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A Slimy Mistake

By: Zerky DeVore

(Stank owned by his creator)

"Welcome to Stank the skunk's World of Slimes, Goos, and Hats!" shouted the skunk behind the counter as Zerky stepped through the door. Stank gave the feline a big smile, his pearly white teeth a contrast to the blackness of his fur. "Come in. Come in." He excitedly leaped over the counter, scurried across the floor, and dragged Zerky into the shop, the door closing automatically from some clockwork mechanism. Stank pulled Zerky over to a set of vials along the right wall. "I have various slimes and alchemical solvents for just about any ailment. Back problems, headache, leech in your intestines? I can rid you of all of them! Though you should probably go see a doctor for the leech... Anyway!"

Zerky tried to say, "That's nice but-" but Stank cut him off by dragging him over to the opposite wall.

"I bet you're the kind of guy who could use a nice hat. Well I have plenty of them - plenty of hats, yessir." With the enthusiasm of a mage in a magic store, Stank grabbed a hat from the shelf and thrust it upon Zerky's head. The hyon tried to speak, but Stank interrupted yet again. "No, that's not your look. How about this?" He grabbed a rather puffy looking hat, decorated with various colorful feathers. "Oh yes, that is so you. Now are you paying in silver of gold?"

Finally, Zerky had had enough. "Stank! I am not here for a hat!" He grabbed the hat off his head and threw it to the floor. "Do you even remember who I am?"

Silence filled the room as Stank stared at the hyena-lion hybrid. He scratched his chin and hummed to himself. "Oh! You're... No." He seemed to strain himself in thought. "Might you be... No, he got mauled by halflings a month ago. How about... No, can't be. He was gobbled up by that dragon two weeks ago." Zerky, annoyed and unamused, reached up with his right hand and flicked Stank on the nose. "Ow! Oh, Zerky, it's you!"

The hyon rolled his eyes. "Finally. Seriously Stank, you are so absent minded."

"No I'm not," Stank said with a scoffing wave of his hands. He peered down at the hat on the floor. "Hey, how did that get there?"

After a few minutes of Zerky nose-flicking some sense back into the skunk, the two finally went and sat down in the back of the store. The storage room was full of crates, marked with various symbols that Zerky did not recognize. He noticed some of them had a label of a skull and crossbones, and not being a total moron, he settled himself far away from those crates.

"So, what brings you to my humble shop of slimes, goos, and hats?" asked Stank.

Zerky sniffled. "Well, I was hoping you might have something for this stuffy nose of mine. I've got to make a speech tomorrow, and I can't very well do it sounding like I'm talking through leather."

Stank nodded. He scratched his chin while looking around the room. "I should have something for that. Just give me one tiny second." After hopping off the crate he was sitting on, the skunk hurried around the room, checking the labels on each of the crates. He hummed a little tune while he searched, his big, fluffy tail swaying cheerily from side to side.

"Say Stank," Zerky interjected, "I understand the slimes and the goos - you being an alchemist and all - but what the heck is up with the hats?"

Stank paused and turned his back slightly to look back at the hyon. "It's a long story involving a priest, a dragon, and about fifty bald men." Zerky stared at the skunk with utter confusion, but before he could inquire further, Stank went back to humming and scrounging his crates full of who-knows-what. After a few minutes of the skunk humming, rummaging, and mumbling odd things to himself, Zerky was about ready to give him another nose flick and call the whole thing off. "Eureka!" Stank suddenly shouted.

Zerky perked up and jumped off his crate. "Is that it?" He stared hopefully at the vial in Stank's hand.

"Nope," Stank said with a grin. Zerky snarled, his claws extending from his fingers, but Stank held up another vial in his other hand. "This is it." He chuckled and scurried over to the door. "Just wait here. I need to process it into a slime for you to use. Won't take me more than a minute." With that, he vanished back into the main room of the store.

True to his word, Stank was gone for about a minute. He came back holding a little gun in his paw, with a vial of green liquid attached to the bottom of the barrel. Zerky stared at the little squirt gun, a brow raised in curiosity and concern. "Is this going to be safe?"

Stank laughed. "Of course it's safe. Nine out of ten customers talk about me to their friends." He held the squirt gun up, pointing it at Zerky's face.

"Now when you say 'talk about you,' are you sure they mean that in a good-" Stank pulled the trigger before he could finish the sentence. The squirt gun launched a blob at the hyon's face. Zerky barely had time to yelp before the projectile landed smack dab over his muzzle. It splattered out some, engulfing his cheeks and part of his face, but mainly stuck over his nose and mouth. Zerky stared at the green goo over his face with wide-eyed horror.

Stank just looked pleased with himself. He brought the barrel of the squirt gun to his lips and blew at it, attempting to seem cool. "Don't worry my feline friend, that stuff may look dangerous, but it will quickly absorb into your skin and free your sinuses of any and all blockage in about ten seconds."

Ten seconds passed by. The slime was still there. Another ten seconds passed by, and the slime was still there. Zerky, starting to feel his lungs burn, tried to pull the glob of green goo off with his bare paws. Instead of coming off, the slime stuck to him. Not a moment later, it began to spread, slowly enveloping his face and sliding down his arms.

