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There was a clickety-clack of claws on wooden sidewalk. The city guard lieutenant looked up from his paperwork as Bart the badger came in the guardhouse door.

"Sir," growled the badger, and sketched a salute with a long-clawed forepaw.

"Corporal," said the lieutenant. "Nothing special on the agenda today. Gate duty."

"Sir," said the badger, and trotted into the squad room. The largest locker was his, which stood to reason as Bartleby was seven feet long nose to rump and weighed as much as three men.

The lieutenant watched as Bart dragged a coat of chainmail out of the locker and shrugged himself into it. It was a thick coat of double link mail, mail with rings so thick that practically no hole remained in the middle of each one. It covered only the topside of the badger when he was on all fours. Bartleby was so low to the ground that any likely attacker would hit him from above. With no armor underneath the armor weighed only half as much as a full suit and Bart was tremendously strong. The armor didn't slow his movements and he didn't overheat as he might with a full suit of armor over his thick fur.

The armor lay atop the badger's tough hide on a quilted gambeson to keep the mail links from catching his fur. Bart's forelegs were protected by wide steel bracers that he always had on when he arrived for duty.

The lieutenant knew that the badger's forepaws served as hands, albeit huge and clumsy ones. Bart demonstrated this as he buckled the gambeson and coat to the leather harness he wore, then pulled on a steel helm shaped to fit his muzzled head. Like the coat it only covered the topside of his head, leaving his jaws free to bite. Overlapping steel strips attached to the helm protected his neck.

It wasn't the only suit of armor the city made for Bart. He had a thick leather coat with riveted-on metal plates for when he went into burning buildings to look for survivors. When not on duty as a guardsman or fireman he wore just his harness and broad steel bracers on his forelegs, plus several rings in his furry ears. Two of them were magical, one his property and one on loan from the city.

Bart took no weapons from the store kept in the staff room. While he could grip and swing a large enough weapon, he'd have to stand up on his hindpaws to do it. His claws and teeth were good enough.

Last of all he pulled on a city guard surcoat. This too covered only his back, but that was all of him most visitors ever saw.

Bart trotted out the door, turned right, and arrived at the Verbobonc's currently shut west gate. He joined half a dozen other guards waiting for it to open so they could take their stations.

"Morning," Bartleby growled, and the guards responded with yawns or assorted versions of "It's too early for this shit."

Among the half dozen was a hestan catman with the fur of a six foot tall gray tabby. A new member of the Guard, but already one Bartleby got on with well. The hestan pushed back his helm, sniffed, but said nothing until they were close enough for the others to probably not hear.

"A prakafemme," the cat purred, sotto voce. "Really?"

"I like praka," Bartleby growled back. "They are cute little things."

"Little being the word," Azra the hestan purred. "Even a big one is what, a fifth your size." Bart weighed on the order of five hundred pounds if he hadn't eaten anyone recently. A raccoon-lady would be lucky to top four feet.

"This was not a big one," Bart said. "More like a tenth."

"You must be careful, then, so not to break her."

"Very careful," Bartleby grinned. "But it is still good fun."

"Oh, here we are again," said a Guard private who'd wandered close enough to hear. "Our pet furball boasting about how big his dick is."

"Only comparatively," Bartleby said good-naturedly. "I am bigger than some, smaller than others. I lay with a centaur mare one time and she was not impressed at all."

"Well, yeah," said the hestan. "Have you seen a male centaur?" He whistled through his fangs.

Bartleby was pretty sure he could invite Azra back to his room and things would happen. Despite his adventures with a certain male wererat, though, he preferred ladies. Maybe if he had a dry spell.

It was time to work. A shout came from the upper story of the gatehouse and chains clanked as the the portcullis raised. The bolts securing the thick wood-and-bronze gate were drawn and they the guards split into two groups to push it open. Bart braced his forepaws against the wood and walked forward as the two-legged guards sweated and heaved. They had no problem with their feral comrade when he put his considerable strength to work like this.

