The Next Chapter: 6

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The Next Chapter
Chapter 6: Who's That Vixen?

A girl—a gorgeous girl, a beautiful woman, who he'd never seen before. Kyosuke certainly wasn't expecting to see that when he went to the campus dining hall for lunch on Monday. But see that he did: A tall, voluptuous redhead, with brilliant red hair and fur—the latter adorning some vulpine ears and a big, fluffy tail!

Of course it was too much to expect that he'd seen every woman, or even every fox-girl, living on campus, but he pretty much had to have lunch at this same time every Monday this semester, so surely their schedules should've collided some time before now. And he didn't think he could've missed someone that attractive, especially with that big, brightly-colored tail. Yet there she was! He hurried right over to her, catching up as she stopped to pick up a tray.

"Hellooo there," he said, sliding up next to her. Kyosuke had pitch-black hair and red eyes; he was a little on the short side for a guy (still a few inches taller than the girl though), with a characteristic boyish handsomeness. He had the slight cheat of presently using illusions to hide his foxlike ears and tails from sight, so he just looked like a good-looking guy rather than a kitsune. "I don't think I've seen you around before?"
"Oh? Uh, hi!" she said, giving back a friendly smile. "I am a freshman, so, I guess that makes sense. I'm Jay," she said, offering him the hand that wasn't carrying her tray for him to shake—so he did.
"Kyosuke. Most people give up after the first syllable, though," he joked, and she giggled slightly in response. "I don't suppose I could join you for lunch, maybe?"
"I wouldn't mind," she said. "My roommate might, but she'll get over it."

"Hah, all right then. Lead the way, Jay," he said.

It was impossible to be sure, but Kyo had the immediate sense that he was talking to a 'mundane' fox-girl rather than a fellow kitsune. That was fine by him; it was just that his heritage influenced his tastes in girls enough to really appreciate a big fluffy tail. She led the way to a booth off on a far side of the room, where a short, brunette wolf-girl in shorts and a tank top—presumably her roommate—was waiting.
"Hey, Ed!" Jay greeted her. "This is Kyo—we met in line. You mind if he joins us for lunch?"
"I guess not," she said, sighing slightly. So he sat down with them.

"So...'Ed', huh?"
"What're you gonna say, 'unusual name for a girl'?" she said, anticipating him. "Both of us were recently transformed. Last week we were guys."
"Oooh, interesting. How'd that happen?"
"We joined a sorority," Jay said cheerfully.

"That..sounds more like a 'why' than a 'how'," Kyo admitted.

"The house is enchanted to transform people," Ed explained further.

"Wow, that's...I feel like I would've heard of that at some point. I guess this is a new thing?"

"Apparently.

"Anyway, I'm a comp-sci major. Jay's in music. You?"
"Oh, me? I'm majoring in magic," he said, and savored the brief look of confusion-then-"oh yeah, that's right" in both girls' faces.

"I thought they were kidding when I saw that in the catalog," the wolf-girl said. "Apparently the program's really selective, though?"

"Yes, for now. Experience and-or specific kinds of potential needed. The profs are constantly talking about how to do away with those requirements, you know," Kyo said. "There's only so much you can do, though. Lots of people only have a specific kind of potential to work with, and if there's no one who can teach your kind of magic, it'd be useless to study others."
"That seems like a really closed-minded way to think about it," Ed observed. "Apparently there's a whole theory to this stuff, so...even if someone can't do magic, they could still study it."
"I dunno," Jay said, "that sounds kinda like taking a 'music appreciation' major. What would you even do with that?"

"No, no—Ed's onto something," Kyo said. "If you really knew your stuff, you could probably teach someone how to use a kind of magic that you can't. I'll bring it up with some of them later, maybe."

A little later, about when Ed was taking a sip of her soda, Jay said, "So—are you gonna tell me how the date went yet?" The wolf-girl visibly resisted spitting her drink out, and managed to avoid choking on it too. Maybe Kyo was wrong about Jay's potential for practical jokes, although this did seem accidental.

"It's—there's really nothing to tell. We just..talked for a while."

"But it went well, right?"
"I...I guess."

"L'hoxifel seemed really happy~," Jay observed.

"Huh. Now, that's a demon name, if I've ever heard one," Kyo noted.

"Uh-huh! L'hoxifel is a thumb..uh, something."
"Thumos," Ed said. "In the sorority."
"And you're dating her?"
Ed's face flushed red. "I—we went on one date. Yesterday."

"How long have you known each other?"

"We met late last week," Jay said helpfully. "She gave us a tour of OZK's house."
"Wow, you work fast," Kyo said, grinning. Ed just looked away, folding her ears back in annoyance. Okay, this one was fun to tease, he decided.

For now, he changed the subject slightly. "I suppose you two are, 'human'? That is, only transformed to those part-animal forms?"

"Yep," Jay said.
"The enchantment specifically does things like...that, to avoid 'awakening' people," Ed added.

"Ah. Well—I'm a born and bred kitsune, myself. Two tails, even! I just like to hide it out in public most of the time," he said, dropping the illusion on his ears just long enough for the two of them to get a brief look. "I guess having two at my age isn't that unusual, but my grandma said back in her day you didn't expect your second tail before age a-hundred," he said. "Although—she said that while awarding me my second one, so who knows." He shrugged.

"Do kitsune have a lot of nepotism?" Ed asked.

Was that an English word? "Huh? Nep-what?" Kyo hadn't heard it before.
"Giving your own family an unfair advantage," she clarified. "Like, a powerful one giving his sons or daughters tails much more easily than he would some stranger."

"Hmm, I guess? It's always good to have the favor of someone with lots of tails. But there are limits and rules. Always a stronger fox around to punish you if you grant or gain tails you really can't honestly say were earned," Kyo said. "And at the top, there's the Ruler, and she'll always set things straight 'cause she has to, or else."

Ed had started on her food before the two of them arrived, so she finished a little earlier, and had to get up and run off to class. This left Kyo alone with the redheaded fox-girl. They had some more pleasant conversation, until the kitsune became aware it was about time he had to leave.

"Excuse me if it's too much, but—could I get your number or something?" he asked Jay. "I'd really hate for this to be the only time we meet."
"Oh? Sure! You're fun," she said, smiling beautifully.

"A fox like me can imagine no higher compliment," he said.

---

"Well now, Mary..what do you think?" After leaving the OZK house, the strange pair continued on along the street as if they had elsewhere to be.

"I think it was pretty unrealistic to think some rando freshman would have any idea how the place is enchanted."
"Oh, certainly. On the briefest of reflections, it's quite clear that whatever material components are maintaining both enchantments on that abode would be securely under lock and key. Treated as, at the least, some rather fragile structural components the damaging of which would cause disaster."

"You didn't seem to have that reflection before we came knocking on the door," she observed.
"Even so, I improvised well."
"You went with my improv," she corrected.

"Err—regardless, that isn't quite what I meant. What did you think of the building itself? All of the interior which our kind guide did show us on that tour?"

"It's pretty nice, I guess. I care more about the people than the amenities, though." Mary pulled her phone from the pocket of her hoodie, browsing around on it a little while continuing to walk and talk. "Who even knows what kind of person 'Nancy' is, if she's the one who financed all that stuff?"

