Made Flesh IC

[SikstaSlathalin]

Max nodded to the life-sized Akshara putting the spiked knuckles back into his bag since it seemed Bubbles didn't want them right now. He listened to Lark's suggestion and Drakkon's complaint about coffee. The little Wastelander shook his head walking to to the now cold pot of coffee and dropped out the congealed tar that was the coffee watching in jiggle like jell-o.
"No go on the coffee, even if it wasn't jelly right now. The Black Coffee from my home is strong for adults it'll prolly make all our hearts explode if we drink it as kids and teens." He kicked the wriggling mass slowly killing the grass before stashing the pot in his bag. He thought on little Lark's suggestion to get moving and decided even as a 12 year old he was still the leader for the most part.

Standing on a log he cleared his throat and spoke as loudly and clearly as he could without squeaking.
"Lark brings up a good point, we should get moving but we also should clean up and find some food. I don't know about all of you but I'm hungry. Now there's a stream just down that hill, anyone that knows how to make a fishing line from a branch should do so and try and catch some fish. I'll be hunting some birds or maybe small animals anyone who thinks they can help me are welcome to do so. Everyone else try to clean yourselves up and take inventory of what's happened to us so far." With that he picked up the little Carbine and went off to stalk some game if there is any. Siks, who had been quietly watching everyone joined Max in the hunting knowing he wasn't much good at fishing.

[Sy23]

It was interesting, Sy reflected, that while all of the former adults of the group had turned into children, with ther appropriate stature and voices, they still maintained their former adult memories and knowledge. Watching the tiny, child-Katniss expertly pull fish from the lake using nothing but a piece of string and a bent pin, and then just as expertly gut and clean them brought this home to him. Himself, he had no idea how to fish, but then his childhood, spent in the slums of the London borough of Croydon SW16 had not lent itself to fishing, birdnesting and other healthy pursuits beloved of ther writers of childrens' books.

He had, however, performed experiments of his own design. By careful crawling along the floor, he had contrived to look up the now adult Bubble's dress - and the purple thong panty he discovered showed that the Powderpuff-Woman's (as he supposed he should now think of her) underwear was certainly matching the adult status of her new body. This, of course, did litle to confirm Sy's theory that he had retained all of his adult drives, since, he well remembered, he had been looking up ladies' dresses at five the first time around, though of course now he had more idea of why!

He had been amused by Max still retaining leadership of the band. In his now sqeauky voice, the former Road Warrior had sounded exactly like a blackboard monitor from his schooldays, the most sensible and muture kid being given the position of reponsibility and taking to it like a donkey to strawberries. But what he'd said had made sense.

What Max - or anyone else - had so far failed to do, though, was to ask questions.

The right questions, anyway.

"Does anyone know why?" he asked Akshara, who happened to be standing next to him. He turned to Cass, who was accepting a pile of scaled fish from Katniss. "Cass, what do you think? PK?"

The problem was obvious. If an enemy had set out to prevent them completing the quest, turning them into children was the obvious ploy. Any other curse - anything from immobility to some scary, monstrous adversary - would still have left them with their strengths, and, more importantly, the motivation, to solve the problem. Immobile people want to move around. Captured people want to escape. Threatened people want to escape or defeat the threat. But children - they don't mind being children at all. It doesn't occur to them to wonder why they are children, or how to escape the condition. They just get on with being what they are - natural Taoists free from the existential dread of the post-pubescent.

This was not to say that it was an idyllic existence. Sure, they didn't have to fret about bills and mortgages and jobs. But the hairy monster that lurked in the cupboard, the fact that you couldn't crayon between the lines, the witch that just might be hiding behind the curtains waiting till your mom switched off the light, the yellow ankle-socks that your parents made you wear, which caused your schoolmates to tease you unmercifully - to children, these problems loomed just as large as global warming, that mysterious knocking sound from your motor-bike engine or thinking your wife might be having an affair did to adults.

He looked across at Katniss. And then, in some worlds - like hers - children didn't even get the advantages that come from childhood. Signing up for Tesserae at 12, living in fear that your name might be alled at the reaping, that was no life.

