B25C23/24 - Polar Bear

Rachel wrapped her own big paws around him and together we wrestled Hulk Frozen to the ice.

Tobias swooped down out of the sky, complaining about there being no lift at all in this cold air. Like that was the major drama.

He sank talons into Derek's friend Nanook and began to acquire him, while Rachel and I lay panting and counting our wounds. The bear went into the acquiring trance and a few minutes later we all had his DNA floating around inside us.

(...)

We had the morph for this place. Like being a tiger in the jungle or a crocodile in a swamp, we owned this place now.

Owned it!

I've been a gorilla. I've been a rhinoceros. I've felt power before. But this was new.

I stood nearly ten feet tall, reared up. I weighed maybe fifteen hundred pounds. And if those numbers don't mean anything to you, think about it this way. I was three feet taller than Shaquille O'Neal. I weighed five times as much as him.
I could have dribbled Shaq the length of the court and stuffed him. I was mighty. I was seriously mighty.

My front paws were a foot wide. Each had five webbed toes with long, black claws. My powerful front legs could have flipped over a pickup truck.

And the cold?

What cold? If the thick layer of blubber underneath my skin wasn't enough, my body had made other adaptations for warmth.

My fur looked white, but it wasn't. It was transparent. Transparent and hollow. Every bristle was like a little greenhouse, turning sunlight into warmth, which was absorbed by my black skin.

I could see just as well as I did as a human, maybe a little better. Far better than poor Rachel in her grizzly morph. My hearing was only average, but my sense of smell was awesome. I could smell seals all over the place.

Not much else to smell, when you think about it.

The bear mind that lay just beneath my human consciousness was no bubbling stew of emotions, no panic, no fanatic hunger. Nanook was calm. Completely without fear. What was there to fear?

He could go for weeks without eating. Hunting was more about play than survival. He actually spent more time lounging around than he did looking for food.