"I would suggest: Someone powerful enough to be worth meeting," he said. "For my part, I think that place to be a far more fitting dwelling for a person of my caliber than the quarters I've been staying in so far."

"Uh-huh...what about your roommate? His grades are gonna tank without you around to crib off of."
"I don't see any reason why I can't take him with me. Evidently they are recruiting."

"Uh-huuh. You're kinda leaving the elephant in the room, though?"

"What elephant?" He stopped walking, looking around. "For that matter, what room?"

"I mean what that enchantment you're so interested in will do to you if you join," Mary said, continuing to walk and seeming to entirely ignore his confusion. The celestial caught up quickly enough.

"Oh, that? Hardly worth mentioning. Plenty of my kind try out forms other than the one Sol gave us before very long, if only briefly. If anything, I'm overdue! Besides, I'm certain that I would make the most beautiful of women, sufficient to be the envy of all others."

"Don't expect me to feel that," Mary said.
"What? No, of course, I meant—other other women," he clarified unhelpfully.

"Aaand Kyo?"

"Oh, kitsune love transforming," he said dismissively. "Perhaps he'll even enjoy the practice of figuring out an illusory male form or something."

Mary sighed, putting her phone away. "I guess that settles it, then."
"Settles what?"

"If you and Kyo are joining, then so am I. Three people I can stand beats my catty new roommate any day."

"You mean to say you haven't made peace with her?" he said, surprised. "It's been weeks."
"She hasn't made peace with me. She's lucky I can control myself."
"Ooh, that bad?"

"Yep. Anyway—it's Nancy Tanner. Her family's ultra rich but somehow stays outta the news, mostly. Here's what I could find out..."

---

In Camilla's experience, Nancy had essentially two modes: "on" and "off". She was "on" most of the time, energetically running around, working on things, talking to people. But then she'd apparently spend so much time and energy doing that as to become entirely exhausted, and turn "off". That meant slowly slinking to the nearest comfortable seating (or her bed if her own bedroom was closest) and flopping down onto it, face-up, to silently stare into her phone.

She happened to come into the OZK lounge late Monday afternoon to find Nancy presently "off", lying across one of its many couches. "Hey, Nan," she said, continuing on toward a chair herself.
"Mmh."

From experience, it would be a little while before anything coherent would come out of that mouth. Camilla hadn't come for a conversation anyway; she just had some grinding to do in a game. So she got to work on that, and both of them were silent (apart from the game's noise, which didn't seem to bother Nancy a bit).

After a while, she said, "So, what do you think? Are we gonna get to keep this place?"

"Mmh. Most likely. Still plenty of time. Need...only four now. And two new prospectives already."

"Oh? When'd that happen?"
"Yesterday. Couple of people came to visit, Jay gave 'em a tour."
"Are they nice?"
"Dunno. Haven't met 'em. Jay liked 'em."
"Yooouuu...haven't met them? How'd they know a tour was available?"
"Jay told them." Nancy slowly turned her head to one side to look Camilla's way. "She assumed they had met me, and just seemed so incredibly happy to have done a good job showing them around that I couldn't bear to tell her otherwise."

"Weeellll theeenn...what'd Jay say about these two?"
"Apparently...it's a celestial who's totally full of himself, and a goth chick who claims to have apocalyptic powers."

"..'Kay?"
"Nevertheless, Jay liked them."
"She...might just be the kind of person who likes everyone. Unless they're actively in the process of punching her in the face."

"Oh, I've realized that. Obviously I'll meet the two of them myself, before offering to let them join. But they do, at least, sound, interesting," she said, turning her head upward again.

The Next Chapter: 5

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The Next Chapter
Chapter 5: Would You Like a Tour?

Early in the afternoon on Sunday, Jay was hard at work on her homework in her room. Day two of being a busty fox-girl was going pretty well, all told; she'd put on something a little more casual than the day before with a t-shirt, shorter skirt, and still some stockings, and rather enjoyed the look in the mirror. Even she had to admit it was strange how natural her body felt so soon after being transformed, from the smaller stature to the change in weight to having fur of all things—but it was nothing if not convenient!

Her ears twitched slightly—was that a knock on the door she'd just heard? Sitting up slightly and listening, feeling both of the huge furry triangles turn themselves automatically in that direction, she heard another brief knock, and could even faintly make out some voices talking. Who could that be? Visitors? Prospective members, maybe?

As far as Jay knew, she was the only one in the house at the moment. Ed and L'hoxifel had really hit it off the day before—something about how the rules of magic could behave kind of like a programming language—and had gone to the library after lunch to talk some more. Nancy had said she was going to be away for...something; Jay didn't remember what. And Camilla and her 'boy'friend were out, too. So—if someone was interested in maybe joining, there was nobody to show them around! Nobody..except the redheaded fox-girl herself!

After all, they did need more members to keep this place, and soon. While Jay considered her new looks to be a perk, the main reason she and Ed had taken them on in the first place was to get to live here. It definitely wouldn't hurt for her to do her part. So she hopped to her feet and ran off to the front door to greet whoever was there.

It was fortunate she'd made her decision as quickly as that, since what she heard through the door as she came up to it was one of the visitors saying "don't think anyone's home". She disabused them of that notion by quickly opening the door.

"Hiii~! Sorry, I was pretty far from the door when you started knocking." It was two visitors, both pretty unusual-looking: A tall guy with sky-blue hair and...wings??? And a more average-looking girl dressed up all goth-like in tights, a pleated skirt, and a black hoodie with a big white skull print emblazoned across the top. That part wasn't so weird, but she also seemed almost like a vampire, with a particularly pale complexion and black irises.

"That's quite all right," the guy said. "Should I surmise you live in this illustrious building?"
"Yeah. I'm Jay," she said, offering him a hand to shake, which he did.
"I am called Polaris," he replied.

When Jay tried to shake the goth girl's hand too, she looked at the outstretched arm with her head slightly tilted and both her hands still firmly in the pocket of her hoodie. But she did actually say something: "Mary." Probably her name? Jay took the cue to just drop her hand.

"Uh—not to be rude or anything, but, you have wings? Are you like, a real angel-person?" Jay asked Polaris.

"Celestial, and yes," he said with a slight nod, looking proud of that fact. "I was wondering whether I could get a closer look at the enchantment on this building?"

"Uhm..enchantment?" Jay tilted her head slightly. He must have meant the thing that turned any guy who slept inside into a girl, but she had no idea how one would 'take a look' at something like that.
"He means, maybe you could show us around?" Mary said.

"Oh, yeah, definitely!" the fox-girl said. She'd never met a celestial before; she thought that maybe they all talked funny like that, and Mary was with him to help translate his stranger turns of phrase. "Oh, you two must be interested in joining OZK, right? The house is amazing, with lots of great stuff in it! You've already talked to Nancy, I guess?"

"..Sure," Mary answered after a brief pause, just when it looked like Polaris had been about to say something else.

While showing them one of the vacant first-floor bedrooms, and a few of the other rooms, Jay noticed that Polaris seemed keenly interested in everything, while Mary seemed consistently bored out of her mind. This didn't much bother her; she'd found that some people (like Ed) just had a certain "resting emotion" that tended to show in their face and body language and so on. Even a negative one didn't necessarily mean they weren't having a bad time, although a positive one didn't necessarily mean they were enjoying themselves either.

