Dusk: MCSM: MONSTER AU

1: It Could Be Worse?

Our heros had defeated the admin. Using the powerful gaunlet that Fred had created, Jesse was able to take away Romeo's powers. They attempted to get him to help them leave the terminal, to atone for his actions. However, things didn't quite go as planned as Romeo sacrificed himself to his own creation in order to buy our heros time to escape.

Little did any of them know, their world, and the creatures residing in it, would be forever changed from this moment on.

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Jesse was the last one to jump through the portal, dodging the lava pouring over it just in time. He landed a few blocks away from it, falling down a couple steps. He looked back towards to portal to see something very odd. The portal, once blue, was now black. It was totally void of light.

He watched the portal move move, as if alive. It pulsated like a heartbeat.

Jesse squinted. The pulsing turned to bubbling. The black substance began glitching, bubbling more and more, and Jesse knew.

"Get out of the way!" He yelled at Petra, still standing on the steps of the portal.

She turned, and her eyes widened. The once-black liquid began glowing in a rainbow of colors.

On instinct, Petra jumped, trying to escape whatever it was. It would do little against the coming danger.

The ooze was thrown everywhere, the portal frame collapsed in on itself, and Jesse felt the intense shockwave hit his face and chest. Petra was hit mid-jump. He saw the sky go dark as his eyes closed.

Jesse could feel his body stop breathing. He felt his arms and legs go limp.

'Oh. I guess I'm going to die,' was all he could think. Jesse didn't even feel very upset by this. Maybe it was meant to be?

"Wait.. What? No! I am not going to die! Not now!" He thought as he forced his body to begin working again, forcing his senses to come back to him.

Jesse's eyes shot open. He felt grass all around him. The dim sunlight shining through the leaves of a tall oak. He sat up, breathing heavily, clutching his arm. Ouch. The gauntlet was destoryed, but his right hand seemed to have suffered quite a bit from the punching.

Jesse looked down, expecting some bruising, but his entire arm was green. Not just a sickly green, but a dark grassy green. He held both arms up, inspecting them for any injury. Only his right arm was off-colored.

"Okay, weird.." Jesse tried not to jump to any conclusions, but he knew that something was not quite right with his body. It was strange.. He couldn't feel his own heartbeat. His chest stayed still, too, as if he wasn't breathing.- That didn't matter now. Besides, he had bigger problems. He glaced around the area.

The forest seemed similar to that of the one just outside Beacontown. Jesse walked out from under the shade of the tree. "I wonder where they are," he thought aloud.

He held his left hand above his eyes. The sun was really bright.. Maybe it was because he was unconscious not long ago.

He had only been standing for a few second before something felt hot.. Like, really hot.- As if he was on fire-

Jesse yelled as his green arm had begun to burn- he fell back into the shade of the tree, shaking his arm as if that would get the fire off of him.

As quickly as it started, the fire disappeared. Jesse's arm didn't seem to be damaged even though the fire was really painful. He sat against the trunk of the tree staring at his hand.

What the hell was going on?

Distracted by his thoughts, he failed to hear footsteps coming from behind him.

"Jesse!"

A hand landed on his shoulder. Jesse spun around to see a familiar face. "Lukas!" He stood up and immediately hugged his friend.

"I finally found you," Lukas said, backing up while still holding Jesse's shoulders.

It was only now that Jesse could see that something about his face was not right. He looked totally normal, aside from his deep brown eyes. Weren't his eyes blue before?

As Jesse stepped back, he could fully see what was different about his friend. Not only were his eyes darker then they should be, but he had, "A tail..?" Jesse questioned out loud. It was an ocelot tail, only bigger.

"Oh, right, I forgot about that," Lukas said, reaching for his journal.

"I wrote down a couple of notes, but when the portal exploded," He explained, "I was far enough away that I wasn't blasted away like you guys were. There was this strange.. black stuff that came out of the broken portal frame.. It was so fast I couldn't move out of the way. It washed over me and next thing I knew, I woke up looking like this."

"Wait, so, are you like.. Part cat now?"

"Well, based on the coloring and spots, I think it's closer to an ocelot then a cat," He wrote as he spoke.

Jesse remembered his arm, "Hey, I think that black stuff might've touched me too."

Lukas looked up to see Jesse holding their green arm up. "When I go out into the sun, it lights on fire.."

Lukas raised an eyebrow, "Like a zombie?"

Jesse nodded, "But its only my right arm that burns. The rest of me is fine."

Lukas reached out and held Jesse's arm gently. It was cold and the skin was tougher then Jesse's normal arm. "Feels like one."

Jesse didn't exactly know how feel about it. "It- it's not important," he pulled his arm away more aggressively then he intended to, "Have you seen the others?"

Lukas blinked, "I'm not sure, I haven't seen them since I woke up."

Jesse looked around at the forest again. "Then I guess we'll have to go look for them, huh?"