A queue of wagons waited outside the gate as it did at every sunrise. It was the job of the guard to check manifests, collect gate fees, and ferret out contraband. This was why Bart was posted here. He sniffed around each wagon as the two-legged guards looked for visible signs of smuggling. A dog could do the job, and did when he wasn't around, but Bart's nose was connected to a brain and mouth that could tell the other guards what he smelled.

Azra had a similar task. His nose was not as keen as Bart's but he wasn't nose-blind like the furless guards. He sniffed high and the badger sniffed low and it was as they did this, an hour into the morning, that they were attacked.

A wagonload of hay was in line to be inspected. Hay wains are a time-honored way to sneak people into towns and they drew special attention. Azra was poking his spear into the straw as Bart sniffed the other side. The badger barely had time to register a peculiar scent from deep in the pile before a black shape nearly as large as himself burst from the hay.

It was a mass of claws and teeth and Bart dropped instinctively down on his belly as it tore at him. The heavy mail coat absorbed the blows and fangs scraped the steel lames of his neck armor as it bit at him.

It was only atop him for a moment before it fled. Or it tried to. As it sprang nimbly off his back Bart whirled in place and his fangs sank into one black-furred hindpaw.

It slammed down on its belly, its leap interrupted, and he got a better look at it through the eyeholes of his helm. It was a sleek black creature like a tiger-sized panther, with an extra set of legs and a muscular tentacle that sprang from each foreshoulder. He'd heard of such things but never fought one before. A displacer beast!

They were rare and dangerous and their name came from a strange property they possessed. They magically appeared to one side of their actual position, causing many attacks to miss them. He'd gotten a lucky hit when he bit it a paw and he held on as it turned on him in a rage.

Bart held onto its paw as the tentacles beat at his back. Each was tipped with a mass of sharp white spikes like bony claws. His chainmail was ideal protection against slashing and stabbing weapons and though he was battered and bruised he was only slight cut. With a shout the other guards appeared, spears ready, and he saw how several of their thrusts passed through what appeared to be solid panther-beast.

One tentacle sent Azra flying and Bart abandoned his defensive stance. Without letting go the bite the kept the Beast from fleeing he slashed at it with his long foreclaws. Each claw was inlaid with a strip of steel and his bracers, enchanted so to improve beastly attacks, turned his paws into effective magical weapons.

Bart specialized in pulling down and disarming humanoid opponents but he knew how to fight ferals too. His first swipe went right through the Displaced beast image but with its hindpaw in its mouth he had a better sense of the beast's location than his comrades. He was stronger than the Beast and as he battered at it with his forepaws it hissed and turned on him.

The other guards backed away, not wishing to inadvertently stab him, and the Beast came at him claws first. There was a tangle of limbs and its claws raked his unarmored belly, but his tough pelt and Ring Of Protection absorbed most of it. The thorny tentacles beat ineffectually at his armored back and though he missed several claw swipes he was sure he'd wear it down before it killed him.

The Beast decided that the armored badger was a problem it didn't want to deal with and renewed its effort to escape. Desperate to get away it bit at his neck, but that was the most heavily armored part of has body, with steel strips lying atop the chainmail.

It snarled and snapped at his muzzle, trying to get in under his helmet and bite his neck, and that was what Bart was waiting for. He had a good sense of where it was now despite the displacement ability and as it darted its muzzle under his own he let go its hindpaw and snapped his jaws wide open.

The Beast stiffened in astonishment as a badger barely larger than itself engulfed its entire head. Bart's jaws snapped shut just as fast and he wrapped his forepaws around its slinky torso and held on. It kicked desperately at his belly but he fended off most of it with his hindpaws and his strong bite held its muzzle shut inside his mouth.

He had it now and clung tight as it beat at his armored back with its tentacles. Armor or no he was getting scratched up, but its claws weren't as formidable as his own. It relied on its bite and powerful tentacles. It squirmed and kicked, but with its muzzle in his mouth it couldn't breathe. He'd known to hold his breath and he had plenty of experience going without air for several minutes. He clung tight to the desperate Beast as it weakened, and shortly it went limp in his grasp, barely mustering the strength to lash at him with one tentacle.