"So uh—I'm a freshman music student," Jay said while leading the way through the halls, wanting to hear some notes in a voice other than her own. "What year are you two?"
"Juniors, both of us," the celestial said. "...Technically. I'm more assessing the college's new magic studies major than it is assessing me. And Mary is buried deep in the throes of a mathematics major."
"Yeah, I didn't get to cheat by being an expert when I was born," she chimed in.

"Come now, that's like a mouse complaining that a human 'cheated' for being born large and with opposable thumbs," he said. "I can't help that Sol created me to be amazing."

"Whooa, Sol 'created' you?" Jay asked, stopping to turn and face them. "Like, the sun god?" Polaris looked delighted that she was impressed by this concept, while Mary looked decidedly annoyed.

"Yeah, like literally every other celestial," Mary clarified for her. "They're always made, not born."
"Oooh," the fox-girl said, nodding.

"Be that as it may, I am most definitely among his very best work," Polaris said, placing a hand to his own chest.

"Sol doesn't decide their personalities, so don't blame him for this guy," Mary added.

"Uhh, sure? Anyway—"

They'd nearly reached the next place to show off (at least, based on Jay's memory of the tour she and Ed had received), so she went straight back to the tour.

Eventually, they finished with the first floor, so Jay began leading the way to the stairwell. "Well, I am most certainly right about one thing," Polaris commented. "Even a rough estimate of the floor space we've covered so far doesn't match with this building's outer dimensions."

Jay stopped, turning around again. "Uh—wait, really? How?"
"Magic," Mary deadpanned.

The celestial tilted his head slightly. "Do you mean to say you are a member of this organization, but don't kn—hmm. No, no, I suppose that does make sense. Obviously you weren't involved in this building's construction. But surely you suspected there was more here than there should be?"

"I guess? We were a little too busy being blown away by what was here to worry about how big the building is," Jay admitted. "I didn't really get that good of a look at it, either. But—so—you're saying there's Tardis magic? That's real?"

"Yep," Mary nodded; Polaris looked mildly confused. So she turned and explained it to him: "British sci-fi TV show. Phone booth that's bigger on the inside."
This explanation seemed to confuse Polaris a little. "What's a 'phone booth'?"

"It's a police box, actually," Jay said.
That clarification perplexed the celestial even more. "Police come in a box?"

"You see that?" Mary took her hand out of her pocket for a second to point at him with its thumb. "That look right there, is a big part of why we're still friends." Her face even had the faintest glimmer of what might be a grin alongside this.

"Heehee...that is a pretty good look," Jay admitted.

"I'll show you later," Mary said to him, and then to the fox-girl: "Anyway, yes: 'bigger on the inside' is possible with magic. Expensive, possibly really dangerous magic; only works on a fixed location or something like that; but it does make it possible."

"I guess..that makes sense?" Jay didn't have very much context for what magic could or couldn't do in the real world, but she figured these two had more experience with it than she did. And she already knew that something being 'expensive' definitely wasn't a hurdle to the Tanner family.

They continued on with the tour on the second floor, stopping off in the lounge for a break. Both of the guests seemed physically fine to keep going, but even being magicked into more-or-less fit body hadn't left Jay with boundless energy to run around on. She just made the excuse to herself that she was showing off how comfy the cushions were, since that wasn't the kind of thing that just pointing and waving could really convince someone of.

"So...you two are friends?"
"Yeah. Pretty much since Polaris got created," Mary said.

"My original purpose had to do with her," he added. "As always, Sol diligently identified a significant threat to humanity, and sent me to prevent that threat from becoming a harmful reality."

"Uh—a 'threat to humanity'???"
"Let's just say...I have a 'unique' magic potential," Mary said. "And a strong one...to where middle school angst, badly managed, could've been worse than an earthquake hitting the city. He had the option of just running me through with a spear and being done with it, though."

"But Sol clearly endowed me with far too much intelligence to take such a brutish and simple-minded approach to the problem," Polaris said quickly. "Naturally, I was able to solve it in a far more efficient and productive manner."

"I...guess that's good? Stabbing someone, sounds pretty bad," Jay observed.

"Some people could use a good stabbing," Mary replied, almost matter-of-factly. "So anyway, he's one of the few celestials made with a not-already-adult body, so that he'd fit in around middle schoolers. Maybe that's why he's still so immature."

"I am perfectly mature, just as I am perfect in every other way," Polaris shot back.

Jay had the feeling that occasional bickering like this was just how their friendship worked, but that still didn't mean she wanted to harmonize with it for too long. So instead (after briefly confirming that she didn't feel too tired anymore) she hopped to her feet. "Anyway—let's continue on with the tour!"

The reactions the two had to the second floor weren't very different from the first. Jay had spoken with them enough by now, however, to feel reasonably certain this was actually a good sign. Polaris would want to be around things that interested him, and Mary probably would make some kind of snide or sarcastic remark instead of remaining silent if there was anything she didn't like. Before too long, they were finished, and Jay managed to smoothly loop back to the stairwell.

"So—that's the second floor. The third floor is just some more bedrooms, and storage, and a meeting-room-type place," Jay said. "Nancy's the only one living up there right now, but she said once the chapter gets enough members to be officially recognized by the college, we'll elect a 'high council' or something, and they're gonna live up there?"

"I see.." Polaris briefly had an expression like he was thinking about something, then shared a look with Mary during which the goth girl just sort of shrugged. "Well—you really do have a wonderful living space, especially for mere college students to stay in. I'd say it would be far more fitting than an ordinary dorm room for someone of my caliber."
"Um—I'm sure Nancy mentioned this, but since OZK is a sorority, the building is enchanted to turn any guy who sleeps here into a girl," Jay said. "I mean, I didn't mind it a bit, but, just to let you know."

"Oh—you mean you got transformed by that?" Mary said.
"Yep!"
She tilted her head just slightly, her eyes looking up and down at Jay's appearance. "...Huh. Never would've guessed. Anyway, I guess we'll be in touch."
"Indeed—thank you for the wonderful tour!" Polaris gave a small, theatric bow, then led the way into the stairwell. Jay followed the two of them down, splitting off to go back to her room and get back to that homework; her ears could confirm that they went straight to the front door and outside, so there was nothing to worry about when it came to that.

---

"...and based on what I was able to find, this bunch of kitsune basically channeled their magic right through people's phones with that app. So I guess the idea of making a program work as a 'ritual' to cast magic isn't as original as..." Ed trailed off, her ears folding back slightly. L'hoxifel could feel the waft of moderate annoyance from the wolf-girl as she sighed. "...You've stopped listening and started staring at my ears again."
"Oh—heh, sorry." The demon-girl had her elbows on the table between them, and her cheeks leaning on her hands. "I just can't help it. Whatever confluence of your own genetics and the enchantment's effects was the cause, you wound up irresistibly cute."

"Rrrrgh. When you were giving us a tour of the house, I thought you were the 'normal' one."
"Nobody's normal, Ed," L'hoxifel said, sitting up. "We all just have different ways of hiding it. I have a little more insight into it, you know, since I can 'feel' people's emotions. You'd be astonished how different the way people really feel is from how they act most of the time."

