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The first time  Peter  had walked into  the  ASA,the  other  agents had  laughed.After all,most of the field agents had sleek daemons like cats,or dangerous ones like wolves and scorpions.Souls that could bite,sting,poison  and  charm without pause.Peter Gambi’s soul was none  of that.

Calypso was a hen.

A plain hen who walked with a waggle and clucked .That first day some of the predator daemon had snapped their teeth  at her, while their  humans looked at Gambi like he was less  than the dirt on their shoes.

Head held high,Gambi hadn’t let them bother him.He’d known of the  bets they placed.

“He won’t last a week…”

“Ha!You’re overestimating him,that daemon of his will be fried  chicken  by the  end  of their  first mission…”

Except he  had, he’d  made  it through his first mission,his second, and  a month  later,the hallways were  quiet when they walked past.Cats climbed on desks to get away from Calypso  and none  of the others even dared look at them the  wrong way.They were finally seeing them for  what they were.

A first glance,chickens were just a food source.People often forgot about the sharp beak and even sharper claws.

Together they moved through the ranks  of  the  ASA at a blinding speed,their  kill count  the  highest the agency had ever seen.For a time,Gambi thought they were at their  strongest,then along came Jefferson Pierce.

Alone,scared out of  his mind,and  with  his daemon unconsciously taking  the  form  of  fluffy day old  chick  at the sight of  Calypso-they’d never stood  a chance.Surprisingly enough,it was after taking Jefferson and  his daemon in that Gambi and Calypso learnt what true strength  was.Before them,they’d been cold and calculating, after them they were still those things,but with the fiery heat of parental love awakened in them,the two of them just became plain deadly.

“You can’t have them”He told his bosses at the ASA.They’d tried to placate him,and when that failed they’d tried to bully him.In answer Calypso had let out a low cluck, and puffed her chest,ready to fight as Gambi told the ASA exactly what he had on them.

“Kill me, don’t kill me,either way if you step out of line,I’ll blow this place up with you in it”They’d walked out of headquarters for the last time that day,and when a little chick had ran up to greet Calypso as soon as they walked through the door-hiding under her wing,Gambi had known they’d made the right choice.

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Jeff had expected Malia to settle the day Tobias  killed his  father.The man’s polar bear tossing  his father’s hummingbird up in the air  and snapping her between  its  jaws  had  broken something in him.But  instead  of settling,Malia had  shifted  from form to  form so fast, Jeff’s head had spun, just as lost and confused as he was.

When Gambi came Jeff latched on to the comfort he brought,happy to let an adult handle things.And watching Malia,cling to Calypso her form that of a fluffy hatchling had Jeff even more at ease(she hadn’t really been trusting on other daemons since the murder).

That first year with Gambi,Jeff didn’t talk much and Malia was always in the form of a some baby bird,safely tucked under Calypso’s wing.

For the longest time Jeff was certain she was going to settle as form of a bird.But the first time he walked the streets of Freeland in an ill fitting black lightning suit,a panther materialized at his side-visible only to him,now that he’d honed the skill to hide his soul.

“This feels like home’She’d said,letting out a roar,and Jeff couldn’t help but agree.Calypso had still fussed over her as Gambi patched him up.It was quite a funny sight watching a huge panther being cowed by a chicken.

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Before she was a doctor,before she was a wife and way before she was a mother.Lynn Stewart had been a rebellious, and her daemon Azara even more so.No one saw that side  of her anymore,even Jeff had only seen glimpses of it when they’d gotten married,but now Azara hid his true nature.

She stayed curled  up  on Lynn’s shoulders as she worked.Imitating a simple domestic cat and sheathing her claws.

“Our wayward days are behind us”Lynn often whispered and her daemon purred in agreement.

They stayed true to that statement until her the lives of her daughters were in danger.Then the claws came out full force.She wielded her shotgun, and Azara clawed her way through daemon,none of the tameness she liked feigning showing.When Lynn went for Dr Jace,Azara toyed with the  woman’s rat daemon’s sparks o gold light falling off whenever his claws struck.Simply enjoying watching it  squirm.

“The next time you cross  us,I will eat you”Azara told the  vermin just as Lynn cracked the other doctor’s  skull against the  floor.

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Cora  settles as a dog.

Anissa’s parents knew that she liked girls long before she did,or at least had an idea.It wasn’t always the case,but the majority of people whose daemons were the same gender as them often did,and Cora like Anissa,was also female.

Accepting herself and coming out had never been an issue,so Cora settling was a smooth transition.

What had been an issue was learning to calm herself.

For the longest time she flitted from relationship to relationship.Her golden retriever dancing around the legs of the girls she liked.Giving mournful barks when they broke up,or if it wasn’t a peaceful parting-she’d be all teeth,standing in front of Anissa and staring down another daemon.When she became a superhero Cora was right there, her bark toppling buildings alongside her thunder clap.They looked at the world and they set out to change it-breaking rules if need be,blatantly ignoring their Dad and Malia.

“They’re too old to realize the world needs something new,”They’d reasoned.

Then along had come Grace and Azaa-her cheetah daemon.

They didn’t see Cora and think-‘Oh, a golden retriever-nice and loyal-domestic even,’They saw the predator-the protector, and didn’t try to change them.It was a new feeling,to be able to run as free as they wanted, knowing that they weren’t expected to fit a mould.

Then Grace and Azaa  disappeared and it felt like a spear through the heart.The two of them had gone a bit mad afterwards-taking more and more risks.Until the day they’d almost died-with Anissa almost being unmasked.

They’d barely made it out, and as they’d lain shaking in the dark,they’d made a promise to each other.

“We’ll be better, for Grace and Azaa,when we find them,we’ll show them how much we’ve matured,”

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Jen is twelve when Marceaux takes a final form…a peacock.

