“Rynix,
you have to stop! It’s over. You look fine.”

Rynix
looked pointedly at the tiny child’s reflection for just a moment, before he
continued to gaze at the sight of himself in the mirror. “Are you kidding me? I
started out as a Goiba and became this?” I could tell that my heated words made
her cringe, but I ignored her somber look in favor of attempting to smash the
empty potion bottle. Even with six legs, he failed, and it rolled helplessly on
the wooden floor of the attic. “They said that this would make me beautiful.
That you’d stop getting teased.” The opposite was seemingly true to the creatu,
as he ruffled the soft wings that were encased in a hard, silver shell.

The
pair, in company with the girl’s parents, had moved to the small town for a
change of pace, but left and right they were met with conflict. It had been
impossible for them to find acquaintances, let alone friends in a place where
soft creatu like Leverene and Zenirix prevailed. Even strong creatu like Vogar
could fit into a certain crowd of tough-necked teenagers, but neither of these
groups had accepted Rynix. The moment they had laid eyes on his smooth,
vulnerable, and slightly slimy skin, goofy-looking shell, and stubby antennae,
he and his companion were turned away and ridiculed to no end. Get a life and
maybe you can be friends with us. Or, better yet, Reyna, if you get a better
creatu, maybe we’ll talk. But until then? Consider yourselves losers.

“Rynix,
I already told you, it’s okay. I don’t care if you’re an Intes—”

“Which
I am now. So glad I have two shells on my back instead of one. Maybe it’ll be
easier to deflect the rotten berries they’ll hurl at us when we go outside.”

“—or
a Goiba. I honestly just want you to be happy, alright?” My owner stood behind
me as I continued to give my new image a cutting look. “You’re all out of
potions. I know how desperately you wanted to be, like, an Iluvu. But girls
like insects too!”

“Correction—you
like insects. Most other teenage girls I know are terrified and disgusted by
me.” To this, he received a calculating look, but no further argument was made.
“And that’s definitely not the last one. That can’t be the last one! We picked
up like twenty of these things, there’s gotta be more, there’s gotta—” Reyna
frowned, pained, as Rynix scrambled along the floor, checking each bottle for
even a drop of usable potion.

She
had assumed his search was futile, but was startled by his sudden shout. “Here!
Here, there’s one left.” Eying the mirror, and then the random morphing potion
perched precariously in his grasp, he felt almost helpless. All of the worst
possible outcomes flashed before his eyes – could this thing turn him mutant?
What if he was even more terrifying than he already was? What if, what if, what
if—

“Just…
Just drink it.”

The
softness that her tone had taken upon surprised Rynix, and he nearly dropped
his means of change, but collected himself. “Huh?” Honestly, Rynix had known
all along that she was highly opposed to the idea of changing himself for
something that she believed so trivial… but he hadn’t expected to show him any
sort of support.

“It’s
honestly okay. This… I don’t like this whole idea at all. But, let me say
something—if you take this random morphing potion, you have to be happy with
who you are. We’re not going to get any more.” She crouched down to his eye
level, and while some might have squirmed, Reyna honestly wasn’t bothered by
the mandibles. “And if you’re worried about it, you know you’ll still be my
best pal no matter what. Forget all those—” She almost gagged at the word, but
continued. “—haters. It sounds cheesy, I know. But we’ll just be us and if they
don’t like it, whatever.”

Rynix
wasn’t a crier, not at all. He wasn’t even sure if his bug body would allow him
to cry, but he’d be darned if he wasn’t about to shed a tear then and there.
“I… okay. This is the last time. One last chance.”

With
that, Reyna rose, turning her hardened gaze directly to the mirror. “Let’s do
this.” She helped him bring the bottle to his mouth, and waited as the final
amount was gone.

Rynix
felt nothing at first (the other reactions had been practically instantaneous)
and was prepared to curse himself, but stopped when he felt his entire body
start to lightly vibrate. Before he could say "Kioka," his
exoskeleton began to dissolve right before his eyes, and the room was filled
with a blinding blue light.

"Ah!"
Both of them gasped, and Reyna tried desperately to shield her eyes to see what
was happening. "What's happening? None of this was on the warning
label!" She had almost considered blinding moving forward to see if she
could at least feel where Rynix was, but she didn't need to—as soon as the
light had come, it faded, slowly.

Instead
wings, shell, and insect legs, there was a whole new being before the mirror
that neither of them could recognize. The smooth skin wrapped around a lean,
almost dragonlike frame seemed to glitter in the ambient light, causing a bit
of light the gleam on the floor. Instead of simply one pair of eyes, there were
two, whose laserlike quality was almost enough to make them both bl
ink and look
away. Long ears rotated as they adjusted to the small amount of sound in the
attic, enjoying their new quality.

"I'm
perfect." It was only at that moment Reyna realized that she had been
holding her breath for almost a minute as she looked at her friend. "A
Wyrae." Nothing
more needed to be said. Almost as swiftly as the change had happened, Reyna
embraced her creatu, laughing. "I'm glad you finally see what I've always
seen."

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oh god the formatting on this is awful!! if you need a better-looking copy please feel free to ask and i'll try to do something better!! also copy pasting into a word doc could work! this was an app for rynix.