"I guess...

"Wait, can you feel all emotions? Or just, anger or whatever?"

"I have a better sense for all the various kinds of wrath since that's what I feed off of, but all I need is a tiny bit of extra context to pretty reliably guess what else someone's feeling. Like, you're annoyed I keep looking at my ears, but you blushed when I called you cute...I think you don't mind the compliment as much as you want to."

Ed frowned. "It's just..still...really weird. I'm short and have fur and boobs and my body doesn't..respond to things the way I'm used to, sometimes. Jay seems like she's perfectly happy being a girl, but I just can't get used to any of it."

"You do know Nancy has a way for you to turn back into a guy whenever, right? I'm sure that was mentioned once or twice. I think it's something that'd let you look however you want, even, if you were unsatisfied with your looks before," L'hoxifel said. "I mean—you met our newest member yesterday, already shifted into a catboy."

"Yeeaah..I know. It's just—I know I'll have to sleep like this no matter what. And I think it'd be even weirder to ping-pong back and forth every single day for the next, maybe four years? I'd rather...at least get to where this feels like 'me', so I'm not constantly hurrying to 'go back' all the time. I thought, I'd like to at least give it a week."

"Hmm, maybe I should tell you...not that it's the hugest secret or anything..." The demon-girl leaned forward a little bit, lowering her volume (even though she was already doing some significant sound damping on the walls of this little library room as it was). "The whole, 'now I'm a girl and things feel weird' business..I do know what that's like."
Ed tilted her head (adorably) at this, trying to make full sense of that statement. "You...wait...? You," she raised a hand to point, "you mean you were a guy at some point, and got transformed to look like, that?"
"Mm-hm," she nodded. "To be accurate, I transformed myself. I used to be some six feet tall, and buff as heck. That come with some serious problems, though."
"Like what?" Ed was feeling some strong but involuntary resentment at the idea that the Thumos had 'thrown away' the kind of male form she'd have wished to have.

"Well, demons have a certain tendency to gravitate toward people who feel the kind of emotions we 'like'. We gain power from those feelings, and—for lack of a better way to put it—they 'taste good'. So imagine a big guy like that, in high school, hanging around the kind of people who get angry all the time. I got into so many fights, especially 'cause I had a bad habit of winding guys up so I could feed off of them a little more." She leaned back a little bit in her chair. "Don't get me wrong—I never started it really, and I always won, thanks to the unfair advantage of the other guy's anger constantly making me stronger. But I was in serious danger of being expelled after a while. This look is pretty much what I ultimately decided to do about it: Take on as harmless and cute a look as I could so that the people I feel attracted toward won't wanna fight me. It pretty much worked. I guess I could've gone back once I got to college and away from all those pubescent hormones, but like—I'm used to this now," she said with a shrug. "And I'd already agreed to room with Cammy by then, anyway."

"Uh-huh...I guess that's a solution to that problem. Kind of like using a sledgehammer on a screw, though," Ed said. "Hmph..I was the kind of guy who those guys would beat up, if they could find me."
"They'd never touch you if you looked how you do now," L'hoxifel pointed out, leaning in again.
"Some of them might do something way worse to a girl," Ed said.

"..Fair."

"...You're staring again," the wolf-girl said—and she indeed was.

"Heh, guilty. I thought I could get away with it since we weren't talking for a minute."
"Is this like a new thing, or..?"
"Oh, no way. I've been fascinated by anthro girls for a long time," L'hoxifel said. "Especially like: dogs, foxes, wolves. I haven't been around too many, though. I'm sorry, I know it's kind a rude, but it's so hard for me to not fantasize about how soft and warm those ears must be..."

Ed's blush came back, alongside a particularly strong wave of annoyance from her. "Hmmph. This is exactly what I was talking about before.."
"How so?"
"If a girl who looked like you said stuff like that to me before, I'd know how to feel. I mean—you're almost flirting, right? But even just physically, the way I'm responding is so...weird."

"You haven't met a demon before, though. None of that bothers you too much?"

"Not really. I mean—it was a shock at first, but you...you really pull it off, I guess." The annoyance faded off, but the blush didn't; Ed's tail started wagging too, if a bit slowly. "Being able to transform yourself to look good must be nice..."

"I didn't exactly sculpt this, you know," L'hoxifel said. "My control wasn't anywhere near that good back then. I just shoved a ton of power and effort into 'make me look harmless', and turning into a girl was kinda the result. So it's a happy accident—at least as much as how pretty you look, I'd say."
"'Pretty'..? That's new." Ed's ears folded down slightly, and she sighed. "I guess 'handsome' isn't an option, though."
"Not right now, sorry. But if you took on a male form that was part-wolf, I'm sure you would be~," L'hoxifel said. "I'll be real, you weren't that bad-looking before. Buuut."
"But you like wolf-girls, right...hmph..." Ed crossed her arms, frowning, but not really feeling all that upset. She was still blushing, and her tail was still slowly wagging back and forth behind her.

"Do you...would you...go out with me? If I was a guy, I mean."
"Huh? I'd go out with you right now, if you asked!" L'hoxifel said. "I feel like we've hit it off pretty well already anyway, don't you?"
"Uh—but...I'm. And you're."

"What, we're both girls? I'm more than powerful enough to change that if I wanted," the demon-girl said with a shrug, "and you've got an option for that too. It's really not an obstacle. I'll be up front with you, though, I'm gonna be hoping for an opportunity to pet your ears the whole time~," she said, leaning in a little with a big grin.
"Uh...y-yeah...that's still, weird. But. So. W-would you...like to, go out somewhere? Then?"
"Certainly~! Let's find somewhere more appropriate than the library, huh?"
"S-sure..." Ed's tail picked up a little bit of speed while she stood up. "Uh...it's too early for supper or anything...there's some coffee shops near campus, right?"

L'hoxifel hopped to her feet too. "Yeah, I know a great one! With a booth off in the corner we could use, you know, if they're not too busy right now."

"Um, s-sure...I'll, we can try that then.."

The Next Chapter: 4

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The Next Chapter
Chapter 4: How Can I Turn Back?

While the "boys" picked out some outfits for themselves, Camilla gladly went shopping for herself, too. She just picked up one or two things that looked cute; even with Nancy's wealth and self-proclaimed generosity, it wouldn't be a good look to go too overboard. A little while later, they converged on the checkout counter. As agreed with a store manager on their way in, the two new girls were wearing some of the purchases out on them: the short wolf-girl in shorts and a t-shirt, while the busty fox-girl had gone all-in on a dress. Nobody batted an eye when Camilla gave them Nancy's (or, more accurately, the sorority's) card, as if they'd been told ahead of time, or maybe just didn't care whose money was being spent. Regardless, after that it was a short drive back to campus and then a walk back to the house, Camilla doing her part with the bags.

Naturally, she'd picked up various essentials beyond clothes to help them with living as women, and taken care to find some really good shampoo and brushes. Even if Ed went in on her threat to have her hair cut short or shaved, there was no amount of shaving that would 'fix' the fact she had furry ears and a tail now. She had also, of course, briefed them on the right way to go to the bathroom as one of the first things. Going through the list mentally as they opened the door and went inside, she verified that the two new members were well-taken-care of, as per the wealthy miss Tanner's instructions.