It’s not because of trauma, or some other deep emotion.They just decide one day that it’s time and Marceaux shifts accordingly.Since  both of them have a flair for the dramatic, they make a show out of their presentation.

She dresses in her Sunday best,puts on a plastic tiara and they strut downstairs.Her daemon’s tail feathers splayed,dragging behind his body.

Her parents nearly have heart attacks at the news and Jen laughs until she almost passes out,with Marceaux letting out gentle trills of his own.Though they settle early, it  takes years for them to grow into themselves.

At first people look at the peacock,see its beauty and assume Jen is vain(which is true-to an extent), but she’s also fierce, and when push comes to shove, she can stand her ground.They grow into someone Jen’s proud of, and the day she becomes Lightning, Marceaux flies beside her,the two of them leaving a golden trail in their wake.

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Growing up,Khalil had always thought Zlatta would settle as a dog.

Having  taken more hard knocks from an early  age than a lot  of people take in a lifetime.Khalil was  certain he  knew  who he was,and therefore what Zlatta was going  to  settle as.Sure she was a bit rougher around the  edges than he was,a bit  cold and wary-but she was going to settle as a dog-he was certain  of it.

After all Khalil was determined,mostly  friendly and protective of the ones he  cared about.

How could she be anything else?

Then came the march,and come morning,everything Khalil thought he knew about himself was thrown to the winds.

He stared down at his legs,touched them,but no matter how hard he tried,he  couldn’t feel or move them.At  his side,Zlatta went from  german shepherd  to pitbull to Tosa Inu,but for once canine forms didn’t settle him the way they usually did.She nosed his unmoving limbs from time to time,her pitiful howls filling the room before she moved back to settle by his side,laying her head on his chest.

The night Tobias Whale came to visit, she took one look at his polar bear and changed into a tortoise- hiding in her shell until the older man was gone.

***

“He’s offering us a way out, we have to take it,”No matter how hard Khalil tried she  wouldn’t listen, but Khalil was just as stubborn as she was,and kept on pushing.

“His bear reeked of daemon dust,”She finally snapped one day after Khalil-who’d once again been the object of a mean prank(courtesy of the jocks), had tried to trick his Mom into signing the consent forms.

She was in the form of a horse-blocking his the way to his bedroom door-and he wheeled himself towards her, his resolve wavering for the first time.

“Are you sure?”She neighed in response, bringing her head down,and allowing their foreheads to touch.And for the first time since the shooting, it didn’t feel like Khalil’s world was collapsing around him.

“We’ll find some other way, but Tobias Whale is not the key to you walking again,”

She morphed into a bird, flying up and getting a lighter from the kitchen’s top shelf and returning with it.They burnt Tobias’ forms in silence, and during his call to the man,he lied through his teeth saying his Mom had refused to sign, Zlatta turned into a snake then,winding her way up his arm and whispering the right things to say into his ear.

In the end Tobias let them go, and when Khalil put his phone down, it felt like he’d just been in the fight of his life.They went to bed early that night, and in the morning Zlatta was still a snake, grey scales glinting in the morning sun.

“I like this form-I’m keeping it,”

***

Her form  turned out to be pretty useful.He couldn’t reach stuff on high shelves anymore,but black mambas could raise most of their body off the ground,something Zlatta did regularly to help him out so that he didn’t have to rely on his Mom.

The fact that she was cold blooded also made it easier for him to stomach having a blanket covering his legs-he liked to pretend it was just for her.

The blanket ended up playing another role neither of them had planned for.Because Khalil had taken to bringing the blanket with him to school, no one had actually seen Zlatta’s final form.Most of them assumed she was something small and fragile to deal with the trauma, and when they realized this,the two of them decided to play along.

That of course ended on in the middle of school assembly with the entire student body there.

One of the idiots that thought being bullies made them better than everyone else sat directly behind him, and kept tilting Khalil’s wheelchair up minutely.Threatening to topple him each time he did so.

He did it one time too many and Khalil finally turned, landing a square hit on his jaw.

The area around them erupted, his dumb friends coming to the rescue, and one of them actually tried to lift Khalil off his chair before he let out a pained scream and fell backwards. A silver blur danced amongst the daemons of the bullies, barely lingering before it was on to the next one, leaving petrified daemon behind.

Job done,Zlatta returned to him, only this time she didn’t hide under the blanket.She coiled around his neck,looking more like a ringed necklace than a predator, and Khalil gently touched her coils in thanks.

The teachers were swarming them, and Mr Pierce grabbed his handles and turned him around- he gave Khalil the most disappointed look ever.

“Young man, shifting into anything venomous during fights is prohibited-for obvious reasons,”

“Change your daemon into something without fangs, all of you are headed to my office,”If Khalil somehow managed to escape suspension, he was pretty sure his Mom was going to ground him(not that he really went anywhere anymore), but there was no way he was going quietly.

“They started it,we were just defending ourselves…”The other teachers began helping up the stunned students, and Khalil was jerked back, and the Headmaster began steering him towards the doors(he was certain if the older man hadn’t been holding the handles he’d be strangling someone).

“Khalil-shift now,”In response Khalil folded his arms, he caught sight of Jen and Marceaux in the crowd, and when he spoke up-his attention was fixed on them-after his Mom,Jen had been the first person he’d wanted to tell.She gave him a tiny smile, and a small bloom of hope sprouted in Khalil’s heart-he still had a chance.

“This is our final form,”All the whispers died down at the revelation, and Zlatta raised her head.She was scared-just like he was, but most of the teachers and students thought she was about to attack and jumped back…only Mr Pierce and his panther remained.

Well, at least now his wheelchair wouldn’t be the first thing people thought of when they saw him, he smirked all the way to the office.