The Siren's Call

[Rubilax]

This story is a little something I wrote as I was recovering from a bout of food poisoning. It's heavily based on Borderlands 2, but I tried to keep it accessible enough so that even someone who's never heard of Borderlands would be able to understand the terminology. Criticism is, as always, encouraged. Enjoy

Out on a savage and distant border world, a masked man was lecturing himself on the virtues of cannibalism. Sanity was a distant memory to this hunched figure, as were his name and age. But these were of little importance to the mad man, as his thoughts were more concerned about grocery carts made out of meat than reclaiming his mind.

Normally, the Psycho would be with others who had embraced the rampant insanity of Pandora. This had been the case up until several hours ago, when a pair of Vault Hunters had turned his camp into a smoking, slag encrusted crater. Left with nothing but his well-worn spinning axe, he dredged through the aptly-named Dust searching for loot, babies, or preferably a combination of the two.

"I'll build a scooter out of your intestines!" He screamed at no one in particular.

As if in response to his rambling, a sandskiff barreled over the dune he was walking beside. The Psycho barely had time to jump out of the way before a bandit technical lunged after the skiff, its passengers whooping and hollering obscenities at the top of their lungs.

"Skag-suckling midget lovers!" The Psycho shouted after them, but they were already gone. As he got back on his feet, he noticed that something had fallen off of the sandskiff. It was a chest, similar to the ones that Nomads used to store their ill-gotten loot. Underneath his mask, the Psycho grinned maniacally.

"Today's my lucky day!" He shrieked as he walked over to the chest. He pulled his axe out from his belt and with a mighty shout, he brought it down on the chest. The lock flashed red for a moment before it opened to reveal its contents.

It was a class mod. No axes, hats, or, worse of all, salt shakers, were to be found. The only thing in the chest was a book-shaped device with gold and grey accents. Confusion briefly clouded Psycho's glowing eyes, only to dissipate a moment later he excitedly ripped the loot from the chest.

"Another trophy for the wall!" he exclaimed as he hung the class mod from his belt. He may have had no use for anything that was sharp or sticky, but he was always happy to get his hands on some loot.

The shirtless lunatic resumed his trek through desert, unaware of the small sparks that were coming off of his newly-acquired prize. His maniacal thoughts were interrupted by a sudden tightness in his back.

"I need a spine tingling!" he grunted as he pinched his shoulders together. His back cracked as vertebrate painlessly popped into new positions.

"Much better," The Psycho said as he stood up to his full height of 5 foot 10 for the first time in years. He barely noticed this, however, as he lost five inches just as quickly in response to his body's changing proportions.The Psycho's gait gained a slight sway as his hips slowly expanded outwards with each passing step. His muscular waist lost some of its girth as it curved inwards, emphasizing his ever-widening hips. His shoulders compacted inwards while his legs lengthened, allowing him to regain two of his lost inches. His arms and head diminished slightly in order to better fit his new frame as his feet shrunk my several sizes.

He scratched at his mask to relieve an itch that had appeared underneath it. Normally, that would suffice, but instead of fading away, the itch intensified and began to spread across the rest of his face. After several minutes of fruitless scratching the Psycho screamed in annoyance.

"Peel the flesh!" He yelled as his frantically undid the straps that tightly secured his mask to his face. With mighty pull, he ripped the mask off, exposing his face to the sun. If the Psycho remembered what his face looked like, he would have been unable to recognize himself in a mirror. The cheekbones were too high, his chin was too round, his jaw line was too soft and his face was too long and oval-like. His new nose was thin and round in contrast to the thick and squarish one he'd been born with. The gap between his eyes had grown and the flat, bushy eyebrows that once sat on his brow were now two long pencil-thin lines that curved upwards. His large, blue eyes had been replaced by narrow orbs so devoid of color that they appeared a translucent white, while his thin lips were now full. The rough and average features of the insane ex-convict were now elegant, intelligent and undoubtedly female.