They encountered a demon in the front hallway. "Hey—" she started, then noticed the others with Camilla. "Oooh, are you two..?"
"Yeah, these're Ed and Jay," Camilla said, vaguely gesturing to each in turn. "We're just back from buying clothes and stuff."

L'hoxifel made a voiced gasp, bringing a couple of fists up to just beneath her chin with the biggest open-mouthed grin; her eyes might as well have been sparkling too. "Wooow, you two are sooo cuuuuute!"

"Heheh, thanks!" Jay replied; the wolf-girl tilted her head, looking a mixture of nonplussed and annoyed (but also blushing).

Camilla had basically expected a reaction like this, so she hardly reacted at all. "I'm supposed to meet Rob for lunch, sooo. Think you could help them carry all this to their rooms?" The demon-girl hardly showed it in public most of the time, but her fascination with animal-eared girls—especially canines—was well-known to her long-time friend.

"Oh, sure! No problem," she said, nodding, then taking the bags Camilla had been holding as soon as they were offered.

The task of the morning done, Camilla turned around to head out. On her way, she overheard the start of another conversation. Ed was saying, "So, do you know why exactly we grew a bunch of fur when we changed?"
"Oh, that's probably because of the chaotic venting," L'hoxifel started explaining right away. "Remember, the enchantment on the building is specifically designed to work in a way that minimizes accidental..."

Asking her that instead of Camilla must have seemed sensible because the latter was a 'normal human', but it was perhaps a bit of a mistake. After all, the demon girl was a huge nerd about magic; she'd talk about that until their big fluffy ears fell off if they let her. Oh well—Camilla shrugged—not my problem.

"Hi!"

Robert was waiting for her at the restaurant; he called and waved her over with a bright smile, and didn't complain that she was a few minutes late, either. That was among the things she liked about him. He was athletic and fit, with short, very dark brown hair. The two of them had hit it off after they met freshman year, partially due to having a lot in common: Both basketball players, fitness nuts, and retro gamers...

She ran up to him, pulling him into a brief, deep kiss and out again. He was only a few inches taller than she was, which was convenient for this kind of thing. "Hi, babe. You wait long for me?"
"Nah, I've been here, like, ten seconds. I guess you got away early?"

"I got it done, anyway. C'mon." He was an artist specializing in pixel art, which he'd started doing when he was twelve, and she did some writing in her spare time—horror, action, pulpy stuff like that. They could form an indie game studio together if they ever found someone who could actually program or design gameplay.

They had some typical conversation over sandwiches: Video games, classes, how their most recent basketball games had gone (and which team members had screwed up during them). It eventually circled back to the subject of what she'd been handling that morning.

"So two guys really went through with that, huh? I guess they were that desperate to get out of the dorms," he was saying. Rob bragged occasionally that he could sleep in a locker room; he hadn't particularly cared how good or bad his dorm was since starting college.

"Maybe. I think one of them was legit curious what it's like."
"Man, it has to be really weird, though."
"Both of them wound up growing furry ears and tails, too."
"Yeesh. Well—I dunno. Maybe a total change to your body is so shocking that a little extra like that helps you distance it from 'normal' anyway. Or like, at least isn't any worse?"

"Maybe," she shrugged.

"Hey, do you want to watch a movie after?" he asked.
"Yeah, sure." Abrupt shifts of subject were normal between them, so Camilla didn't need any extra time to respond. "Where, your place?"
"I dunno, it's kind of a mess right now."

"The library?"

"We could..but you told me you've got like a whole theater room in the OZK house, right?"
"Yeah. But like I keep telling you, though, it's risky," she said. They'd been through this conversation before. Nancy didn't have any problem with them bringing guests at all; the issue was decidedly more bizarre than that.
"I'm not gonna fall asleep! Not with a girl as beautiful as you next to me," he said, reaching across the table to ruffle her hair a bit.
"Pfft. You say that, but you always doze off like two-thirds of the way in. I'm serious, man—if you fall asleep, I literally can't do anything to stop the house from turning you into a girl."
"I won't fall asleep!" he insisted. "Promise!"
"Okay, okay. I'll see if we can use the space," she said, getting out her phone. "I mean—I don't think there's gonna be any competition, but I gotta check."

"Sweet!"

She got permission easily enough, and the two of them sat side-by-side on a couch to enjoy a movie together. Naturally, around two-thirds of the way into the movie, Robert showed signs he was nodding off. Camilla prodded, patted, or gently shook him to keep him awake, reminded him again not to doze off, and he mumbled an apology and made a show of pinching himself to keep conscious. But all of this effort from both of them wound up keeping him awake a grand total of maybe thirty minutes longer than usual.

When Camilla felt her boyfriend's head land gently on her shoulder and looked over, she sighed. It wasn't like she hadn't warned him, several times. But he'd insisted just as many times, and this was what happened when she gave in! It was funny; this habit of his to 'catnap' sometimes was something she found generally cute and endearing, and the feeling of his head on her shoulders was comforting. But in this case, it meant something pretty inconvenient for both of them. She sighed, gently rubbing the side of his head a bit like usual, and just enjoyed the rest of the movie for now.

According to Nancy, there was no telling exactly how long after a man fell asleep the enchantment would start transforming him. It was guaranteed to keep the 'target' asleep, or at least in a state that would look just like sleep from the outside, until the change was over. At any rate, Rob stayed "him"-self for the rest of the movie, as Camilla confirmed through the occasional glance his way. She kept her arm over his shoulder the whole time too—just as she might have if not expecting him to change sexes at any moment. But not long after the credits began rolling, he wriggled around in place the way he often did just before waking up, and then she got the first sign that something was happening in the form of a bunch of hair landing onto that arm of hers.

She pulled her arm off reflexively, turning to look, then carefully brought that arm over to her side. Rob's hair had indeed grown long enough to spill across his shoulders, and that seemed at first to be the only thing that had happened. But then he let out a low, soft "Mmmh," and all of a sudden his ears were popping out past his hair, their shape shifting toward the large and triangular while some deep purple fur sprouted all across their outside. Inside, there were big white tufts of fur pushing their way out into place. He grew these fuzzy ears all the way out in a matter of five or six seconds, and then let out a slightly different murmur, a deep "Mmmrrrrhh" that was partway toward a catlike purr, as a slim tail covered in fur the same shade of deep purple slid its way out from his lower back. His hair, which had grown another inch or so longer since she'd last looked, now went through a rapid shift in color, starting at the roots and swiftly making its way out to the tips, until it matched the fur of his tail and ears perfectly.

Camilla tilted her head slightly, looking at this and thinking: Rob actually was pretty cute as a catboy. Maybe—while begging Nancy to help turn her dumb boyfriend back into a boyfriend—she could suggest keeping those parts. The purple hair was a strangely good look, really...

But anyway, this look only lasted a few more seconds before he started actually turning into a girl. He unconsciously leaned toward her a bit, letting out a soft, low "Mrrr~rrrh," as he began to visibly, rapidly shrink. His facial hair vanished, then the hair on his arms and legs that his t-shirt and shorts made visible. Those clothes loosened up around him as he slimmed and shortened, his shoulders narrowing and his toned muscles softening and slimming away. Camilla watched with interest as his face flushed red, turning from sharp and handsome to rounded and cute. The purple locks of hair he'd grown out to either side of that face were joined by some longer bangs in making it look increasingly adorable. She could only briefly resist before..reaching across and gently stroking the top of his head a little bit.

