The pirates hit the deck like huge sacks of wet grain, the wood groaning under their unnatural weight. The Siren’s song has turned them into monsters with muscles bulging, veins snaking along muscles throbbing. But the sailors just stare at them, frozen by the size of the enemy. I may have a layer of metal armor surrounding my entire body, but I can’t defend against them all myself.

  “Fight!” That snaps them out of it. They immediately draw their own weapons, and then the clang of metal on metal and the slapping of metal against wood fill the air. The sailors won’t stand a chance.

  I’ve got to be fast.

  Two brutes approach me, one with his bare chest exposed, the other unleashing the two big teeth missing like a demented child’s smile. Their feet are too close together. Weapons to the side. Amateurs.

  I might normally be agile, dispatching them elegantly. But…

  I’m vreking metal.

  I lunge my blade into the gut of the bare-chested one; his cutlass slaps against my skin ineffectually. His eyes open wide. He’s seeing his life replay.

  The toothless one’s smile is gone, but my metal fist plows into it. Several more teeth fly into the air along with crimson droplets before he flips over the railing and off the ship.

  I take one step toward my next target, a wooden plank cracking underneath, when one man grabs my ankle. I kick the air several times with him hanging on, but others have gotten the idea. Four more join, grabbing my other leg, both arms, one around my head. I swing in circles like a clumsy colossus. I may be impenetrable to weapons, but not to an outnumbered grapple.

  Ulfgar fights atop the stairs, his opponent a few steps below. His mace rises above his head before falling hard and fast onto a skull. Crunch. The lifeless body falls backwards, thumping on each step.

  “Zane, you giant slag.” Ulfgar squats, his leg muscles coiling into giant springs, before launching himself across almost the entire mid-deck, bringing a mace down on the pirate draped around my neck. One by one, he slaps them off of me like bugs. One falls flat on his face across the deck, but still manages to get up. “They’re tough!”

  The siren isn’t singing anymore. “Would it matter if we got to her first?” I ask.

  “Sometimes it’s best just to act, guild brother. Are you ready?” Ulfgar puts a hand on my shoulder.

  I nod.

  Vashar.

  Nothing happens. To me. Not yet.

  But Ulfgar? He releases a scream like a man torn asunder. His eyes grow wide at the sight of his own hands. Each finger and knuckle bone pops, and his hands enlarge, changing colors. Brown pads erupt from beneath his palms and fingertips. The hair on his body grows coarse and multiply. The sinews in his arms and legs snap, convulse, before the growing brown hair hides the undulating madness beneath the flesh. His nose and upper jaw meld together, forming a longer snout.

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  In less than half a minute, a grizzly assaults one pirate, pinning him to a wooden wall before the claws tear his tunic into a bloody, tattered mess.

  This is about to get ugly.

  My own experience seems delayed. I can tell something is changing, but what? There’s a slow, low groan within me before my own limbs morph, my liquid steel bubbling and reshaping like hot wax, before spreading out into bear claws. I naturally fall to all fours.

  Now, I’m a vreking metal bear.

  Simultaneous to the unbridled rage, an overwhelming sensory experience overcomes me. The smell of the wood underneath. The smell of the ocean! I can taste the salt in the air. And the fear. The fear is so new. Like the old cliche of smelling fear, but it’s true. It’s a combination of sweat and blood and piss.

  Yes! The door is open, and he thinks he got away, but the trail of his odorous fear betrays him. Inside is dark, and my eyes don’t adjust quickly, but I don’t need them. My nose brings me straight to my quarry. His labored, panicked breaths. They’re his last.

  Running back out into the sunlight, each of my steps tears up the decking floor. We may be winning, but this ship is doomed. In the distance, I hear Ulfgar’s roar. Yes, brother!

  Across the ocean, the siren’s face has contorted into fear. It’s time to end her. I charge toward the other ship. I can make it. I can jump across!

  Halfway between our ship and theirs, I hover in the air, and the siren grins at me, her fangs hanging over her teal lips. Her claws dig into the shoulder of a pirate next to her, then she outstretches a hand toward me, and a geyser of water flies toward me, stopping my momentum.

  Vrek. Big metallic vrek.

  I hit the water with more than a splash. It’s a thunderous splunk. And no, metal bears don’t float. I’m sinking fast. I have to end the spell. My limbs return to flesh, and my human form is already down into dark water; the faint shapes of two hulls shadow the light from the sky like ominous clouds. I pump my arms and legs until they burn, my lungs burn, everything is burning.

  The cool air hits my skin, and my whole body almost bursts at how fast it rushes into my chest. I have a second to enjoy it before…twhip! An arrow plunges into my shoulder.

  I sink back below the waves. Another arrow chases me down into the water, and a trail of air and bubbles forms behind it. My muscles are so fatigued now, like uncooked dough attached to my bones. I’m going to drown.

  Boom!

  Hundreds of planks and splinters fall into the water like a storm of lumber.

  Then, my body floats up the water and into the air. I’ve felt this before…

  Nimue!

  There’s a giant hole in the side of our ship just above the waterline, and Nimue stands at the edge, her hand extended toward me.

  “I said not to get involved!” I yell.

  “No, you said to stay below decks. Which, I am!”

  Then, she redirects her arm and points me up and straight toward the siren.

  The pirate captain’s eyes grow wide, and gills flare as I am launched in her direction, my arm without the arrow instinctively grabs a dagger, and before anyone can react, I have landed on the siren, the blade buried deep in her chest. Blood bubbles out from her mouth, nose holes, and the slits of her gills.

  I look back at my ship. The giant hole. The battered deck. A giant vreking bear.

  If we win any more battles like this, then I’m going to be even poorer.