The Psycho did not notice that he now had the face of a goddess. He was too busy yelling at his mask for 'betraying' him. The conversation went on for another couple of minutes, which was enough time for other changes to take place. His fingers lost their callouses as they thinned, becoming slightly more feminine. The transformation slowly spread across the rest of his body, removing the multitude of scars from past, mostly self-inflicted, injuries. His skin lost the permanent tan he'd gained from many shirtless years under Pandora's harsh sun as it softened and paled. As the changes reached his face, a pair of grey dots about the size of an index finger appeared under her left eye while a trio of small, parallel scars formed on her left cheekbone.

"...sacred coils of urine that squish together the brotherhood of sweat and..." The Psycho's one sided conversation was interrupted by a sudden rumbling in his stomach.

"Getting hungry" He said, as he patting his midsection. A look of shock and horror appeared on face as he discovered that his rock-hard six pack was now gone.

"My abs are missing!" The Psycho exclaimed, gazing in horror at his now flat stomach. The gurgling sensation spread into his other muscles. He cried in protest as his sinuous musculature faded and tightened to better suit his new, wiry proportions.

"Mommy won't love me without my pecs" He shouted to the skies, dropping his mask as he grabbed his chest to emphasize the loss of his muscles. This act triggered a chemical change that had lain dormant until now. The gratuitous amounts of testosterone that coursed through the Psycho's veins mutated into estrogen. His nipples hardened and doubled in size as hormones flooded his body, preparing it for the sudden gains it was about to receive.

The Psycho's attention was diverted as a new, rippling sensation gripped his lower half. His eyes widened as he watched the seat of his pants get pushed outward as the flesh beneath it began to grow.

"Only boiling flesh should bubble!" he cried out as his butt swelled to match his hips. His pants tightened as if to emphasize his posterior while reversing in color from a dark orange to an equally dark blue. A modicum of fat spread up into his waist to add further curve to his torso.

His butt cheeks soon achieved the sort of round firmness that would turn heads in a monastery. Not wanting to feel left out, the Psycho's legs underwent a similar transformation. Fabric stretched as it struggled to contain the growing tide of muscle and fat that was pushing out from his thighs. The pouch strapped right thigh was absorbed into the pants, becoming an over-sized grey pocket as the straps on his left thigh underwent a similar absorption. The brown material of the various straps widened and spread across his the sides of his thighs and the front of his knees to form asymmetrical patches that were the same color as the newly-added pocket. His knee pads vanished into thin air while his studded metal boots changed into a pair dark grey runners with black soles and yellow accents. The bottom of the pants that had been bunched up just under his knees came loose and fell down to his ankles where a pair of leather straps secured each pant leg against those of the changing Psycho. Just as his legs finished their expansion, the crotch of his pants tightened drastically.

"My meat and bones!" The Psycho cried as his genitals were forced up against his groin. He grabbed at the crotch of the pants and tried to give his groin some room to breathe. The efforts were in vain as his grey boxers collapsed in on themselves and became a pair of black panties that squeezed his dick and balls tighter than ever before. Normally, the Psycho would have happily accepted the pain as an old and dear friend, but this was unlike any torture that he and his kin inflicted upon themselves on an hourly basis. He tried to force his hand into his pants, only for the waistline and belt to tightened even further. The pressure in his groin continued to mount, pushing his genitals further and further against his body until...

Shluurp

With the sound of a wet vacuum, his testicles were sucked up into his body. The sensation was almost orgasmic as balls became eggs, a dick became a clit and a man became a woman.

"What is this?!" The now-female lunatic shrieked as she tried to understand what was happening to her body. Normally, she would have screamed an inane expression, but part of her that cause her to blurt out her twisted desires was beginning to fad. The haze of excessively and meaninglessly violent thoughts was clearing as sanity clawed its way back into her mind.

But just as she was coming to terms with what was going on, her pecs began to feel strange. Looking down at her chest, she could see cones emerging out from behind her enlarged nipples as mammary glands formed beneath them

"Chest missiles?" She said, tentatively grabbing the expanding bumps in her hands. The Psycho shrieked as they exploded in size on contact. Fat poured in her chest like a waterfall as she struggle to cup her growing breasts. Endorphins flooded her brain, causing her to moan as her Adam's apple receded. Her animalistic rasp raised in pitch, becoming soft, smoother and more pleasing to the ears as the soft and supple tissue continued to flow outwards.