"Aah, aa~ah..!" He squirmed a little in place in response to this, a strangely high, boyish tone coming from his lips. His face flushed even brighter, and he shrank a little faster, his hair cascading out long enough for the tips of those dark purple locks to touch the seat of the couch behind him. Then Camilla satisfied a bit of curiosity and gently touched his left ear with her right hand just a little bit. "Mmh—!" He flinched, then both of his ears lowered, his tail flicking around excitedly. Wow, this was...really cute! "Mrrr~rrrrh...!" His voice lilted up out of masculine range as he leaned up toward her, his face landing in her chest due to all the height he'd lost, and started nuzzling her. Camilla decided: The catboy look was very good, but she was starting to kind of like this, too. Maybe L'hoxifel was onto something with liking fuzzy ears and stuff after all...

"Mrr~rrh...aah, aa~aah...!" A soft, girlish voice came out of Rob as Camilla gently hugged him, feeling his body shrink one last little bit before he shifted from being a boy to a girl. This change came with a sudden shiver and a cute "Aaa~aaah...!" From his-then-her lips. Then she could feel the catgirl's clothes shuffling around, and gently pushed her off to get a better look at what was happening now.

"Mmh, mm~MMM~mmmhh..!" Rob squirmed around a little more, hugging herself, as her shorts flared out into a pleated skirt, her shirt tightening and shifting into a girl's white, button-down top. At the same time, the new girl's hips and thighs visibly puffed out wider and thicker, and the tightening shirt quickly revealed a small pair of bumps that had grown out from her once-flat chest. "Mrrh, mrroo~oowh..!" She made more kitty-cat noises as those bumps spread themselves out larger and larger, visibly stretching the shirt for a second before it quickly bounced back out to accommodate them. A blue tie grew into place around her collar, falling down between her growing breasts as she panted, making them huff in and out—coming back out noticeably larger every time. She pulled in a high-pitched gasp, then let it out in a girlish "Aa~aa~AA~Aaa~aah...!" as her bust expanded maybe another entire cup size at once, and then somehow found enough air to exhale a little bit more as the change came to an end.

Camilla easily, gently disengaged herself from the new catgirl, coming around to look at her from in front of the couch. She tilted her head a little, thinking: Yeah, this is pretty nice. Then she reached down and patted her "boy"-friend's head a couple of times. "Wake up, sleepy-head."

"Mrr...whu..wha...?" She slowly blinked her eyes open, revealing that their color had changed from a dull brown to a bright, golden yellow. "W-wha..!?" Her hands went briefly to a few places on her body before settling between her legs. "Whaaat!?"

"I told you, not to fall asleep, right?"
"C-camilla? I..I was just..um..?" She was still a little confused—as expected of someone who'd just been asleep.
"Was just what?"
"I-I..uh..um..." She looked down, the blush that had been on her cheeks since the transformation started still persisting. "I dozed off, huh...?"
"Yyyep. And so the house made you a catgirl. I think you're even bustier than me, too."
"Uh, u-um.."

Camilla exhaled a half-sigh. "C'mon," she said, offering Rob a hand to help her up. "We've gotta see Nancy about this. I'm sure she won't mind helping you turn back into a guy this once."

"Uh, o-okay..." She took the hand and stood herself up, carefully at first, although after a moment she seemed to realize that she wasn't having any trouble standing or walking despite having a completely different center of gravity.

The next thing Rob seemed to realize was that her eye level was around Camilla's chest. "Uh...this is, really weird..?"
"Yeah, I bet. I dunno, though, I think it's not a bad look for you," she said, gently rubbing the top of Rob's head a bit.

"M-mrowh~..wah! Why'd I do that..?"
"Um, 'cause you're part cat I guess? And I assume that feels nice. What about this?" she asked, deciding to tease her a little more with some ear rubs.
"Tha...that's...o-oh...mrrr~rrrh..." Her response to this wasn't very different from when she'd been asleep: Ears low, tail flicking around excitedly. Her eyes fluttered shut and she swooned just a little before realizing what she was doing. Then her eyes popped back open. "That's..so weird...n-not bad though..? Wh-what am I saying!?"

"Well, there's no harm in enjoying it," Camilla said. "I was thinking, it might be nice if we could find a way to turn you back into a guy that'd keep those kitty ears. If you'd be okay with that, at least."

Rob's face flushed red all over again. "Uh. Muh...maybe.."

"Pffheheh! C'mon, you. I think I know where to find her this time of day," Camilla said, heading for the stairwell to go up to the third floor and gesturing for the catgirl to follow. She had a pretty good guess what Nancy's response to this request was going to be...

...And that guess was pretty much spot-on. After they (mostly Camilla) had explained the situation and made their request to help turn Rob back into a guy, Nancy looked briefly back and forth between them two of them. "Hmm...sorry, but no."
"No!?" the catgirl repeated desperately.

"You gotta understand, even my wealth has limits. I can't just be handing out magical artifacts or potions to every guy who happens to fall asleep in the chapter house. I mean, we have an entire disclaimer out by the front door for this exact reason," she said with an arms-up shrug.

"But..but I—I can't stay like this! I'm tiny and weak, a-and a girl, and the guys' basketball team, that I'm on, has a game next week!" Rob looked Camilla's way after this bit of desperate sputtering, and seemed to finally register that she wasn't the least bit worried about this situation.

"We~eell, I'm not saying there's no way I can help you out," Nancy continued, basically exactly as predicted. "We do have a way of helping the members of our sorority maintain male forms most of the time—I mean, aside from sleeping and waking up, pretty much. You're not affiliated with a frat already, right?"
"Nope," Camilla answered for her.
"Then you could just join OZK. There's no fees or anything at the moment, since we're pretty desperate to get enough members to be recognized by the college, and soon. Besides, you obviously like the facilities we have here."

"Uhm.."

Rob briefly looked back and forth between the two of them. "Is that..like..okay? I mean, I'm—like, we're boyfriend and girlfriend...technically. Sort of."

"No 'sort of' to it," Camilla clarified. "Any problem with that?"
"No? I mean, I don't see how it's the organization's business whether any pair of our members are in a relationship," Nancy said with a small shrug. "From what I've heard, it sure happens an awful lot in our founding chapter, anyway."

"Um—okay? I guess I'll join then, if it'll let me turn back to normal. Or, m-mostly," Rob said.

"Great! We just need to have you contact your parents, and get some paperwork together, and then we can get you moved in. You'll probably want more than just the one outfit for your girl form—at least something you can sleep in anyway—and I don't mind financing that one bit..."

Camilla and Rob exchanged a brief look while Nancy continued rolling on through her explanation. It wouldn't really have surprised Camilla if she had written herself a script for this explanation and had been rehearsing it all across the summer. Regardless, she eventually went over to a far corner of her bedroom, opening a drawer and producing from it the solution to their present 'problem': A simple-looking metal ring.

