Chapter Text
*crunch*
Pain flared through them. Eclipse, Sun, and Moon were all overwhelmed by pain. Sun was panicking.
‘We’re gonna die!’ He thought.
In his panic, he reached for the device in Eclipse’s arm. He slammed buttons in a desperate attempt to do something.
Then, the world went black.
Eclipse groaned as he sat up. His head was pounding as he sat up.
“Saturn?” He called, his voice hoarse, “Saturn!”
The area was unfamiliar. It was rocks, grass, and trees. There was no signs of civilization.
“Shut up,” grumbled a familiar voice.
Eclipse turned and fell on his face. He pushed himself up. His legs felt strange. He saw Sun and Moon sitting up, looking like they also had headaches based on how they held their heads.
Eclipse stared at the pair. Where their legs should be, there was instead tails. He glanced down, and recoiled in surprise at the sight.
His legs had been replaced with a scaled tail. He was covered in dark blue, near black, and yellow scales. He reached up and touched his rays and hat. His hat seemed to be a second tail connected to his head. His rays were now flesh. He realized he could move them if he concentrated.
“Woah, we have scales,” gasped Sun as he ran his hands over his tail.
“What did you two do?” Moon growled as he looked between the two.
“I didn’t do anything,” Eclipse said.
“Hey, I saved us,” protested Sun.
“What exactly did you do Sun?” Eclipse asked.
“Well,” Sun said, fidgeting slightly, “I pressed some buttons on the device.”
Moon groaned and buried his face in his hands. Eclipse wasn’t sure how to feel. Sun had saved them, but also caused them to end up who knows where with snake tails instead of legs.
“We need to find shelter,” Moon muttered, grabbing Sun’s hand and trying to drag him along.
All three of them lost balance multiple times as they slithered through the forest. Eclipse could feel the ground scrape against his underbelly. Moon led the two through the woods.
“I think we’re going in circles,” Sun said after they’d been traveling for two and a half hours.
“We’re not going in circles,” Moon huffed.
“Moon,” Eclipse said, looking at a mark on a tree, “Didn’t you scratch this tree thirty minutes ago?”
Moon inspected the mark and growled. His tail tip twitched, rattling slightly.
Sun and Eclipse exchanged a look. The three eventually started moving again, no longer going in circles. The sun began getting low.
Eclipse shivered slightly. The wind had begun blowing and the temperature had dropped. Sun was whining about the cold. Moon hadn’t said anything, but Eclipse could see him shake slightly.
“Can we just stop here?” Sun asked.
Moon surveyed the area before sighing, “Fine.”
Sun curled under a fallen tree. Moon found a small groove at the base of a rock. Eclipse curled at the between the roots of a tree.
Eclipse curled up, coiling into a ball. He ran his tongue over his teeth as he lay there. He could feel long fangs that felt strange. He stuck his tongue out and touched it with a hand. He quickly realized his tongue was actually forked.
Everything smells stronger when he stuck his tongue out. He experimentally wiggled his hat-tail and moved his rays. It was a foreign feeling.
Eclipse kept wondering if Saturn was okay. Had she been attacked as well? What if something happened? He wrung his hands as he thought. His chest felt tight when he thought of anything happening to Saturn.
‘She’s strong,’ he told himself, ‘She’ll be fine.’
He stared up at the sky. He could see thousands of stars above him. He wrapped his arms around himself as he sat there.
He just sat there for hours before he finally fell asleep.
Saturn groaned as she sat up. Everything hurt. She pushed herself up and looked around. The last thing she remembered was Neptune. However, this was definitely not Neptune’s ship. Glancing down, she saw Venus and Neptune both passed out on the ground.
She reached to shake Venus awake, but froze. Her sister had a tail. Looking over, she realized Neptune also had a tail rather than legs. She hesitantly looked down.
Where her legs should be, a long thick tail was instead. Her tail was mostly the same blue color as her skin with darker patches the same color as her hair. Her skin was completely covered in scales.
She stared down at herself for a while before she forced herself to focus. She began trying to wake Venus.
“Mmm, five more minutes,” Venus muttered and pushed Saturn’s hands away.
“Venus!” Saturn shook her sister again.
“What?” Venus whined as she sat up.
Saturn awkwardly twisted in a way that showed off the fact that she now had a tail instead of legs. Venus stared, mouth falling open in surprise.
“This is fascinating,” Venus said, reaching out to run her hand over Saturn’s tail.
“Venus,” Saturn got her attention and motioned toward Venus’s tail.
Venus looked down and her eyes widened in surprise. Venus’s tail was mostly light blue with purple patterns. Then, Venus noticed Neptune. She slithered over and began shaking him.
“Neptune!” Venus said.
Neptune bolted upright and went rigid. He relaxed slightly at realizing it was Venus. “Where are we?” He asked as he looked around.
“I have no idea,” Venus admitted.
“Well, it appears that be somewhere on Earth,” Saturn said as she looked around the area again.
“Why do I have a tail?” Neptune asked as he noticed his tail.
“Don’t ask me!” Saturn said.
Neptune’s tail was dark blue with lighter patterns. With all three of them now awake, Saturn could actually compare how they all looked. Saturn was the tallest with the longest and thickest tail now. Neptune and Venus were around the same size. Their tails were a few feet shorter than Saturn’s.
Once the trio had adjusted somewhat to their tails, they began setting up camp. Their survival training kicked in and they set up a shelter with several branches.
It was getting late and they knew it was a bad idea to explore an unfamiliar area in the dark. They all ended up piling into the shelter.
Venus fell asleep sprawled out across the floor of the shelter. Neptune and Saturn both lay with their tails coiled up.
Saturn couldn’t help but think of Eclipse, her star. She didn’t know if he was alive or dead. She knew animatronics could transfer bodies and survive things that many organics couldn’t.
She lay awake for hours thinking about Eclipse. She wanted to think he was alive, but after what she’d seen…
She fell asleep hours later when she was too tired to stay awake.