Flicking his tail Xb rolls into the water. He's waiting for Xisuma so they can discuss the changes happening so far. As he swims around he blows a small stream of bubbles out.

Walking in Xisuma perches on the edge of the water, he leans over slightly and starts the conversation., "So, what's happening instinct wise?" He asks.

Bobbing underwater for a moment Xb leans against the floor, "Uh, hunting, I guess and I'm attracted to sea lanterns."

Xisuma nods and gently splashes the water with his tail, "Um, how's being in the water?"

"I don't really mind it, at first it made me feel a little sick but I think that was the size of the area I had."

Nodding Xisuma agrees, "Probably, is something else bothering you?"

"The Vex deal, they won't say what they are going to do," XB shrugs, "We can trust them, but it's still really scary."

With a soft smile, Xisuma flicks his tail and splashes Xb, "Whatever happens it'll be better than what the meteor is doing."

Xb smiles back, "You're right, it can't get much worse than this."

Xisuma sighs, as Xb flicks his tail up out of the water, he grins before splashing Xisuma. The admin jumps back and bristles his spines. Xb laughs as Xisuma splutters.

Before Xisuma has the chance to do anything Xb ducks underwater and swims out to the main area.

Xisuma rolls his eyes and walks over to the big platform.

Doc is sitting with his legs in the water as he explains something to Xb. He pulls himself onto land and gently kicks his tail.

"The meteor is probably going to go dormant soon," Doc explains, "and uh, Scar told me the Vex want you to know how to hunt before they start to change what happened."

Wrinkling his nose Xb blinks down at Doc, "That's a bit concerning."

Shrugging Doc nods, "The vex work in strange ways, it could be a warning or it could be out of interest or even just mild concern."

Xisuma nods to himself before silently leaving the arena.

Doc pokes Xb a little so he flops back into the water, "Ok so, we both are ambush predators, when I hunt I crouch and stay like that until fish swims by. When you hunt you do the same thing and lay on a ledge until you find a fish."

As Doc paces, Xb swims along. Not really minding the creeper's way of explaining things. After a few minutes of instruction and explanations, Doc has Xb swim to the bottom of the arena and lay on a rock until the fish swim by.

It's interesting, ever since he's been transformed his energy was weird. Not like he has less energy or is overly tired, but he doesn't feel the need to move around after sitting still for a long time. He hasn't been able to decide if it's a side effect of being twice his normal size and it's just a way to conserve energy, or if it's part of the transformation. Causing him to sit still and not move as much. Shaking his head he looks over at the school of fish that is circling closer.

Biffa had managed to convince him that his newly acquired taste for raw fish is ok, it's not going to hurt him. It had taken him quite a bit of time to convince him.

The fish swimming above his head circle around before floating down. Once in range Xb darts up and grabs one. Grinning he brings it back to the surface to show Doc.

"Good job," Doc grins, "I should warn you, uh you've gotten really lucky so far. You probably won't always catch your prey."

Xb nods, "Yeah, I didn't think it would be that easy."

"I think you've gotten the basics down," Doc smiles softly, "So, the meteor is going dormant again later today."

Xb's face noticeably brightens at that, "I will be glad this is over."

"I don't blame you," Doc murmurs, "The meteor has been pretty nasty to you."

Looking down at his body Xb laughs a little, his tale flops on the warm concrete, "One good thing has come from this."

"And what might that be?" Doc grins.

"I can give really good hugs now."

Doc snorts, "You do give good hugs."

As they talk a small flake of blue magic floats down and lands on Xb's tale. A Vex pops into existence as Xb gasps, his spines puffing out slightly.

"Oh sorry about that," The Vex giggles, "We didn't want to startle you."

"It's ok," Xb waves his hand. As he deflates to normal size the Vex explains what's happening.

"Since the meteor is just about dormant again his magic is pliable so it will be easily altered," The Vex turns to Xb, "We don't know where our magic will start working but you should return to a normal size soon," With that, the Vex fizzles out of existence.

Shrugging Xb lays back down and lets Doc inspect his tail.

"We should try to figure out just how you propel yourself through the water," Doc hums.

"Uh, what exactly do you mean by that?"

"You don't really have knees, but you do have a more flexible part of your tail. Do you move more at the waist or at the flexible part of the tail?"

"It depends, normal swimming around I think I move more from the waist but if I need to do tight corners I'll use the bottom half of my tail."

Xb sucks in a breath as his vision seems to waver, pressing his stomach against the concrete he clutches at his head. When Doc sees what's happening he rushes over.

As Xb shrinks back to his usual size, tears form in his eye. Doc gently rubs his back before picking him up, bracing him against the wall, and carefully giving him some water after he's back to his normal size.

Opening his eye Xb squints at Doc for a moment before trying to shuffle away. His spines fully puff up as he panics slightly.

"Hey, it's ok, you shrunk back to your normal size," Doc explains as Xb takes a deep breath to calm himself down.

Motioning for Doc to head inside, he rolls off the side of the platform. Xb darts underwater and into his room. Shaking off the feeling that everything is suddenly huge he meets Doc by the bean bag.