"Now, pay attention. You need to focus really hard on how exactly you want to look the first time you put this on," Nancy said. "Ideally with as few distractions as possible. From then on, putting the ring on will cause you to take on that look. When you take it off, you'll go back to looking how you do now. As a safety measure, its enchantment will have it pop off of your finger if you fall asleep inside the chapter house. Simple, easy, and efficient. Here you go~!" She held out her hand with the ring in its palm, offering it to Rob.

"Uh...you don't mind if I take that now? Before I've signed all that paperwork and whatever?"

"Sure! You can think of taking it as sealing our agreement, morally speaking, with all the legal stuff coming after. I haven't seen any reason not to trust you—or Camilla, for that matter—and trust and happiness are way more important to me than red tape anyway."
"Okay, uhm, thanks..."

Rob probably envisioned the ring turning her completely back to how she'd looked before transforming at first...but it wasn't very hard for Camilla to convince her to keep the purple hair and kitty-cat parts. And so, by the end of that Saturday, OZK had "Robyn" as its sixth member. So now, as far as Camilla understood, they only needed four more...

---

It's true: It was only a matter of time before the first catgirl.

The Next Chapter: 3

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The Next Chapter
Chapter 3: What'll We Wear?

Once her wolfish ears had heard Jay's footsteps fade into the distance out in the hallway, Ed quickly yanked the shirt she'd woken up in off of herself and pulled on one of her t-shirts. Since it was designed to fit a man some six to fifteen inches taller than her, its hem hung down to her thighs, but it was also designed for a wider person, which meant it hung halfway off of a shoulder no matter what she did, the collar even threatening to expose part of her new breasts. She eventually gave up on improving this situation, and started toward the door—only to realize that her stupid tail was flipping the shirt up in the back! It took conscious effort to keep the front half or so of that tail still so it wouldn't do that, and she found it strangely hard to keep her balance with it not automatically helping, despite the fact that she'd lived most of her life without a tail!

Throughout the entire process, Ed's stomach growled, and she felt increasingly famished. So her first act once she felt relatively covered and able to walk was to follow Jay straight to the kitchen for some breakfast. Her stride was noticeably shortened, making her want to walk faster, and giving in to that led to her losing focus on keeping her tail from lifting the back end of her shirt up...! She soon decided that, as long as there wasn't anyone to see it, this was fine, and then she took off at a brisk walk the rest of the way to the kitchen.

It was in this that she discovered a minor advantage to her new appearance: Walking fast like that, for a moderately long distance, didn't seem to tire her out at all. Moving at such a speed, even with her shortened stride, would probably let her get places faster than before while also being less exhausted by the trip. It was strange: Nothing about her appearance seemed any more fit than before; certainly there was no visible muscle or noticeable solidity to her; yet the evidence still suggested she was decidedly more physically fit than before. Did this have something to do with being part-wolf somehow? That didn't seem to make any sense; maybe it was an unrelated effect of the magic that had changed her.

Ultimately, she caught up to Jay while the redheaded fox-girl was still browsing the fridge. Of course she heard Ed's approach, which slowed considerably as she focused on making her tail behave again, and quickly turned to look. "Heey! They've got donuts in here. You want some donuts?"
"Uh, sure."
"Chocolate, right?"
"Yeah," Ed said with a nod, and then something occurred to her. "Wait—if we're part, like, canine or whatever..is chocolate poisonous to us now?"

"Mmm...I sure hope not! I say we should test it out."

"Maybe you should; I'm not gonna make myself sick."

"No need to worry about that," a third voice cut in, making both of them jump slightly and turn toward the kitchen's door. Camilla was standing there, wearing a t-shirt and some shorts.

She was fairly curvy despite looking quite fit, taller than Jay (now was), and had gray eyes and short blond hair. And, somehow, both of their super-enhanced hearing had missed her entrance entirely. "Hey, g'morning. I'll assume you two are Jay and Ed, and not some squatters or whatever," she said, giving a small wave. Camilla's voice was almost as deep as a girl's could be while still obviously belonging to a woman. "Anyway—being part-animal doesn't introduce any dietary restrictions. And you're officially members now, so the kitchen supply is as much yours as the rest of us's. So, eat whatever you want."
"Cool! Chocolate it is~!" Jay said, immediately pulling out a box and opening it up to face Ed.
The wolf-girl shrugged, taking one of the donuts and going to look for a plate. Those were...in a cabinet above a counter, she remembered. She then found that her hand could easily reach the lower corner of the cabinet door to open it, but not the uppermost plate of the stack.

"Whoop, lemme get that for ya," Camilla said, pulling down a plate and handing it to her.
"Uh, thanks..."
"No prob. I guess it must be pretty weird losing a bunch of height, huh? I think there's a stepstool in here somewhere, or something."

Jay, meanwhile, had selected a donut and started scarfing it down, with the box still open on the counter in front of her—and the refrigerator still open, too. "Will you at least close the door?!" Ed demanded.
"Mmf, shrry," she said, gently kicking the refrigerator shut.
"Ugh, I swear..." Looking back to the very tall blond woman, Ed said, "Anyway uh...I'm Ed, he—uh, she's Jay. For the record."
"I might've guessed," she said with a slight shrug. "You sure you're good with just one? Apparently the way this place's transformations work can make people super hungry after."
"I'm sure I'll be fine."

Camilla went and took a donut for herself from the box before Jay could eat all of them. Eventually the three of them made it to the dining room and ate together.

"So, like: Nancy's super busy with some stuff today, so she lent me her card so I can take you two shopping for stuff. Score," Camilla added, waving said card in the air briefly before pocketing it again. "She totally won't mind if I get a few things for myself too, after all."
"Uh, really?" Jay said. Ed realized at this point that her plate was empty, she barely remembered taking the first bite of her donut, and she was still feeling fairly hungry.

"Yeah. I guess you guys don't know? Nancy's family is like—super ultra rich," Camilla said. "Her parents are a pair of Mammon who've been billionaires for like a century; all her older siblings are really successful. Like, her next-older brother's name is literally 'Rich', and he's gonna marry a literal dragon pretty soon apparently?"

Ed sighed, letting herself down onto her feet, collecting her plate, and heading back to the kitchen for seconds. She slipped up and let her tail do whatever it want as she hurried that way, but just decided to let it go.

"Told ya," Camilla said behind her before continuing.

"Sooo, sorry if I seemed kinda unfriendly the first time we met. It wasn't a sure thing you'd join, and some guys just can't tell the difference between a girl being friendly and flirting with him."
"Wha—really?" Jay said.
"Ooh yeah. You two'll know exactly what I mean by like, this time next week, trust me. And as for last night, well, Nancy really likes to talk. And I don't care to talk too much when someone like that's in charge of the conversation, y'know?"

Ed returned with the remaining two donuts from the box stacked on her plate. At least this meant nobody had to put it back up, she supposed.

"Anyway," Camilla continued, "I've already got a boyfriend I really like, so I can't have any other guys thinking I'm interested."

"It really just looked like you didn't wanna be too distracted from your game," Jay said.

"...True, that too," she nodded after a brief pause. "But I'd have still made a little more of an effort to be friendly with some female visitors, at least, sooo." She gave a brief shrug.