* * * * * *

"I demand" said Elizabeth loudly. "To be directed to the British Consul. "Demand, I say. I have been turned into a child. Mechanical arachnids and zombie soldiers are one thing, but this... I won't have it. I won't have it, I say. I will brook no delay. SOmeone direct me to the embassy immediately, or - "

Her attention span was directed by Scarlet_Warrior, who toddled by rolling a large hoop.

"I wanna go on that!" Elizabeth screamed.

"No. S'MINE!" retorted Scarlet.

"I want!"

*****

"Well, there's not much to go with the fish," piped Katniss to Sy. "I did find a plant that's a bit like broccolli. But it's kind of slimy. More like snot, really."

"Hmm, better tell them it's snot."

"Why, mentor."

"You'll never get kids to eat broccolli."

[Elkay]

Elkay had been very quiet since her age reduction thingy. Teekay had been equally quiet, but that was because Teekay was too busy remembering how awesome it was to be a Bohrok rather than a Vahrga.

Teekay's childhood had been completely ruined at the age of 22, when he abruptly turned into a Vahrga and was basically kicked out of his nest. Considering that Bohrok spend 90% of their childhood working, and 90% of their adulthood (Vahrgokronos for males, Bahragakronos) trying to mate, and then dying several months later, if they were Vahrga, or spending the rest of their lives giving birth if they're Bahrag. For a while, Teekay actually held the Bohrok record for the youngest Vahrga in existence. And Teekay had hated every second of being a Vahrga. Actually, 'hated' wasn't strong enough a word. Not in the combined lexicons of English, Greek or the Bohrok's hybrid language of Vellikina, was there a word strong enough to describe how much Teekay loathed being a Vahrga. In fact, not all of the Panvok languages had enough words to describe Teekay's loathing. In comparison, Teekay's age-reversal seemed like a dream come true.

After that very long paragraph, Elkay realised that they were lagging behind the rest of the group. Not that anyone had really noticed. Elkay wondered if people really noticed that there wasn't a giant, 2.5m tall monster following them any more. Actually, right now, Teekay was rolling along the ground as a small, plastic, 1m-ish ball. It must have been quite dizzifying. Was that a word? Eh, never mind.

Then something occurred to Elkay. Wasn't turning everyone into children a bad idea? Having watched way too much TV when she was younger, Elkay knew full well that children never seem to give up. Just look at the Home Alone films. Or Spy Kids. Or that ZOOM! film. Whoever was trying to stop them wasn't doing a very good at doing so.

"Erm, gais?" Elkay shouted, realising that her voice was now super squeaky. "If this was done by a bad guy, wouldn't he just go and kill us? Why would he bother to turn us into kids?"

[Drakkon]

Akshara shrugged. "No one answered when I asked." She glanced around the field, watching the little guys running around. Then Elkay asked a question Akshara had to think over.
"Demoralize.. diversion... not close enough to do harmful damage.. Better taste... amusement... less chance of the hunter being the prey..." Drakkon started going on. Akshara looked at Sy, shrugging. "I'm guessing that for whatever reason the transformation is still going, it's just taking off years from common sense now." Drakkon interrupted, blinking a little. "Draining everything and putting it somewhere else.. and not knowing that the little children would have the opposite affects?" He asked.
"You don't read many stories like this where little kids follow the adults into certain death.... and are allowed to follow them."

Akshara shrugged, then looked around the field. "If we want to fix things we'll have to leave.. but something tells me if whatever did this to kill us isn't about to rush at us now.. it'll wait until we leave the field."

[SikstaSlathalin]

Max and Siks went a hunting and can back with a 6 rabbits. They returned around the time Aka spoke a worry Max had been rolling around in his head.
"I don't really know what this was all done for, if it was meant to weaken us they shouldn't have made the only one with super powers a teenager or allowed most of us to keep our weapons real and working. Most of us may be shorter and weaker but that doesn't lessen all the knowledge we still have from when we were older. I think if anything flip-flopping our ages like this is meant to slow us down or let us get distracted by childhood whims again like little Bennett and Scarlet fighting over a hoop. For all we know it's just some weird magic associated with this field and as soon as we leave we'll all go back to normal." He said as he walked up and dropped his rabbits down by the fire, Siks followed behind and tossed his down by Max's.
"Ay, I think if we were going tae die it would've happened while we slept and eay tae kill." Max crouched down and began skinning the rabbits with Sik's pocket knife, while the little Scot built up the fire again. "Either way we shouldnae leave until we've eaten we'll need all the strength we can get fer this day." He said picking through Max's bag for some cooking tools.

