MPC 61B: A Mile In Each Other's Skin (Dave Copeland)

Due to one circumstance or another, Ziggy had found himself away from his natural habitat and instead decided to sleep in a hotel last night. Truth be told, his curiosity had simply gotten the better of him, and he was pleasantly surprised at the results of this little experiment. As the first glint of sunlight streaked through the cracks in the room's closed blinds, a single ray hit Ziggy in the face. Unconscious in his deep slumber, he rolled over to try and get the light out of his eyes and regain some comfort.

WHUD!

A sudden feet first fall onto the floor below his raised bed quickly raised poor Ziggy and brought him to his senses. Ugh. And I was having such good dreams. There were all these Ranamon and... The mon trailed off as his thought just sort of trailed off. The fall had left him a bit dazed, it seems. He shook his head and opened his eyes, only to be met with still more darkness. His new form seemed to have a lot of hair that completely covered his eyes, but this fact was lost of Ziggy for the moment. Oh Jesmon Christ Mode, I'VE GONE BLIND!

Ziggy began to hyperventilate for a bit before forcibly calming himself down. No. No. Calm down. There's an explanation for this. There has to be. Maybe someone in the lobby can help. Maybe. Maybe this is a feature of hotels? He had never heard of this before, and couldn't for the life of him understand why anyone would stay in a place like this if this sort of thing was commonplace. Nonetheless, it seemed to be the only logical explanation.

Unable to see anything, Ziggy found a wall with his left hand and began to crawl along it until he reached the door to the hallway of rooms. However, even this proved to be taxing. It seemed his limbs had all become different sizes, and his back legs were significantly longer than his front, making movement incredibly awkward. Every few steps, one of his back legs would slip backward out from under him, occasionally kicking a piece of furniture. On one occasion he knocked over a lamp and heard it smash. They were probably going to make him pay for that.

Finally, after much trial and tribulation, Ziggy was able to reach the door and make his way into the short hallway that leads into the lobby. Once out of his room, he heard a shout about a transformed partner. It seemed someone else was in the same boat as him. "YOu twoo, euh?" Even words were difficult. His whole mouth felt both larger and smaller at the same time. More round, and certainly taking up less of his face than normal. Still, he couldn't dwell on that right now. Perhaps answers lay ahead, and so Ziggy pressed onwards, awkwardly trying to walk on all fours as a quadruped, only to constantly have his long hoof-feet slip out from under him every couple steps.

How am I going to be an optimist about this?

Behind him? Ziggy quickly spun around in the direction of who was talking to him. At least, as quickly as he could while still trying to move in this body like a brain-addled quadruped. Though, given the circumstance, that wasn't entirely inaccurate. Why was he going the wrong way? The signals sent by the ears to the brain wasn't a learned behavior, so that shouldn't be affected by his current predicament. Was it due to his current muddled state? Or possibly the man behind the keyboard misreading the previous post? Either was equally viable as an explanation.

In the awkward twirl 'round, some of the hair in front of Ziggy's eyes fluttered and he caught a glimpse of....himself? Now that he realized he wasn't blind and just had fur, he took his hands and parted it, allowing him full sight again. Not quite full, actually. It seemed he had a greater focus on things right in front of him, and didn't have quite as large a field of view. An ok trade-off, if not a bit disorienting. There was no longer any doubt, now that he could see. The ModokiBetamon before him was himself. Foreign eyes probably thought all digimon of a particular species looked the same and truth be told, Ziggy had trouble telling some humans apart. However, just as they can recognize individuals without flaw or exception, so too can he recognize himself.

While Kenny spoke to him, Ziggy was only half listening. Most of his focus was on his own mouth. While trying to pay as much attention as he could, he was moving it about in every way he could, stretching and relaxing all the muscles associated with it until he learned how to actually work the thing. "Well," Oh good. It was working. "I have no idea." While blatant and curt, this was the absolute truth. As he racked his brain for information about non-digivolution, non-reincarnation based transformations, Ziggy came up blank.

Only one possibility came into his head, and it was not one that focused on the how or why, but on what. What to do now? Not how to fix it, but simply how to proceed. "We may just have to live like this now." It may be preemptive to simply give in like this. However, with no ideas, Ziggy had no leads. Nowhere to start an investigation. "If I'm you, and you're me, I think all we can do is teach each other how to use each other's bodies and just hope for the best."

Over the course of this, more hair had fallen back into Ziggy's eyes, and he brushed it out, as he had before. This time, however, he noticed his hands. They had those tiny tentacle things. What were they called again? Flingers? That sounded about right, but maybe not. This entire time, they had been rigid and unmoving, even as Ziggy moved about on all fours. Holding one arm out towards Skadi and Kenny, he posed one of the questions that has puzzled him for nearly his whole short life. "How do I use the hand tentacles?"

How am I going to be an optimist about this?