"Anyway, like I said—we're gonna go shopping so you can get some clothes that fit you. And other necessary stuff for living as girls for a while—you'll get what I mean once we get to it," Camilla said. "You two gonna go in what you have on?"
"It's not like anything else fits me right now," Ed said. "If this even counts."
"Yeah, same. I mean, I know it's PJ's, but still," Jay added.
"Yeah—those getups aren't nearly the weirdest I've seen walking around campus on the weekend," Camilla said with a small shrug. "Seriously, button that thing all the way up first though," she added to Jay, who (already done eating) nodded and got straight to work on that.

"I guess it's pretty weird to just, wake up as the other sex, huh?"
"Yeeeaah," Ed said. "Plus having weird furry parts, and like, fangs."
"I dunno, I think I kinda like it," Jay said.

"Can't say I really get the appeal," Camilla said. "I like how I look now, is all. I guess L'hoxie might have a better idea..."
"Uh, how so?"
"Oh..y'know. Just, sheeee's been around magic stuff her whole life," she said.

Ed had the distinct sense that Camilla was lying-by-omission with this answer, but decided not to press her. Instead she said: "'L'hoxie'? She called you 'Cammy' before, too."

"Just little nicknames. Me and her go way back. Like, I knew her in high school. She's really mellowed out since then. Way more fun to hang with these days."

The first thing Camilla wanted them to get was..undergarments. Particularly, she pushed both of them at a lady whose job it was to measure their busts. Ed really questioned whether the small pair she'd wound up with were worth the embarrassment, but neither Camilla nor that store worker were about to take no for an answer. It turned out there was more to measure than just their chests anyway. After learning her new body's various sizes, the wolf-girl selected some sensible-looking...things, including mostly shorts for the lower undergarments; she noticed Jay mostly going for decidedly frillier options. Then it was time to get outerwear. Thankfully, Camilla left the two of them alone for this now that they knew their sizes. Ed knew exactly what kind of clothes she wanted.

A little while later, she crossed her arms, staring into the mirror.

She'd picked out a black t-shirt and some jean-shorts, but wasn't entirely sure about the results still. "Hmmph." Somehow having a bra on under the shirt made her bust look slightly bigger...and despite definitely getting the right size for everything, and it all feeling like a very comfortable fit, it still looked kind of tight. Tight enough to not leave much of her newfound figure to the imagination. Well, it would have to do; she could buy some oversized shirts, sweaters, and so on to feel a little less exposed, she decided. It was nice to at least feel fully-clothed again.

"Heey, are you done in there?" Jay asked from outside the little dressing room.

"Uh, yeah.." Ed went and opened the door.

"Check this oooouu~uut!"

The redheaded foxgirl had garbed herself in a black-and-red dress, complete with some tight black thigh-high stockings. She was blushing but also beaming as she picked up the skirt a bit at the sides and twirled a little to show it off. "How's it look?"
"Uh, fine I guess? You're...really going all-in on dressing like a girl, huh?"
"Sure, why not? I mean, if I am one anyway! I like being attractive for once in my life is all—even if it's 'pretty' or 'cute' instead of 'buff' or whatever."
"You really don't seem like you mind being 'pretty' at all," Ed pointed out.
"I guess not, heheh. But hey, you look really cute in that too!"
"'Cute', huh.." It felt like her friend's vocabulary was fixed on that word alone when it came to Ed's new appearance. Yet she couldn't deny it. As short as she was, and the way her face looked, and her body's curves...if Ed had been asked before all this to say how someone who looked like she did now looked, words like 'cute' and 'adorable' would've been the first to come out of him.

"I bet that'd look even better with some stockings, and be warmer too. And you should get at least some dresses and skirts, you know?"

"I don't see any reason to waste the money on that," Ed said. "This already feels weird enough to wear. A skirt would feel like no pants at all. Wait—how is your tail not flipping that skirt up, anyway?" she asked, remembering her experience with the big shirt that morning.
"Huh? There's a hole for it, duh." Jay turned partway around to show the hole. "There's clearly labeled stuff all over the store specifically for people with tails. And wings, and horns, and whatever else, too! I guess that's why Camilla picked this store specifically."
"Oh...I guess that makes sense, at least."
"C'moooon, Ed!" Jay leaned down at her friend a little bit. "We're not paying for this stuff anyway! Let me pick out a couple of more girly things for you."

Ed sighed. "I guess that's true. Fine, I'll do that if you at least pick a few more...normal things. Like, tomboy, casual stuff. For yourself."
"Hmmh, okay. Works for me!" Jay agreed, and then happily headed back out to the main store to start looking around.

"Wait up—I need to actually tell you what my sizes even are!" Ed hurried to follow her out.

---

Two unique-looking individuals were taking a shortcut through greek row. When they were about to pass by the building Omega Zeta Kappa hoped to make the home of their new chapter, one of them stopped short, turning to stare at it for a long moment. The other, after briefly continuing forward, realized he'd stopped, and turned back to see why.

The first was a handsome, slightly skinny guy with sky-blue hair, brown eyes, and—what stood out the most—a pair of large, bright, white-feathered wings coming out from his upper back, presently folded together but no less conspicuous for it. "Hmm." Still staring at the building, he put a finger to his chin.

"Something special about that building?" asked the second, a girl with no wings, yet no less odd-looking for that. She had unusually pale skin, pitch-black hair, was dressed nearly all in black, and even the irises of her eyes were dark to the point of near-black as well. She had an outdated handheld game console in her hands, and continued playing on that throughout their conversation.

"But of course! How else could it possibly have caught my attention?" the winged one replied.

She spared a short glance the building's way. "Looks pretty normal to me."

"Yet it wasn't there at all last semester, and now here it is before us, complete! Construction projects on this fair campus of ours of such a scale hardly ever show such alacrity as to be finished in the span of one mere summer."
"Okay? So it was a rush job. Prolly gonna collapse in like, two years."

"Oh, I very much doubt that," he said.

After this, he waited a long moment for a reply. Near the end of that moment, he turned to his friend, whose expression suggested she was already very bored of this whole conversation. She sighed, but still humored him with a completely deadpan "Why's that."

"Well, I suppose your senses still aren't so finely honed as mine are, or you surely would have noticed it already: That entire building is enchanted," he declared.

"'Kay. Sooo...is it supposed to be?"
"I certainly hope so. One part of the magic suffusing that abode is dedicated to granting its interior more space than its exterior would otherwise allow. The whole place really could collapse if that sort of magic were applied carelessly after its completion, rather than during its assembly..or perhaps a very carefully-planned expansion. But that isn't even all of it! There's something else...a bit more complicated....and I can't quite make out its details from here. Quite intriguing."

"Then, I guess we'll just have to ask someone who lives there, huh? But like, later. We got places to be right now," she pointed out, then turned and started off toward their original destination.
"Mmh, right you are. Truly a shame, but I suppose I'll just have to savor the mystery itself for a while." He turned too, easily catching up to her sluggish gait.

"Sure, whatever makes you happy," she shrugged, still not looking away from the console's screen.

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This part is where you can start to see what I was talking about, with getting multiple "variant" images of the same people. It's particularly tough to get Jay's fur just right, with the dark ear-tips and white tail-tip, so I cheated a little bit here.

It's probably obvious by now, but this story is organized a lot like most of mine, rather than following OZK's formatting. There kind of are supposed to be two main characters, but we'll be following others' perspectives along the way as well.