When her mammaries reached apex size, the Psycho's spine pinched inwards, thrusting her chest out to world. The shift in her body's posture as well as her center of gravity but her off balance, but she managed to catch herself before she could fall over. As her breasts jiggled from the sudden motion, the Psycho couldn't help but whistle in approval. While they weren't nearly as big as Moxxi's, they were still pretty impressive.

As she righted herself, she noticed that the glove on her right arm was repairing itself. Holes were patched up and fingers were replaced as the glove shifted from worn out leather to synthetic black. The metal studs stretched into metal plates that covered the back of the glove as well as the first joint of each finger while grey accents appeared on each finger tip. The sleeve on her forearm fused with glove as it gained the same color and texture as the glove. She watched in amazement as the black kevlar spread up her right arm, over her shoulder, and down her front and back. It encircled around her neck like a cobra, avoiding her left arm and shoulder as the material continued to spread across her body. A black sports bra was conjured from midair just as the kevlar wrapped itself around her bosom. When it reached her waist, The synthetic material on either side of her body tapered inwards, slipped into her pants and the reconnected just below crotch in a manner not dissimilar to a one-piece swimsuit. The right hip of the pants rose just above the hip, leaving her left hip exposed. Plates of yellow and grey combat weave poured out from the black kevlar to encase her in a figure-hugging, protective shell.

As her upper body finished clothing itself, the class mod the Psycho had picked struck her hand with a bolt of blue energy.

"Ouch!" She exclaimed, reeling back from the shock. As she rubbed her sore hand, she noticed the strange marking where the book had hit her. It erupted into a blinding glow a moment later, forcing the Psycho to divert her eyes as blue whorls swirled around her hand. The alien designs became increasingly elaborate as they scrawled their way up her arm, onto her shoulder and across the left side of her body. Her eyes glowed blue as ancient power flowed into her and lifted her off the ground. The uncontrolled rage that dictated her every life was stamped out and replaced with a calm that the Psycho hadn't felt even before she had gone insane. Hair exploded from her head, rapidly descending into a cyan bob cut.

A second bolt of energy struck the Psycho's beloved axe. Sharp edges were replaced by smooth curves as the simple and savage weapon became elegant and complex. Just before the final stage of her transformation came to a close, the axe had taken on the smooth curves and colors of a Maliwan SMG.

"Woah," She said, opening a pair of glowing, intelligent eyes as her mind was rewritten. The memories of her former life as madman were systematically wiped from her mind as new ones took root. She remembered being raised and trained from an early by the warrior-monks of the Order of the Impending Storm in their monastery on the planet Athenas. She also remembered burning said-monastery to the ground with her mind when she learned what her mentors had been using her for, and then coming to Pandora in order to learn more about who, or more precisely what she was.

The glow from the tattoos that marked her heritage faded as blush, eyeliner and a lipstick that perfectly matched the color of her hair applied themselves to the smooth contours of her face. As the 24 year old woman slowly floated back to the ground, the last ounce of insanity was purged from her being as a name formed in her mind.

Maya

With that, Maya snapped out of the trance she had fallen in. She blinked once, shaking the cobwebs from her head.

"That was odd," she muttered to herself. She looked around for any signs of bandit activity, but didn't see any. In the distance, she spotted the outline of a train station, the same one she'd been driving towards before the outrunner she'd 'acquired' from some bandits had run out of fuel. Funny, she thought, I could have sworn that wasn't there a minute ago.

Without another word, the Siren walked towards the station and her future. She didn't notice the white mask that lay just a few short feet away from her, let alone care when it was swallowed by the sands.


Authors Note the Second: My next story is still under construction, but starting next week I'll be posting snippets of it on a tri-weekly basis. If all goes well, It should be completed by the end of the month.