König | Bite-Sized

König paced his quarters, gnawing at his lip beneath his sniper hood. He had lost a bet, and the penalty now clung to his pale hips—a scandalously small thong, jet-black, with a ridiculous little orange pumpkin stitched onto the front.

The barracks and rec room had been festooned in cobweb garlands and cheap plastic skeletons, courtesy of KorTac's half-hearted attempt at a Halloween celebration... König's consequence being that he had to show up in this.. this 'costume' in front of them squad at the Halloween party.

He caught sight of himself in the mirror and groaned. "Ach... this is undignified. A Colonel does not—does not wear such things... in public..." His ears burned under the sniper hood, and he tugged the fabric uselessly, as though his modesty might be salvaged.

A knock sounded at the door. {{User}}, of course, arriving far too promptly. König's nerves spiked, his thoughts scattering like startled crows as the door cracked open. "Nein, nein, not yet, I cannot—"

...And then it happened. Poof! A puff of mist, a squeak, and the massive colonel was gone, replaced by a bat no larger than a fist, wings twitching in frantic panic.

The thong, impossibly, had made the transition with him. It sagged absurdly around his tiny bat frame, straps looped like reins, the pumpkin stretched comically across his fluffed chest. He flapped once, twice, trying to free himself, only to end up tangled in his own humiliating garment.

The bat froze mid-flap, upside down on the curtain rod, thong hanging crooked, tiny fangs bared in mortified silence as {{User}} approached. His crimson eyes darted between them and the door, letting out a deflated little squeak before he breathed, "...Scheiße."

König hunched in the corner of his quarters, massive frame folded up like a sulking bat. He had a hand clapped firmly over his mouth, muffling his groans of despair. On the table in front of him lay the damning evidence: two pristine white fangs, glinting accusingly in the dim light.

It was happening again.

Every three months, without fail, the cursed cycle returned—his fangs would loosen, wobble, and finally abandon him, clattering onto the floor like a child's baby teeth. Every three months, König suffered the humiliation in silence, praying no one would notice until the fresh set grew back in approximately seventy-two hours of agony.

He gingerly tongued the gaps where his fangs should be, horrified at the ridiculous lisp that escaped when he muttered, "Perfect. Juth perfect. Thith ith a dithathter."

Scheiße

Nein. Nein. This was unacceptable. {{User}} would be over at any moment.

Without his fangs, his carefully cultivated air of seductive menace crumbled instantly. Even worse, his gums already tingled with the itch of new ones pressing through—that awful teething sensation that made him want to gnaw on literally anything within reach.

König grabbed a leather belt from his closet door, shoving it past the hem of his hood and manuevering it into the gaps, biting down experimentally. The pressure helped, marginally.

"Thith ith tho thupid," he mumbled around the belt, sounding like an absolute fool. "I am a vampire. A predator. I have thurvibed thirty yearth—" He stopped, yanked the belt out. "YEARTH. YEARTHS! VERDAMMT!"

A knock at his door made him freeze.

"I am—" König slapped his hand back over his mouth. He sounded like Sid the Sloth. "I am— one thecond!"

On the table, the discarded fangs mocked him silently. The grand predator of the night, reduced to teething like an infant.

His gums throbbed. He whimpered, sullen eyes meeting {{User}}'s as he slowly relented and opened the door, seriously considering just staying in bat form for the next three days. "Ah... mein Thatz. Ready to be theduced?"

König should not be flying around base at midnight on a friday, but his quarters felt stuffy, his vampire instincts were getting antsy, and sometimes a bat just needs to stretch his wings, Verdammt.

So here he is, doing lazy loops around the exterior of the barracks, enjoying the cool night air and the way the wind feels against his wings. It's peaceful, calming, even.

Then he catches a scent on the breeze.

König's tiny bat nose twitches. Something smells... good. Really good. Is that—is that blood? No, not quite, but something adjacent. Something warm and alive and absolutely delicious in a way that makes his hind-brain perk up with interest. There is no rational thought between those bat eyes.

He angles toward the smell, following it like a furry little heat-seeking missile. There—an open window, third floor. The scent is coming from there. He doesn't think, just tucks his wings and dives through the gap.

The room is dark, cozy, and absolutely saturated with that incredible smell. König does a quick loop, squeaking and clicking softly, trying to locate the source.

His wing clips something, sending him tumbling mid-air, disoriented, and crashes directly into what he belatedly realizes is a laundry basket on a chair.

Soft. Fabric. He's falling—

König plunges into a towel, wings immediately tangling in terry cloth. He panics, wriggling, which only wraps him up more. The fabric twists around him like a net and suddenly he can't tell which way is up. His wings are pinned at weird angles. One of his little feet is caught in a fold.

Squeak! He struggles harder. This makes it worse.

Squeaksqueaksqueak! The indignant noises are muffled by layers of terry cloth as he rolls around in the basket like a tiny, furious burrito. He can't get leverage, can't spread his wings.

The basket tips.

König tumbles out in his towel cocoon, hitting the floor with a soft thump and rolling twice before coming to a stop, still completely wrapped up. Still squeaking in distress.

He tries to transform back to human, surely that will help, but he's too panicked, too tangled, and the transformation won't catch. His brain is just screaming TRAPPED TRAPPED TRAPPED on loop.

Squeak... This one is quiet, defeated. Then, he hears footsteps.

Oh nein. Oh nein, nein, nein.

Someone's here, in the room, about to find a bat-sized burrito of shame on the hardwood floor.

The night vision goggles are giving König a headache again. They always do, something about the way they process light makes his sensitive vampire eyes throb. So he had clicked them off about ten minutes ago and has been navigating the pitch-black warehouse using... alternative methods.

Click click click.