[Kris]

"I think there is a reason", said baby Natalya at last to the remarks of the "why" and "how". She too looked absolutely adorable with her clad armor that was shrunk along with her sizes to fit a chibby looking version of the assassin along with her tiny claws,"I think they didn't counted the fact that some of us are kids already, and that they were turned into adults, but it kinda makes sense to me".

"Please say more!", Gwen requested.

However the assassin seemed to be more enjoying playing with the mud than answering the question.

Annoyed by the fact she was playing rather than talking, Gwen moved closer to her, her hands on her hips, trying to know more. The assassin stopped only to grin at the sight of her summoner, who, aside of losing some more height, looked exactly like her older version, only... well... a bit younger. (and that was amusing to know how little this tiny woman have grown over the years).

"Ya think?", Gwen looked puzzled, "Why is that?"

"Think of it like this, if they had the power to just kill us they would have done it sooner... I think that aside of the mental tool on us being switches with the ages, there is more to it".

"Oh?".

"Yes. Children are an easy prey. And not just because they are shorter or less developed".

"Then why?", Gwen questioned.

"Easy... Their minds work over time. Their terror is the greatest tool against them... I mean just think of all the things you were scared of when you were a child...".

"Like the Bogeyman? Or the monster under the bed?"

Natalya nodded, "Exactly. We are still in the Literal Wood, so obviously our thoughts will create our greatest enemy...", Natalya started to clap her hands as she left her game of "playing with mud" in order to try and chase off butterflies.

"Natalya!", Gwen yelled, trying to call her back and finish the story. But as she tried to go after the assassin she found that something was pulling her legs.

Looking down she noticed there was nothing there. Gwen screamed as she fell.

"What is it?!", Natalya and the others looked alarmed.

"S-something... creepy just grabbed my leg...".

"But... there is nothing here-", before the assassin could finish her words she was sent flying few inches away, her face growing red with anger and embarrassment as she reached her hands to protect her chest (which was rather big, even for a little girl her age), "Curses! Whatever it is, not only did he kicked me, but he just.... grabbed... my...", she gritted her teeth, "There is something here!".

"I KNOW THERE IS!", Gwen yelled, "That was what I was trying to-!".

Gwen fell again, her dress was pulled above her, leaving no place to imagine how her underpants looked like.

"How do we stop this attacking perverted invisible freak?!", she screeched.

[SikstaSlathalin]

The moment tary distraction of seeing Gwen's underthings broke the second Max heard her scream whipping out his Plasma Defender he scanned the area for the slightest hint of movement. He'd hunted Nightkin for years in the Wasteland and it had taught him how to fight the invisible look for the air shimmering with movement or looking at the grass moving without something to move them. He found three and as quickly as he saw them he blasted them into a bright green pile of goo. One was creeping up behind Aka, the other was going after Bubbles, the third was tricky because it was near Kris he had to get it away form her or risk her getting burned by the goo. He growled grabbing what he assumed to be the creature's neck and hurled it with all his still formidable strength it didn't weigh much he gathered that as he threw it with one arm and shot it mid-air.

Not wasting a second after Max killed the creature's Siks helped Kris up so she could put her clothes back in place. Everyone regroup around the fire girls in the middle! Now people! And look at the ground if the grass moves weird then the creatures are near!" As Siks got everyone focused Max pulled his helmet on and scanned for more of this sick creatures.

[P.K.]

P.K. looked over as her name was called in a question and shook her head "I don't know." She admitted to the question directed to her while Cassandra simply didn't pay attention to it going about her task. She was not bound to talk much now and shape shifting was going to be a problem... she was now puzzling over this. How was she going to get this to work? In order to be of to much use she needed to shift and if she could not shift properly? turn into a mouse when I need to turn into a lion. She sighed forlornly at this thought.

Glancing up she only heard part of max's small speech and sighed. Just then her stomach growled and she could not help but let out a little forlorn sigh out again while she laid down on her stomach wishing it to stop talking.