"Hold," came an authoritative voice as the other guards readied their spears. They were moments away from killing it when Captain Ransom appeared from the gate.

"This thing," the captain said. "Heard about it. Guess it was our turn." Staying out of reach of the twitching tentacles, he moved around so Bart could see him.

"Almost as big as you are," the captain muttered. "Corporal, could you swallow it?"

Bart shot him a quizzical look past the tangle of black and gray limbs in front of has muzzle. Without letting go of the Beast or releasing his bite he managed to nod fractionally.

"Do so," Captain Ransom ordered. "I'll explain later."

Bart sucked in a long breath through his nostrils, knowing it was the last he'd get for a while, and pulled the beast tight up against his belly. With one forepaw wrapped behind its neck he forced its head into his mouth and with a loose-jointed yawn the beast's muzzle slid into his throat. Its long neck disappeared into his maw and it wasn't until he reached its forward set of shoulders that eating it required any real effort.

Half suffocated, the Beast still knew something was horribly wrong. Flesh slithered past its face on all sides and it felt the scrape of badgery fangs as Bart began to work his jaws over its forward shoulders. The roots of its tentacles were overtaken by the badger's maw and as its forelegs were pushed down against its flanks it was less able to resist. Just the same it lashed at Bart with its tentacles. It was so weakened by lack of air that it did little damage and Azra took the opportunity to stab his spear through the broad thorny tip of one, pinning it to the ground.

The catman gestured to a nearby guard, who though dressed and equipped exactly like the others was the squad healer. The man crept forward, watching for a clawed kick by the Beast, and chanted a healing spell as he put a hand on Bart's furry foreleg. A flap of gray hide hanging from Bart's bloody haunch re-stuck itself to his thigh and several bloody scratches knitted themselves shut. The Beast kicked and the cleric backed off, using the opportunity to heal Azra. The catman had been sent flying by a tentacle swipe and the blunt force of it hurt him through his chainmail.

The big badger's jaws were to the Beast's middle set of shoulders and his neckfur was stretched tight as a drumhead. Azra saw the harness straps sinking into Bart's flesh and unbuckled the ones further down his body. He cut the helmet strap as the buckle was sunk too deep into Bart's hide to get at.

"You men, here," Captain Ransom said, and the squad gathered in a line to block the view of Bart from the road. Merchants and other would-be rubberneckers were checked in the gate by a backup squad summoned after the attack.

"Run to the message tower and flash the other gates to be extra alert," Ransom ordered one of the guards. "Someone might use the distractionand to sneak things into the city."

It was almost over. Swollen with his meal, Bart laboriously worked his jaws over the Beast's haunches. The sleek panther thing fit easily enough into his gullet but it was nearly as heavy as the badger and his belly was swollen tight before he even finished his meal. Bart heaved his muzzle upward and swallowed with all his might. A great contraction moved through the tight fur of his neck and the bulge slipped downward.

Pink-padded hindpaws hung from his jaws for a moment before a second gulp sent them after the rest. All that remained were the thorny tips of the tentacles, which twitched as they slipped into his maw. Bart winced as they disappeared down his throat, and with a last great gulp it was over. The oddly swollen badger was so full he rested on his belly, his short legs barely able to reach the ground.

"I've never seen you eat anything that big before," Captain Ransom said.

"Never have," Bart growled, and let out a long belch. "When I've been this full, it was always several smaller meals, not one huge one." The curled-up Beast squirmed beneath his belly fur and the badger wrapped his forepaws around the bulge to muffle the struggle.

"Right," the captain said. "You two, fetch the body wagon."

This was a low wooden wagon with a fold down ramp that turned into part of the railing when up. Azra and another guard rolled the swollen badger onto it, provoking another belch as his huge meal shifted inside him, then Ransom led the two as they pulled the wagon into the city. A couple of guards threw Bart's armor coat into the wagon with him.

Passers-by gawked as the laden wagon rolled by. Ransom gestured and the two guards rolled the body wagon into the guardhouse.