Zerky's muffled screams seemed to bring Stank into some form of realization. "Huh... That's not supposed to happen." Zerky fell to the floor, writhing and fighting as the slime slowly blanketed his body. "Hold on, let me check my crate. I think I made a mistake."

The slime, though somewhat translucent, made everything blurry. Stank's form looked like a giant blob of black, with stripes of white. Zerky, unable to breath, and feeling less solid, continued to kick and struggle, despite the slime overtaking nearly every inch of his body. The last thing he heard before the world grew cold and the light faded into darkness was Stank's muffled voice saying something about the using the wrong solvent.

"Zerky? Zerky? Hey, wake up buddy." Stank's voice was but an echo in a long hallway. At the end of the hallway was a light, shining brightly, calling, begging, entrancing. "I said wake up!" Zerky felt a slap against his cheek, and a strange feeling of his flesh rippling like water. The light expanded, and he found Stank leaning over him, shining a pocket light into his eyes.

"Wha- What happened?"

The skunk's face brightened when Zerky began to stir. He sighed. "I thought you were a goner there for a second. Well, technically you were - er, are... Um... Well, you aren't not-alive."

The hyon shook his head in confusion. The skunk was speaking nonsense. "Just what the hell are you talking about?" When he went to sit up, his body shifted and moved in a very strange manner. It felt like his entire insides were made of water, and they sloshed into place as he tried to move. "I don't feel so good." He placed a paw over his stomach, and found out two things: his clothes were gone, and his belly was sticky. As Zerky slowly looked down, he felt an impulsive need to scream. "What the hell did you do to me!?" he shouted after yelling loud enough to wake the dead.

Zerky pulled his hand away from his belly, and found that the top layer of what was once skin stuck to it like a string of molasses. The trail arched with gravity until it stretched long enough to touch the floor, coalescing in a small pile of goo. Frantically, Zerky touched everywhere, from head to toe, and found that his body was no longer the fluffy hyena-lion it used to be.

In the midst of Zerky's nervous muttering and flailing about, Stank chimed in, "You're a slime."

Zerky stopped pawing at his gooey body and stared blankly at the skunk. "What did you say?"

"I said, you're a slime. See, I must have grabbed the wrong solvent when I was mixing the solution, and well... It turned you into a slime creature of your former self." His nervous smile did nothing to lighten Zerky's mood, to which the skunk must have noticed. "On the bright side, you don't have to worry about your sinuses being stuffed."

Zerky shook his head. "I don't believe this," he said with a whimper.

Stank sighed. "Look, it's very simple." He reached into his pocket and withdrew and apple. "Just think of yourself like giant, living gelatin." He thrust the apple into Zerky, about where his stomach used to be. He let go of the apple, and it floated languidly about until it started to dissolve. "See, a slime monster. Not so hard to believe, right?" He chuckled and went to pull his paw free, but Zerky's body did not let go. Stank tried to pull it out again, but to no avail. "Uh, Zerky, buddy, pal, you can let go now."

Zerky looked down at the hand stuck inside his gooey body. "Wait. It feels rather... good."

"That's nice," Stank chuckled nervously, "but I really need my hand back if I'm going to fix this."

However, he quickly found that Zerky had stopped listening. "It feels really good. I want more." With a sudden lurch of effort, Zerky pulled Stank's arm in up to his elbow. The new instincts of being a creature of slime were coming to Zerky more rapidly than he thought possible. He felt over the arm in his body, touching the cloth, fur, and skin with a million gooey cells. In that same way, he could taste it too, at least, what he perceived as taste. He let out a loud "Mmmm," that made his body ripple. "This is so amazing. I must have more. More!" His belly sucked Stank's arm in deeper, nearly drawing the skunk's shoulder in. Stank fell to his knees, the sudden shift in weight causing him to fall on top of Zerky. The slime hyon's goo latched onto him like flypaper, the cells of his body grabbing hold of any part of the skunk that touched him.

"Zerky, stop this! I can fix you. I can make you better!" Stank tried to pull free, and for a moment he succeeded in pulling part of his arm out. However, driven by a new desire, Zerky's body tightened over the parts of Stank still trapped within him.

The hyon laughed, his body jiggling as it meandered over the skunk's hip and left leg. "I am better. So much better. I've never felt so powerful, or so... hungry. Let me reward you, Stanky-poo." Zerky threw his arms open and embraced the skunk. His body slathered over the loose clothing that the skunk wore, soaking in and sticking like honey. However, Stank had managed to throw his right arm up and avoid the hug of death.

"That's it, I warned you." The skunk glared, fire in his eyes. Zerky looked up and noticed a vial in the skunk's hand. "This solvent will melt your body into a puddle of water. It won't be pleasant, but it's the only way I can-"

A slimy tentacle lashed up from Zerky's right shoulder and knocked the vial out of Stank's hand. It flew threw the air until it smashed into a faraway crate, spilling the contents harmlessly onto the floor. "You really should have performed your action, rather than talking about it first."