Doc helps him out of the water and onto the bean bag. He frowns as Xb wraps the blanket around himself.

"Do you want me to have someone grab you a normal-sized shirt and some shorts?" Doc asks after Xb has completely burritoed himself in the blankets.

"That would be awesome," His muffled voice calls back.

Doc smiles at the little merman, before grabbing his communicator and shooting a message to Keralis asking if he could bring over some clothes that would actually fit Xb. He had been wearing a black swim top with a cut out along the sides to accommodate his gills. A few hours after his transformation a watcher had dropped it off.

Xb feels the wave of pure exhaustion wash over him and allows himself to fall into the realms of sleep. When Doc walks back over he smiles softly before carefully moving Xb over into a proper bed.

A few hours later Xb starts to wake up and yawns, he rolls deeper into his blanket before feeling something a bit off. One of his legs is bent. With a startled yelp he rolls off the bed and onto the floor as he tries to escape the blanket.

Biffa had apparently replaced Doc at some point, and he rushes over to help. He helps pull Xb out of the blanket.

Once free, Xb winces at the cold floor, pulling a shirt on as he shivers slightly. Biffa tosses his hoodie over.

"Thanks," Xb smiles.

"Doc doesn't want you to walk around just yet," Biffa says as he helps Xb back on his bed.

"Ok, so we wait until he gets back?" Xb asks as he carefully bends his leg.

"Yep."

After a few minutes, the creeper runs in and over to Xb where he looks at his legs, "We're going to take this a little slow. Can you stand up for me?"

Nodding Xb smiles then slowly stands up, his legs feel a little bit weird. Wobbling a bit he looks up, "So that went well."

"You're standing weird," Doc murmurs.

Biffa sits on the floor, crossing his legs he leans over and gently pokes at Xb's knee, "Your oddly tense, relax a bit."

"I feel like I'm going to fall if I do that."

"Relax just a little," Doc instructs, "We'll catch you."

Sighing, Xb relaxes a little, and his leg curves back a bit too far.

Doc frowns, "And that doesn't hurt?"

"It feels fine," Xb answers.

"His muscles have moved around a bit, probably so it's easier to form the tail."

After a moment of silence, Xb takes a small step, as he stumbles his way over to Doc he starts walking properly. Of course, he stumbles and falls a few times but such is life. He keeps going and a few minutes later is walking pretty well.

Sitting down at the table Xb looks at his legs and smiles. It had been a week since he had had legs. As he eats some food a prickly feeling washes over small parts of his legs.

"Oh."

"You ok?" Biffa calls over.

"I'm ok, I've just got some scales on my legs and... yeah, there's some fins too. Like the ones on my arms."

As he resumes eating something a bit odd catches his attention. A thin blueish membrane is forming between his fingers. The color matches his scales. Flexing his fingers Xb shrugs, it doesn't feel like it's restricting his motion at all.

"Hey Biffa, it looks like I've got webbed fingers."

Walking over the cyborg takes a look at the webbing, "Well, that's interesting, it looks like it's making it so you can swim well in or out of the water."

Nodding Xb grabs a water bottle as Doc walks in with Xisuma in tow; apparently, EvilXisuma's 'secret' friend had agreed to meet with Wels and Xisuma had been making sure everything was ok.

Sitting still, Xb allows Xisuma and Doc to look over the webbing, fins, and scales.

"I don't know if mer scales are anything like dragon scales but you should or ask Max at some point," Xisuma says as he carefully pokes the newly formed leg fins.

Xb smiles softly, "Yeah, he's apparently already tried to tell me about that but Hypno and the other Magic dudes are the only ones who can understand him."

Laughing softly Xisuma hugs Xb with his tail, "Ok you drink some more water you look a little dried out."

Rolling his eye Xb drinks some more water, "It's probably because I'm normally in the water and since I'm out of it I need more than normal."

A small chittering laugh from near the ceiling draws everyone's attention, "Very good," The vex laughs, "Now we have been allowed to tell out about this so listen closely. You will be able to choose which form you want to be in, but you must change your form every once in a while otherwise you could get hurt."

As the Vex explains how to shapeshift Xb smiles softly.

"Oh and we probably should have mentioned this earlier, you will have conduit like effect in this form, letting others see and breathe underwater, but when swimming in this form you need to be careful. The size of your gills can't filter the needed amount of oxygen. You can swim normally but for anything that involves a strenuous activity you should be in your merman form."

Xb nods, "Thanks for the warning, the conduit thing sounds cool."

The Vex fades into shadow and Xb attempts to turn back into the big merman form. The first attempt involves him growing to the proper size but then failing to go through with it. His next few attempts to go a tiny bit better. After a few hours of trial and error, he finally can successfully turn back and with ease.

It's been a pretty long time since Xisuma had called a meeting about the meteor, but since Xb's transformation was so aggressive it was decided that it would be beneficial to do it like this.

As the hermits gather near one of the shores of the shopping district Xb is laying in the water. He's in his big form and just barely pokes his head out of the water. When Xisuma starts explaining he waves.