Editing Lung (section)

===Transformation===
[[File:Worm -- Lung By DerTodesbote.png|left|thumb|320x320px|[http://fav.me/dcwglf9 Image] by [https://www.deviantart.com/dertodesbote dertodesbote] on DeviantArt.]]
Lung's physical transformation began with scales growing over part of his body, providing armor. His fingertips sprouted claws. After a short while, his back would abruptly grow, sprouting scales and making him grow a foot taller.<ref name="1.4"/> A similar tear and subsequent sprouting of scales might come at his shoulder.<ref>Lung marched through knee-high fire, grabbing one of his wrists, hauling on it.  His shoulder came apart almost as if he’d torn it partially off, a gap visible in the flesh over where ball met socket.  Spikes and scales spilled out, stabbing through flesh and filling the gap, layering the surrounding area. - [https://www.parahumans.net/2018/09/29/gleaming-9-11/ excerpt] from [[Gleaming 9.11]]</ref>

At some point before his body was entirely covered in scales, he was sufficiently large and durable that any bullets striking his exposed skin didn't do much to slow him down,<ref name=":0" /> nor did slivers of metal.<ref>Goddess hurled a metal beam at him, and he leaped to the side, where he was struck by a volley of something else.  Slivers or spikes.  Some impaled him, but they didn’t slow him down. [...]  Lung was bright and easy to see.  Where he was covered in metal scales, the metal reflected the flames.  The rest of him was more of a silhouette against the bright flames.  - [https://www.parahumans.net/2018/09/29/gleaming-9-11/ excerpt] from [[Gleaming 9.11]]</ref>

By the time he was seven or eight feet tall, his shoulders were easily three feet across, and he was completely covered in scales. He was still able to speak normally, and he was still vulnerable to pepper spray, although it wore off unusually quickly. He was strong enough to make [[Bitch|Bitch's]] dogs rear back from the impact.<ref name="1.5">[[Gestation 1.5]]</ref> The dogs were able to subdue him, although he was weakened somewhat by the venom from [[Skitter]]'s bugs.<ref name="1.6">[[Gestation 1.6]]</ref>

He grew wings if he fought long enough<ref name="I22.y" />, although this was only a rumor to the public.<ref name="1.3" /> By the time he was nearly fifteen feet tall, spear-like wing-nubs stuck out of his shoulders. His voice was distorted; the shape of his skull and face were more catlike than human, and his nose and mouth were a single X-shaped opening, bristling with pointed teeth that stuck in every direction.<ref name="5.8">[[Hive 5.8]]</ref> His neck alone was nearly as long as [[Taylor]]'s torso and thicker at the base, tapering down to a more or less normal sized head. He could bend his neck in a ‘u’ shape to look behind himself. He was strong enough to leap to the rafters of a warehouse, and to throw one of [[Bitch]]'s dogs across the room. He employed martial-arts-like throws, which Taylor speculated might be a result of enhanced reflexes and flexibility rather than skill. His fingers were tipped with foot-long blades. His armour could be penetrated by [[Kaiser|Kaiser's]] blades, but he was tough enough to survive even serious wounds.<ref name="5.9" /> He was strong enough to overpower [[Victoria Dallon]]'s superhuman strength.<ref>I flew to the beam, grabbing it and trusting the Wretch to grab it on pure reflex.  It was a narrow shield and a deflection that kept the worst of the flames from knocking the Wretch back out of existence.  It was my weapon, to keep Lung at bay, to try and knock him down.  This time we swung.<br>
He caught the beam with both arms, feet skidding in dirt.<br>
Then it was only one foot in dirt.  The other came up, forward, and stomped down on the length of metal.    The Wretch broke, and the end of the metal beam struck the earth with enough force to send dirt pluming over my head, above me and behind me.<br>
His weapon now.  He drew it back, adjusting his grip as he did to account for the lack of traction, ready to swing. - [https://www.parahumans.net/2018/09/29/gleaming-9-11/ excerpt] from [[Gleaming 9.11]]</ref>