Stank stared blankly at the broken vial. "Ahhhh, crud." The tentacle wrapped around his arm and tugged it down, shoving it into the mass of goo that was Zerky's right arm. The hyon smiled as his body flowed forward, now unhindered by anything. His face rose to meet with Stank's, and for a moment the hyon thought about kissing the skunk. Instead, his 'mouth' opened up, and he engulfed the skunk's head.

Once Stank was fully encased, Zerky used his ever growing knowledge of his new body to reposition and shift large chunk of meat around. To his credit, Stank continued to fight, even though Zerky's body was far more powerful. The skunk managed to shove his head out from Zerky's chest, catching a very brief moment of air before being dragged back inside. Zerky concentrated on where he wanted Stank to be, and what he wanted his own body to look like. It was a new experience, but Zerky learned quickly. In a couple of minutes he had reformed his body so that it resembled his old form, though much more translucent. He positioned Stank in his 'belly', letting his body expand around the area to fit Stank's form. He kept Stank curled into as much of a ball as he could, just in case the skunk tried anything else.

The feeling of having someone stuffed into his new gelatinous body was strange, but very pleasant. It was a similar feeling to having eaten someone whole in his old form, and yet... it was so much more. He could taste with every cell of his body, feel every movement, control the placement of his food, determine how long he kept them in there.

Zerky laid back against a crate, revealing in his superiority and satiated hunger. Stank's fighting was fruitless, but each attempt to move sent a ripple of pleasure through Zerky's entire being. He watched as the skunk's clothes started to dissolve, the cloth going quickly, while the leather taking a bit longer to break down. Stank's movements grew weaker with each passing minute, barely jerking when his body started to dissolve. Zerky spent the next hour fixated on Stank's digestion. The fur and skin had gone in minutes, but the flesh took much longer. The skunk's bones took the longest, but even they succumbed to the amazing acids that were a part of the hyon's slimy body.

With his meal completely over and done with, Zerky sat in the backroom and pondered. He could try and seek out another alchemist who could fix this new state, but dismissed it. He tried to think of tomorrow, and how the speech was going to go being a slime and all, but some strange thoughts kept popping into his head. Whenever he pictured anyone, all he could think about was how delicious they would be. He tried imagining friends and family, but everyone he thought of swiftly went into a mental list of food.

Well this is mildly inconvenient, Zerky thought.

"I'd say it's more than that", came a familiar voice in the hyon's thoughts.

"Who said that?" Zerky looked around the room, ready to pounce.

"Who do you think, you jerk."

"Stank?"

"Who else?" The voice was followed by a rumble from deep within Zerky's body. A strange shape began to form along the top membrane of slime. The shape was just a blob at first, but then it took the form of a muzzle. A very familiar muzzle. "You're a jerk, you know that. A big jerk."

Zerky stared at the muzzle on top of his belly with disbelief. It formed into a face, Stank's face. "How the heck... You're dead! I saw you digest with my own eyes."

"Let's just say I have a contingency plan for these sort of situations. Well... Not this exact situation, mind you, as I appear to be stuck."

"Oh," Zerky said with realization. "You're little resurrection trick seems to have gotten stuck in my slime."

"Yeah... How did you know that?"

Zerky pondered for a moment. "I... don't know. I just had a flash of knowledge in my head. I seem to also know that you've never seen this happen before, and that you have no idea how to fix it."

Stank cursed his luck. "Damn. This isn't good."

Zerky chuckled. His chuckling turned into full blown laughter, causing his body to shake and jiggle like a bowl of dessert. "Oh this is rich! You're trapped inside of me, and I can read your mind. You have the worst luck ever."

"You don't have to point it out!" Stank shouted with an angry huff. "Listen, just take me to Samantha Weltzin. I've adventured with her before, she knows a lot about magic, and she can probably help with our situation. Hopefully. Maybe. If heaven doesn't hate me."

Zerky sat in silence. Images of Samantha folded into his mind like an oragami figure. He saw her battling creatures of evil, casting spells, getting into misadventures with Stank and others. With a grin, the hyon stood up. "Yes, we should go meet with this girl. She looks positively scrumptious."

The face of Stank shouted, "No! Nope, nada, no way, out of the question! You are not eating Sam. I won't let you!" A pair of hand shapes started to appear on Zerky's belly.

With a grunt, the hyon exerted his control over his form and forced Stank's hands and face back into whatever layer of slime they inhabited. "You don't get a say in the matter." He left the storage room and rustled behind the counter for any spare clothes to hide his body. "I'm going to make sure you watch as I devour everyone you call a friend."

"But why?" Stank's voice echoed in the hyon's mind.

"Because being a slime monster has made me ravenous. Because I'm still angry at you. And because at this point the dramatic irony, or poetic justice, of the situation is just too great to pass up."

"It's cause you're a big jerk."

"Shut up." Zerky gave the skunk a mental equivalent to a boot to the head. He donned some robes and hurried out of the shop, plans for obtaining cat food stirring his thoughts.

The End?