Hands. Hands. There was something glorious about hands. The human thumb, more specifically. Preferably. Something glorious about hands and... having them.

Claws did not count as hands, no. Claws went clack clack clack. Hands went clap. Sometimes, snap. And they could pick things up. Claws could only clamp and hope for the best.

Ashton wasn't aware fully of what he'd turned into when he turned into the lobster. All he knew was the when. The when being 'now'. Another thought raced through his brain, too impolite to repeat, then he fell. He landed on concrete.

A nice thing about the thing he'd turned into was this: at least it had something hard on the outside, like a type of armor, that padded the fall.

Now, what in the hell exactly had he turned into? Because he certainly knew he wasn't himself.

He couldn't talk. Could walk. Was a bit parched... hrm... and seeing was a strange thing, in and of itself. Whatever he was, it was freaky. This whole situation was freaky. Quite frankly, he wanted to tell it to shut up.

First things first. Problem solving. He knew who had done this to him. Maybe clamping down on their foot might get them to undo what it was they'd done.

Clamping down. Why did he suddenly have this as his idea of exactly what needed doing?

He skittered. Literally skittered. Over to the shoe of the fallen man. Realized it was a shoe. Very shoe-y. Then started climbing a leg.

It was crawling up his pants leg. Calley did the natural thing: he picked it up by its tail and held it aloft. And away from his face.

“You are not a toad,” he remarked astutely. “You are a lobster.”

Yes, he definitely held the twelve-legged monstrosity away from his face. And kept his hand at the end of its tail, just before the fan, where its claws couldn’t reach him. Calley had more than the usual level of experience in dealing with lobsters. Particularly this lobster.

His toad splinter—formerly a tiger—wiggled out from under his rear and leapt to his human self’s shoulder.

Croak, it commented.

“Yeah,” Calley agreed.

He and himself sat on the ground, appraising the lobster cop together. The guy was looking awfully red in the face.

The boy with the tan was distorted in Ashton's vision. Warbly, wobbly. His voice felt like it was coming directly through a hard surface. Soft, yet loud. All vibrations. He squinted at the boy best a lobster could. Oh, he was angry. He was so angry. And apparently, he was a lobster.

The lobster swung, trying to snap at face and fingers. Didn't do much good. The guy had him by the tail. Literally. "Leggo," he tried to say. But yeah... lobsters can't talk human talk. He didn't say much the boy with the tan would understand.

Frick. He lacked a middle digit. Know what sucks about claws? No thumbs. And no middle fingers. Clack clack was the best he could do to express his contempt. This sucked. Totally.

Don't suppose my power is any good... Well. It was worth trying.

Try he did. Ashton focused and attempted to swap places with the stinking toad on the guy's shoulder. Right by his ear, where he could snap. If it worked, that was what he was going to do.

Calley suddenly had a toad dangling from his hand, another case of teleporting motion sickness, and a lobster pinched on his ear.

“Gah!” Approximately summed up his feelings on the matter, and his uncoordinated flailing eloquently emphasized the motion sickness. His head felt—well, like it wasn’t where it had been a moment before. Go figure. His ear, on the other hand, just felt like—

“Get off!” Pulling the monstrous crustacean, as it turned out, did not make his ear feel better.

As a bonus? He was pretty sure that waitress over there was calling the cops. Right. Because he wanted more of those.

Ashton. Did not. Let go.

This idiot was pulling the lobster off his ear, which would not let go, which, in turn, meant he was pulling his own ear. True story. No pulling of legs. Only ears.

Ashton swore eloquently in lobster speak, which it turns out, isn't really so useful for the job. And then, he tried to further molest tan man's face.