Lung's wings then unfurled, batlike with silvery scales where the bat had fur, and dark red flesh that stretched between the ‘fingers’ of the wings. His entire midsection rearranged so he stood another foot or two taller. He was faster, stronger, more maneuverable.<ref name="5.9">[[Hive 5.9]]</ref> His increasingly alien "face" extended down the sides of his neck. He was strong enough to tear or bite through his own limbs. Although Goddess's telekinesis was able to stab numerous metal spears through him, he wasn't stopped by the injuries, nor by tearing off his own arm and hand.<ref>The face with the multiple sections that could pull away or draw in had expanded, and the growth included his neck now, with sections that could pull back, revealing teeth within.  There were spots that looked like they were scales that caught the light really well, but I was suspicious that they were eyes glowing molten.<br>
[...]<br>
As a steel beam slammed into his arm, crushing part of it, driving through flesh and scale, he didn’t look surprised or bothered.   He lunged out of the way of the remainder of the volley, and then he seized his damaged flesh.<br>
Where scales had been parted, he dug in claws, and he tore away the flesh that burned.  Damage that would have killed another man served for Lung to have a handhold in his own altered flesh.  He tore into chest and arm, the chunks burning like crimson rags soaked in gasoline.<br>
I took flight before he could finish.  I saw him tear away fifteen pounds of mass with blade-like scales embedded in skin, in muscle, and in one fragment of bone.  I saw the blood spill to the ground by modest buckets worth, and he barely seemed to care.  His focus was on the hand that he’d used to tear, that now burned.<br>
Goddess was using the weapons she’d already used for her earlier volley.  They were pulled free all as one, then sent out in another volley.  As Lung brought his wrist to his mouth, the volley struck home.  Spikes that were ten feet long impaled his legs and fixed them to the ground.  Others caught him in the chest.  One struck his face and knocked a mouth-part free, and sent the burning hand flying.<br>
At his back, wings unfolded.  He opened the various mouth parts to drool out the last chunks of his hand. - [https://www.parahumans.net/2018/09/29/gleaming-9-11/ excerpt] from [[Gleaming 9.11]]</ref> He was able to recover from having his torso split open in moments without slowing down.<ref>The hit connected, and I saw the spray of blood as one side of his chest cavity opened.  Sternum to lower rib.  Sliced through the lung.<br>
There was no humor in the irony, only a chill, as I saw blood fountain out.<br>
In the midst of smoke, I saw him stagger.  I saw him draw in a deep breath, his chest coming apart in sections, like twenty fragments breaking apart, then coming back together in another configuration.  His back popped, scale scraping against scale as it extended. [...] It hadn’t even slowed him down. - excerpt from [[Gleaming 9.11]]</ref> <ref name=":1">“Goddess!” I shouted.  We needed to coordinate on this.<br>
“She’s gone.  Getting more help,” a woman’s voice cut through the smoke.<br>
Too little, too late.<br>
The Wretch wasn’t enough.<br>
Even if I’d been one hundred percent coordinated, it wouldn’t have been enough.<br>
The purple flames surged, diffuse in the gray-black haze of smoke.  Lung’s eyes were molten white, larger than before.<br>
I heard him chuckle.  He knew.  That we were past the point where we could do it. - [https://www.parahumans.net/2018/09/29/gleaming-9-11/ excerpt] from [[Gleaming 9.11]]</ref>

By the time he was as large as [[Leviathan]] - that is, thirty feet tall - he had four wings, four hands, and two digitigrade feet. He was bristling with layers upon layers of silver scales.<ref>I could see Lung finding his feet.  As large as Leviathan, four wings, four hands, two digitigrade feet.  King of Cup's power had faded, but regeneration had made up for it.  Lung was intact, naked, massive, monstrous and bristling with layers upon layers of silver scales. - [[Venom 29.2]]</ref>

At the most extreme end of his transformation he was larger than Leviathan and capable of trading blows with an Endbringer; four wings extended from his back.<ref name="I22.y" /> There wasn’t a hard upper limit to how strong he could get.<ref name="1.3" /><ref>[https://parahumans.wordpress.com/2013/05/21/interlude-22-donation-bonus-1/#comment-23797 Comment by Wildbow] on [[Interlude 22.y]]</ref>

Although Taylor believed that Lung "only started returning to normal when there was nobody left to fight",<ref name="1.3" /> his power actually began to leave him during his fight with Leviathan.<ref name="I22.y e78">For that indeterminate period of time, Lung was king of the world.<br /><br />But he began to weaken.  The lesser heroes were gone, washed away or helping others to evacuate, the greater heroes a distance away.<br /><br />And Lung had nothing to fuel his power.  He was engaged in a fight of ten times the scale he’d been in before, and his power was leaving him. - [https://parahumans.wordpress.com/2013/05/21 Excerpt] on [[Interlude 22.y]]</ref> His [[passenger]] decided when he could  transform and by how much, enough potential conflict could warrant further transformation and use of its vast, but still limited, power reserve.<ref>Lung doesn't actually run on adrenaline thoug it's very easily confused. Lung has a strong (if conditional) connection to his passenger, which decides when a situation has enough conflict to warrant transformation (and expenditure of the passenger's energy reserve - [https://www.reddit.com/r/Parahumans/comments/2f5ath/_/ck6mceu Comment by Wildbow on Reddit]</ref> He transformed faster against more formidable or numerous opponents.<ref name="29.4" /><ref name="I22.y e78" /><ref>Bulletbrainsurgery: Can't find the exact quote at the moment, but I think it's implied in his interlude that he ramps up faster when there are capes around.<br /><br />Wildbow:<br /> Yep - [https://www.reddit.com/r/Parahumans/comments/6jfn5k/spoilers_lungs_power/djeasqd/?context=3 conversation] with Wildbow on Reddit</ref> Enemies hidden by [[Mantellum]]'s powers didn't provoke Lung's ability, even if he could see them.<ref name="29.4" />

Anticipating a fight, Lung could build up a charge to accelerate the rate of his transformation.<ref name="29.4" /> He could feel the scales and heat building up inside him.<ref name="I22.y" /> When he was on the brink of transforming, his eyes glowed orange and scales stood out under his skin like hives.<ref name="29.4" /><ref name="29.5">[[Venom 29.5]]</ref>