"We'll talk later," the captain said, and Bart nodded as he waddled off the wagon. He had to stand on tiptoe to move at all and flopped over on his side in one of the guardhouse cells as soon as he was off the wagon.

"You two stay here and guard him," Captain Ransom said. "I want him here until he's digested his meal. There's a hole in the floor of the cell there when he has to shit. Get him a bowl of water."

"Yes, sir," Azra purred, and Bart sketched a long-clawed salute from the floor.

"So now what," said the second guard. No sooner did the captain head out the door than Bart lay down his head and started snoring. The inner struggle had ended and digesting someone almost your own size is a lot of work.

"We guard," the catman said. "I've heard about this. The city uses Bart as a body disposal for people it executes. It's a lot harder to Raise badger poop than it is an intact body."

"And sometimes the body he disposes of is still alive," the second guard said. He looked Bart over, and decided that while the badger's fur was still bloody in places, the cleric had healed all the serious injuries.

The badger's swollen middle let out a long digestive gurgle and the guard shook his head. "Well, better that beast than us."

Azra bolted the outer door and the other guard had a pack of cards in his boot. They kept score with wooden matchsticks, Azra eventually winning two silver Lunars from Jorge, then dug out the squad room's stash of board games. Jorge won his two lunars back at backgammon and a couple of coppers more.

It wasn't a bad way to spend a guard shift. Bart lay in the cell digesting his meal and they got to play cards. No one got kicked by a pack mule and they didn't end the day with tired legs and a backache from moving boxes to check for contraband.

Relaxed guard duty is still guard duty, though, and they made sure to face the door and keep their spears close at hand. They played checkers, chess, swapped stories, and did their best to ignore it when Bart bestirred himself and sleepily squatted over the hole in the cell floor. What checks in has to check out and a lot had checked in today.

It was because they looked away that they missed it when it happened. Half a day went by, Bart visiting the hole in the floor several more times. The last time he let out a long whine of distress and the two guards turned to look despite wanting nothing less than to watch a big badger take a shit.

Azra came up off the wooden stool and slammed the cell door in Bart's face as the badger ambled toward them. Bart sat, blinking, as the catman turned the key in the lock and backed away.

"Get the captain," Azra purred. Jorge was already unbolting the door.

"What?" Bart growled, as Jorge shot out the door and Azra bolted the door behind him. "I think it was just some of the thorns from the thing's tentacles coming out. They must not have digested and the damn things are sharp."

"You don't see it?" Azra stayed carefully back from the bars in case Bart shot a paw through. He had plenty of paws to shoot through, now.

"See what?" Bart scratched his neck with a paw, then glanced down and stiffened where he sat. The remaining bulge in his middle kept him from reaching his neck with a hindpaw and both his forepaws were on the stone floor. So how was he scratching himself?

"Crap," Bart said, as he put the scratching paw down behind the others. He craned his neck from side to side so he could see the middle set of legs he'd somehow sprouted. His body was still the same size and shape, barring the bulge of half digested displacer beast, but he now had two sets of feral shoulders and a middle set of legs on his badgery body.

As he sat there pondering this, there was a rap on the door. Azra looked through the slit and threw the bar to let in Captain Ransom, a lieutenant and Jorge.

"Sir," Bart growled, and saluted with both right forepaws. The badger paused and looked at the two paws.

"Bart, what on Oerth," said Captain Ransom. Bart shrugged a badgery shrug.

"No idea, sir," he growled. "I didn't feel it happen. Azra and Jorge saw it when I was taking a shit."

"Lieutenant," Captain Ransom said. The lieutenant nodded and gestured magically.

"His bracers and two of his earrings are magical," the caster said. "He isn't. From what I read, Displacers are, but that must have stopped when it died."

"Read?" The captain said.

"Sorry sir. Displacers are rare. I've never actually seen one to test if it's magical when alive."

"Bart," the captain said. "Turn to the side and press up against the bars."