"I'm hungry two Cass." P.K. said crouching down and patting the other girl on the back. "Why did we have to be turned into little kids?!?" Cassandra said suddenly in a fit of rage. "I'm useless at this age absolutely useless and I don't even have my alignment anymore!" Here Cass began to Cry as startling as it was to P.K. at the sudden out burst of the once so calm girl she knew. "What if it changes?!" Cassandra moaned quietly tears continuing down her cheeks. "I don't want to have night deep pupils and be hunted all the time like the demons and others.."

"Shhh..." P.K. said quietly trying to comfort the child though she was one herself. "It wont change." She promised. "You always a good person Cassandra." Cass only shook her head. However both perked up at a scream. Upon looking over the could see both Gwen and Natalya having trouble. "Oh dear..." P.K. said not at all sure what to do.

Cassandra tried wiping her tears away and pushing herself up. "W-hats happening?" she asked not helping the sniffling still left to get over her gaze narrowed as she tried to search for the problem but could not see to find it. "There is nothing..." she stopped seeing Gwen's dress go up. "Oh my..." P.K. said softly searching around herself but nothing could be seen. P.K. rushed over to see what she could to swiping the air to see if she connected with anything. Turning and ducking to avoid being shot she nodded to what max said. Looking around she growled pouncing on one and batting it away her body seemed to be trying to make up its mind between a bird and a horse for a second before it shifted into a snake that vanished into the grass.

P.K. shook her head and started to pear around spotting some but... not at all sure what to do since she had no weapon.

[Storm]

Having waken to an odd sensation, Dan looked over toward where Ai Lin was sleeping. He blinks a couple times taking notice of the child sleeping where Ai Lin once had. His squeaky voice ordered “He kid, where is…” causing him to pause. What the heck in going on with his voice. The young Ai Lin stirs slowly opening her eyes looking toward the annoying kid that woke her.

“Hey Dan, what’s up with this ki….. what the ….” as she looks at her own small hands.

Dan and Ai Lin look about the area realizing that yet another interesting circumstance has presented it self. Ai Lin giggles as Elizabeth is throwing a tantrum. All she can seem to offer Elizabeth
“Wanna play tag? We will have Danny be it first!”

Dan immediately protests “But I don’t want to be it first!”

Slightly oblivious to things going on, Dan and Ai Lin have a slight argument over who will be it first till it is overheard that something was grabbing at people. A second survival nature kicks in as they both hearing the rustling of the ground in close proximity to where they sit however do not see anything. As instinct dictates, they both draw their hand guns and level the weapons in the direction of the noise. With no one in their field of fire, they both discharge their weapons.

Bracing for the weapons recoil, Dan is the first to react as a stream of water exits the squirt gun he is holding “Fuck me to tears!”

Ai Lin who is about to react watching a stream of water flow from her squirt gun however gasps “Oh, you potty mouth, I’m telling… wait, what am I saying?”

Looking at the squirt gun, Dan offers a pouty lip “Where is my gun, I want it back!” now more distracted that something was taken from him opposed to the danger lurking about.

Ai Lin retorts in a hissy tone “So, it’s all about someone taking the boys gun. You don’t care that someone took my gun too, do you!” her lips quivering.

“But I do care about someone taking your gun too. If I find mine first, you can have it, okay?”

Ai Lin wipes her eyes looking to Dan “Pinky promise?”

“Yes, pinky promise”

Ai Lin scoots closer to Dan “Do you think Ewisibif stole our guns?”

Looking about as others are moving about as some concept is regained, they both look at each other followed by looking for anything close by that could be used as a weapon.

[Elkay]

"Teekay!" Elkay saw the invisible force lifting up the other girls' skirts. "Teekay! Save me from the rude invisible thing!" She rushed behind her Achiever, who didn't seem to notice. Elkay cried and smacked Teekay's head, bashing her hand on his plastic head. "C'MON!"

No response. All Elkay's smack had done was knock Teekay over. It seemed as though Teekay was asleep. Fairly annoyed, Elkay left her achiever's side and headed over to Gwen and the other girls, pausing to pick up her bag. "That's why I don't like skirts..." Elkay sniffed. "Are you okay?"

Suddenly, Elkay could feel invisible hands near her trousers. Like a shot, she sat down on the grass so whatever it was couldn't pull her trousers down.