reach his blade toward its underside but its grip is way too strong. Then, he notices the same blue wolf that’d been helping protect everyone running toward them. The beast jumps on the glacier flea and starts tearing into it, giving Javal the chance to wriggle from its grasp and try to help. He drives his sword into its chest stabbing it a few times before the beast lets go of him.



He begins falling towards the snow below with a wide smile on his face about to hit the ground before tapping his cuirass at the last moment and a pair of red-colored wings (1) sprouting on his back letting him fly for a few moments. He slowly descends to the floor, looks back up, and sees the strange blue wolf finish off the creature.



He cheers excitedly, “HUZZAH we did it wooohooo, let us rejoice my furry friend we have defeated those nefarious insect monsters, and now everyone can live safely. How rude of me I haven’t even asked for your name, what is your name strange wolf fellow”, Javal asks expecting to hear a woof or a bark in return.

---

1. Red Dragon Plate

"WOOooooOOOO!" Blue let out a sound of celebration that started to sound like a howl. They'd never actually howled before, but while they were a wolf, it felt natural. Their tails wagged behind them as their togue flopped out of their mouth, like a hyper dog being even further hyped up by someone else's excitement.

With that last tick taken care of, the village was free of the big bugs and the villagers were as safe as could be in a mountain up on the World Crown. So not that safe, really, but not under attack at the moment anymore!

Blue was reminded by Javal that they never actually introduced themself in the midst of all the combat and stopped their tail wagging to transform back into a totally, completely normal knight. Turning into a giant blue wolf with three non-wolf-like-at-all tails was a completely normal knight thing. And so was dripping acid and sparking with electricity. Normal.

Fur shrank back and tails receded as metal plates came back out to cover their body, their posture changing to stand on two legs again and their front legs moving to their sides to become arms. The transformation only took a few moments before the strange wolf was gone and replaced with a tall, broad-shouldered man in a full suit of heavy plate armor, their face covered by a helmet with a pair of small horns on the sides.

"Nice to meet you! I'm Wolfe." Blue introduced themself, trying to sound knightly as they offered a gauntleted hand to shake.

“WOOHOO”, Javal would return the creature’s howl with one of his own equally as excited as them. Whatever this beast was it was certainly noble and powerful, standing up to the fearsome ice fleas and helping the villagers.

“Don’t do that, my lord, it is undignified for you to howl like that”, Nadia would chastise her liege not wanting him to mimic an animal.

Suddenly the giant blue wolf in front of him transformed into a regular-looking knight. Nadia stumbled back falling on her back onto the ice snow, “WHAT IN THE GOD'S NAME ARE YOU?! HOW? YOU WERE A WOLF NOW IS PERSON, UGH MY HEAD”, a panicked and confused expression on her face. The moon elf quickly picked herself back up trying to get the snow off of your clothes as she took in the figure in front of them.

Javal on the other hand had no problem or fear at the figure who stood before him, he’d seen stranger things before so seeing a person just casually shift from wolf to a human seemed possible.

He accepted the fellow’s handshake with a wide excited grin on his face as he firmly shook the fellow’s hand, “It’s awesome to properly meet you Wolfe, my name’s Javal Zarrias and this lady here is Nadia Sadrine. Thank you very much for helping us out here, I’m sure that without your strength and power, these villagers wouldn’t all have been saved. It makes me happy to see that the ways of justice and compassion aren’t lost in today’s time. What do you plan on doing now?”, the fellblood questions.

Blue looked at Nadia and tilted their helmeted head slightly as if they were confused why she was screaming and freaking out like she was. They transformed into animals and stuff all the time, so they didn't understand her reaction, even knowing it wasn't exactly a normal thing for people to do.

"I'm a totally normal knight!" They answered her panicked questions simply before looking back to Javal.

"No problem!" Blue responded cheerily, giving a thumbs up. They were happy to have helped the villagers out. They didn't understand all the talk of justice or compassion, but those were probably good things for knights to do. If they meant killing giant bugs, Blue was happy to justice and compassion wherever they went!

But there was a good question. What were their plans now that the fighting was over? The villagers were safe. There were no more ticks around. Looked like there was only one thing left to do, really.

"I'll clean up these big bugs and head home." They answered with a shrug and went to work.

They walked over to the nearest glacier tick corpse and transformed their hands into sharp wolfen claws before starting to slice it into small enough pieces to consume. A second pair of arms grew out from their sides and started to place their hands on the severed chunks of tick, spreading a thin layer of blue goo over the surface to envelop it and then absorbing them, pulling the glob of goo back into their palm.

It was a bit slower and more tedious of a process than just going around taking bites as a giant wolf, but progress was quick enough that the tick corpse was gone after just a few minutes.

---

Eldritch Claws
Extra Arms
Space Pocket

“Hmmm, totally normal knight you say? I certainly don’t see shapeshifting knights these days”, Nadia would question seeing Wolfe just casually mention that.

Javal would wave this off, “Come on Nadia, there’s no need to treat our new friend with suspicion, they helped us greatly, and without them, this village would be worse off. Shapeshifting knights seem pretty normal to me, I mean this one time I met this knightly fellow who had a tiger’s arm. Plus being able to shapeshift like that is really cool”.

“We’ll help you, my friend, I can’t in good faith just leave all the heavy lifting to you after you helped clear a lot of them out”, the fellblood would say walking over to a glacier tick and picking up its dead body slinging it over his shoulder.

It was Nadia who kept a close eye on Wolfe seeing them pick up and devour one of the ticks in almost an instant. Their monstrous abilities were on display and she for one was slightly perturbed, if this fellow wasn’t on their side and displayed a noble heart she’d point her bow directly at their head. This certainly wasn’t some run-of-the-mill knight, they seemed like an alright enough fellow, and her master trusted them. She wasn’t just going to forget this though and would keep an eye on Wolfe. After a few minutes of cleaning up the group had managed to get rid of the Glacier Tick graveyard.

Javal and Nadia would then bid their farewells with Javal giving Wolfe an excited fistbump, “I hope we meet again my friend. You are certainly most welcome to my home if you’re ever in Thorock. Someday I hope to fight alongside you once more, I wish you well on your journey home”.

Nadia would give a polite wave while giving Wolfe a suspicious look almost as if to say 'I’m watching you'.

"Totally normal!" Blue agreed cheerily, nodding to Nadia. They were glad Javal understood how normal they were. They were a bit interested in this person who had a tiger's arm. Maybe they could change their arm into a tiger arm too, once they knew what a tiger was. That could be a fun thing to go do. Blue wondered if tigers tasted good.

With the help of Javal gathering and cutting up the ticks, Blue could eat them even more quickly. The cleanup went by in no time, and soon the village was free of all the tick corpses they wouldn't have known what to do with. The villagers were glad to be rid of the giant bugs. Even with them dead, a lot of them found them disgusting and didn't want to deal with them. They were glad their saviors were also kind enough to help with that.

"Oh, Thorock?" Blue replied, half surprised, half disgruntled. They didn't expect someone so nice to be from there. They didn't like Thorock. They only had bad memories of that place. First, meeting that jerk Baan in court, and then almost being assassinated the second time they'd visited. They haven't gone back since and don't plan to.

"Bye! Yeah, let's fight something even bigger next time!" Blue called back, giving a big wave and not noticing Nadia's distrustful gesture as she walked away. Once they were out of sight, Blue took their own exit from the village, the knight transforming once again, but this time back into their giant bird form to fly back home.