Bart nodded, divining what the captain wanted to see. His long flank fur spread out to the sides almost like a cloak and Captain Ransom wanted to make sure he hasn't grown any hidden tentacles. He hadn't, as far as he knew, and the captain agreed when Bart's fur flattened against the bars and revealed the shape of his limbs and swollen body. No tentacles.

The captain sighed. "Bart, I'm going to have to leave you in there while we think about this."

"I figured you'd want me here until I finished digesting the Beast," Bart growled. "If you figure out that's going on, please tell me."

Captain Ransom sent the lieutenant off with a note, then turned back to Bart. "That Beast has attacked people in various nearby cities in the law few months. It had a distinctive scar on one flank which one of the guards saw before you ate it. It's been chased away and it's been killed, but the body disappeared before it could be burned. In case it's being used as an assassin by someone, I wanted it utterly destroyed."

"So it will be as expensive and inconvenient to bring back as possible," Bart growled. This was the reason they had him eat convicts. Common criminals didn't end up in his stomach on the city's orders. It was the ones they worried would come back. On his own recognizance he sometimes ate people who caused trouble at the bar, but they got themselves eaten by being damned annoying or threats to other customers.

"That's right," the captain said. "I had no idea anything like this would happen."

"I am just a badger," Bart growled. "The spells that Awakened me and made changes to my body were one time things and didn't leave me magical. Even if they weren't, I've eaten magical beasts before and nothing like this happened."

Another captain arrived, fetched by the lieutenant. This one Bart didn't know. The two were soon deep in conversation and shot glances at Bart as they talked.

"Bart is just a corporal," Ransom said. "If someone wanted to infiltrate the guard, they'd replace someone higher ranked."

Bart walked in a small circle in the cell, trying to get used to the extra set of legs. He soon worked out a rhythm that mostly kept him from tripping over himself. Just moving both front limbs on one side, plus the opposite hindpaw worked. He wasn't sure how he'd run, though.

He used the hole in the floor again. He was not happy about doing it with an audience but when you have to go you have to go and almost half the Beast remained as a sloshing mass in his middle. It occurred to him that he was heavier now than before thanks to the extra legs and that he should probably get another set of bracers to protect his middle legs.

A couple of other officers came and went and one of the city mages came by and poked at him through the bars. There was much discussion but no one could think of a reason anyone would go to the trouble of sending a magically booby-trapped Beast to town just to give Bart an extra set of legs.

With nothing better to do Bart played checkers with the other guards through the bars and read whatever was available in the guardhouse. One of the guards ran to the bar and explained that he wouldn't be there for his evening bouncer shift. This wasn't the first time his job became "lie around digesting someone" for a while and it wouldn't be the last.

The next morning, Captain Ransom returned with the guard's collective decision.

"All right, Bart," the captain said as he unlocked the cell. "We don't have much experience with this sort of thing but we're just going to file it under 'magical accident'. I have to put you on probation for a month but this won't affect your duties or pay. We just need to keep an eye on you to see if anything else happens."

"Sir," Bartleby growled, and saluted with a long-clawed forepaw. This time the middle paw didn't mimic it.

"You have today and tomorrow off with pay," the captain said. "I'll see you Waterday when the Beast is just a memory."

Bartleby nodded and padded out the door. It was a fair walk to the bar and he experimented with different leg combinations for trotting. He soon decided that the both-forward-paws-on-one-side approach was better for trotting, while for walking the front and back paw on one side stepping forward with the middle paw on the other was best. He was figuring it out, but for now he was like a cub figuring out how to walk.

Without his armor his long flank fur partially concealed the change and only a few people shot him startled looks as he went by. He was a common sight on the streets and practically part of the landscape.

Even after an entire day spent moving the Beast through his guts he his belly drooped heavily. He'd eaten people lighter than the remaining panther-thing in his stomach. He was looking forward to sleeping off the rest of his meal when he got home.

A magically illuminated sign up ahead featured a cracked alchemical flask sending a stream of glowing liquid into a beer stein. It was past breakfast hours and only a few people were in the bar when he came in.