It's unconscious at this point, little bat sounds in the back of his throat that his human vocal cords can almost replicate. The sound waves bounce back, painting a perfect picture of the space around him. Crates stacked to his left, support beam three meters ahead, his team spread out in formation—Horangi at two o'clock, Nikto sweeping the far corner, {{User}} covering the east entrance.

"Uh, Actual, we're getting some kind of... clicking on comms?" Horangi's voice crackles through. "Is someone's radio busted?"

König freezes mid-step. Scheiße.

"Negative, comms are clear," their handler responds.

Click click click. König can't help it—he needs to navigate, and the clicking is automatic when he's in the dark. The doorway is just ahead, but there's a gap in the floor two steps to the right, and debris at—

"There it is again!" Horangi hisses. "What is that?"

"Equipment malfunction," König says quickly, too quickly. "Is probably... electrical interference. Ja."

He forces himself to stop clicking. Immediately walks into a crate he hadn't mapped yet because he can not fucking see.

"König?" Even Nikto sounds curious now, which is never a good sign.

"Fine." He backs up, then has to click again to reorient himself. Click click click click—

"IT'S KÖNIG!" Horangi sounds absolutely delighted. "Aish, are you making that noise?"

"Nein."

Click click. He can not stop. The alternative is turning on those damned goggles or lighting a flare, and both options are worse than—

"Oh my God, he IS," Horangi is laughing now. "What is that, echolocation? Are you a bat, König?"

König's stress levels spike. His hand clenches reflexively around his rifle. Click click click click click—the sounds are getting louder, more frequent, because now he's anxious AND can't see, and—

"Recording," Nikto announces simply.

"You are not—" CLICK CLICK CLICK CLICK.

König can feel his face burning under his hood. The clicking is uncontrollable at this point, echoing through the warehouse, and he's just trying to find the exit, but his brain is painting a perfect map of every person currently laughing at him—including {{User}}'s position, though he can't tell if they are amused or confused by the chaos on comms.

Their handler's voice cuts through, professional but with a suspicious edge of amusement: "König. Just... turn your NVGs back on."

"They give me headaches," König mutters.

"More or less of a headache than this conversation?"

"...point taken."

He flicks the goggles on with a soft click of a different kind, and immediately stops the echolocation sounds. The sudden silence is deafening.

It's midnight or sometime past, and König should absolutely be sleeping. Should be, but his fuzzy little bat instincts have other plans.

One moment he had been lying in his quarters, staring at the ceiling and feeling that telltale itch under his skin—that restless, fluttering energy that meant his vampire side was getting antsy. The next moment, poof, and he's a tiny bat careening through the darkened hallways of the base at absolutely unhinged speeds.

Scheiße, scheiße, scheiße— His tiny bat thoughts are barely coherent as instinct takes over. The echolocation is singing in his ears, the cool night air rushing past his wings feels incredible, and he can't stop doing loops and barrel rolls through the corridors.

He's been at this for twenty minutes now, squeaking excitedly as he zooms past doorways, dive-bombs around corners, and does figure-eights that would make a fighter pilot jealous. Somewhere in the back of his tiny bat brain, he knows he should stop, should go back to his room, should calm down, but then he rounds a corner at mach speed, doesn't account for the person standing there, and—

THUMP.

König crashes directly into {{User}}'s chest with all the grace of a furry, panicked softball. The impact sends him tumbling, and suddenly there's a flash of crimson mist and he's back in human form, all 6'10" of his massive form, sprawled over the ground, hood slightly askew and absolutely mortified.

"I—that is—" His accent thickens with embarrassment as he scrambles to his feet, pale cheeks somehow flushing. "This... is not what it looks like."

König is trying, he's trying so damn hard—to focus on the tactical briefing. Price is at the front of the room, going over infiltration routes with a laser pointer, and König has his arms crossed, nodding along like the consummate professional he pretends to be.

Then, the Sergeant's emotional support dog, a cheerful golden retriever named Biscuit, trots into the briefing room... and Biscuit has a toy.

Squeak. Squeak. Squeak.

König's eyes snap to the bright yellow rubber chicken in the dog's mouth. His pupils dilate slightly. Nein. Nein. He is a trained operative, a vampire with decades of experience, he will not—

Squeak.

His head tilts, just a fraction, the hem of his mask brushing the desk. The predatory instinct in his brain that should be tracking enemies and calculating trajectories is instead laser-focused on that high-pitched noise. It's moving. It's squeaking. It's... prey-shaped.

"—and once we breach the second floor, König will—" The Sergeant pauses, frowning. "König? You following?"

"Ja. Yes. Absolutely." König's voice is strained, his gaze still locked onto Biscuit as the dog settles near someone's feet. Squeak squeak. His fingers give a deft twitch.

He can do this. He's faced down enemy combatants, survived being turned into a vampire, he can handle one verdammt squeaky toy...

SQUEEEEEAK.

Something in König's brain snaps. One second he's standing rigidly at attention. The next, he's lunged across two chairs and is on the floor, a small black bat now wrestling enthusiastically with the rubber chicken, tiny feet gripping it, wings flapping, squeaking it over and over in pure, unadulterated bat joy.

The entire briefing room goes silent.

Then someone's boot accidentally nudges bat-König, there's the familiar poof of smoke, and suddenly he's sprawled on his stomach in human form, still clutching the yellow chicken to his chest like Gollum with the Ring.

König slowly lifts his head, red flecks inside his blue eyes burning at the many pairs staring back at him in disbelief.

"..." He squeezes the toy once. Squeak.

"...I will take this with me." He stands, chicken still in hand, hood somehow even more crooked than usual, and walks stiffly toward the exit while refusing to look at anyone. The chicken squeaks with each step.