One of them was Alma, a stocky and thuggish half-orc woman who happened to be his girlfriend. Unlike the people on the street she took one look at him and saw the change.

"Bart?" She'd seen him come back full from guard duty before. Not with extra legs, though.

"It's a long story," he growled. "We'll talk about it later. I need to sleep this off."

He was heading for the basement door when someone waved from a booth. He'd been too distracted to smell the gnoll.

"Hi Bart!" It was Vyrka, a tall, muscular hyena woman and one of his recurring lovers. Women often shared his bed, ranging from Alma, who he truly cared for, to one-time lovers who wondered what it would be like to fuck a big feral. The Cracked Flask was Verbobonc's 'monster bar' and the curious and horny often came here for a new experience. Vyrka was a traveling gnoll merchant who scratched the itch with him when or another bar-goer when she was in town.

"Vyrka," he said, friendly enough, but tired from dragging a half digested Beast across town in his guts.

"Oh, cute!" She said. As he waddled by she reached out and grabbed a handful of his long flank fur. "More legs!" Bart came to a stop rather than drag her out of the booth.

"May I come with?" The gnoll said.

"All right,", Bart growled. He looked at Alma, who shrugged from her bouncer spot by the door. The half-orc smiled. While she was his girlfriend, they each had other lovers. Occasionally they brought one to the other's bed for a threesome, but Alma was on duty.

Vyrka was big and strong by human standards, six and a half feet tall and muscular in a womanly way. Bart favored women like her, ones he didn't have to treat like delicate crystal sculptures. She was still less than half his weight even before he ate the Beast and grew extra legs.

He opened the basement door with his claws and they went down the stairs together, him grunting as his sloshing belly bumped along the stone steps. Vyrka beat him to the bottom and rolled his basket bed out from behind some crates. He leaned it against the wall to save space when he got up in the morning.

The basket was of rattan with a thick pad fastened inside. A merchant had a problem with a pack of feral dogs who kept getting into his warehouse and asked Bart for help. The dogs were no longer a problem after a trip through a badger and a week later he surprised Bart with the gift. It was big enough for Bart and some company and a nearby barrel held blankets for visitors troubled by the basement chill.

"I'm going to be up a bunch this morning," Bart growled as he flopped over into the basket. "All this has to come back out eventually."

"That's fine," Vyrka said. She was playing with one of his new midpaws, turning the thing over in her lap. Like his other paws it was the size of her head and like his forepaws it sported claws as long as a man's hand. Unlike his foreclaws it lacked the inlaid metal strips, but he'd fix that once he figured out how to fight with the extra paws.

"You're going to be so good at hugging now," she growled.

"I'm still figuring out how to walk," he replied.

That wasn't why she followed him down the stairs. "Sooo, I was wondering," she said. She rested a clawed hand on his bulging flank, swollen by softened Beast. "Did you sprout extras of anything else?"

He genuinely didn't know, as his round belly made looking down there out of the question. The thought hadn't even occurred to him until now.

"There's only one way to find out," Bart growled, and rolled onto his back in the basket. Vyrka knew he favored this pose for sex when full, lest he crush a lover under his meal, and she straddled his haunches and rubbed his sheath until his shaft slid out.

"Nope, still the same," she giggled as she impaled herself.

"It'll have to do," Bart growled, and found a use for his middle paws as he draped them over her thighs to help her bounce.

"It'll do just fine," she said, and matched his growls as Bart tried in his best full-bellied way to thrust up into her. Not all of him fit into her. It usually didn't with humanoid women, as his long sheath wasn't false advertising. The smaller the lover the more careful he must be, lest he spit her like a roast. With Vyrka on top she was in control and he could lie back and enjoy himself.

Her fingers sank into the soft, half digested bulge of Beast. When he shit out the last of he'd weigh a hundred pounds more than before, with two new legs and some used-to-be-Displacer Beast fat.

"What an odd day," Bart growled as he fucked Vyrka. "But not a bad one." She growled and bounced, and two out of three people in the basket bed had a very good time that morning.