The Next Chapter: 23

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The Next Chapter
Chapter 23: Were They Compliments or Catcalls?

Giovanni got in bed thinking of all the cute girls he'd met—and which he and Ivan were now living with!—and supposing that he'd end up dreaming of them, too. It seemed like the magic transforming people in this house only turned out hotties, and even those who had been girls all along looked great to him. To be perfectly honest with himself, though—and as he'd admitted to his friends once or twice—he'd never met a woman he didn't think was beautiful in one way or another. They all just had different charms. He would admit to liking certain figures more than others, but his personal taste was a distinct thing from whether or not a girl looked good.

That said, when he fell asleep it wasn't girls he dreamed of, but cats. He "woke up" to find himself sitting in a chair, still wearing his pajamas, in a house full of cats. There were so many sizes and shapes of them—even a few big wildcats a little farther away. Their fur patterns varied widely too, including not only several he was familiar with but others he had never seen before, and wasn't sure actually existed. This room had to be awfully big to hold so many cats; he was vaguely aware of a floor and a ceiling, but couldn't see the walls. They were all wandering around doing their own thing, the way cats do, and several brushed across his bare feet and ankles as they went along.

All of this maybe should have weirded him out, but everything just sort of made sense to him in the moment, as it often is in dreams. If anything, he felt relaxed and content in their company. Gio's family had a couple of house cats when he was growing up, so maybe he qualified as a "cat person"...although he certainly never had anything against dogs or lizards or other, more exotic kinds of pets. Anyway, he sat there watching the cats wander around, play with each other, occasionally get into fights for a few minutes...and he had the odd impulse that he rather wanted to join them.

Almost as soon as he felt that, one particular feline hopped up into his lap. "Whoa—hey there," he said, gently placing a hand on its head. This was one of the more exotically-colored ones, its fur coat entirely a bright, sky-blue color, and even its eyes reflecting back at him blue. It blinked up at him, twirling its tail affectionately, while he carefully pet it, and then it stood up and—hopped into him! "Aack!"

Gio had the natural reaction of anyone whose face was being pounced at by a cat, namely jolting back almost hard enough to knock the chair under him over, but the expected impact never came. The cat just seemed to pass right through his skin into him instead! "Uh..?" He sat up again, looking around and behind him, to try to find where it had gone or what had even happened. But at the same time as he was trying without success to locate that bright blue feline among the crowd around him, he had the increasingly strong sense that actually, he knew exactly where it was.

It hadn't run into him, and hadn't passed through him; it was in him. And...calming down a little bit, Gio noticed the feeling of something pushing its way out from his back. "Huh.." He turned around to find a tail very much like the one that cat had had, only larger, sliding its way out from between his pajama top and pants, rapidly growing longer. "Oh, wow..!" He put out his hand as it stretched out longer, lightly touching it, and shivered slightly at how this felt. The fur was soft, and the tail itself was so sensitive that this touch seemed to send a brief chill racing up his spine. The sensation also made him cry out with a soft, startled "Mewh!".

His ears began to push up and out just as the tail finish growing, and when he turned forward again and cautiously put up a hand to feel one of them, he found it covered in the same sort of soft, warm fur—and sensitive too, though not nearly as much as the base of that tail. He couldn't resist rubbing it just a little more; it felt so nice, after all, and he did know the right way to rub a cat's fur. This act made him lower both of the rapidly-growing ears to point out to his side, and he started to actually purr too. "Mrr~rrr~rrrh..."

The tone of the purring rumbling in his throat changed swiftly, going from a deep, male tone to something steadily more and more feminine-sounding. Also, he could feel his hair brushing against his hand, growing quickly longer, and a strange, slipping sensation down between his legs. When he lifted his hand off of the ear for a moment to look down and try to investigate, he found a river of bright-blue locks of hair tumbling down past his shoulders in the back, some long bangs poking down into his view in front. And..his heart was beating faster all of a sudden; he felt excited and warm. What was this feeling?! He wanted more..!

His body was hit with a rush of tingling then, making him shiver almost as violently as when he'd touched that tail a moment ago. "Aa~aah..!" A strangely high-pitched voice came from his lips too, and when this tingling gave way to a squeezing, pressing feeling, it was a girlish mid-alto "Mm~mmmh..!" that came from his throat. The tugging down there was getting even stronger; his manhood was excited all of a sudden, and getting noticeably smaller. In fact, all of him was getting smaller! His belly shrank before his eyes, his arms and legs became slimmer, with his fingers becoming smaller and more delicate by the second. His height slid down slowly, and his frame collapsed inward, narrowing his shoulders and slimming his waist.

All of these exciting feelings were making his tail flick back and forth happily behind him. His cheeks burned with a blush, and his heart was racing. "M-mrrr~rrrrh...!" Gio purred happily as the last little tug down there gave way to a strange, fuzzy sensation; the pajama pants and underwear beneath them pulled tight and flat down there, as Gio felt some more shifts deep in the pit of her stomach making her completely, entirely female. "O-ooh..m-meww~wwh...!" Her hips shoved out wider then, her chest erupting in tingling before bursting forward into a small pair of breasts. Then that small bust began to spread out bigger and bigger; she wriggled around in place, enjoying the fuzzy feelings down below that this continued change was bringing on. "Aah...o~oh..m-mrr~rrrrh...!" Soon her pajama top's uppermost button burst off to make more room, and then the one beneath that snapped apart too; her growing breasts became nearly too big for it, making it squeeze them together as they pushed out yet another entire cup size!

Then, finally, it was done. Gio found herself lying on her back all of a sudden, her eyes opening and blinking briefly in the dark. She was awake, back in bed under the covers. The ceiling and—turning her head from one side to another—the rest of the room were oddly easy to see, despite how dark it was. But after a second she understood: It's 'cause I'm a cat, duh! Cats had no problem seeing in the dark, after all.

This felt..very nice. But she was also super sleepy, and it was still dark after all. Tomorrow was Saturday, a day for sleeping in, so nobody would fault her for taking a nice long nap anyway. "Mrrrrnh..." She let out another soft purr as she drifted off back to sleep.

In the morning, Gio awoke to the sound of someone quietly growling: An unfamiliar high, cute sort of voice. She sat up, then hopped to her feet, looking around briefly before spotting the owner of that voice: A pink-haired bunny girl standing in front of the dresser! "Whoa~!" She hurried a little closer, getting a better look at both of them in the mirror. "Mega cutie alert!"

Her own body was that of a busty catgirl, sporting the same sky-blue fur as that cat in the dream, plus her hair having changed to that same color. It matched her eyes and PJ's pretty well, if she said so herself. And the bunny-girl could only be her roommate!

"I see you're pleased with the results," Ivan said, quickly pulling her shirt shut as she turned around to face the catgirl. Ivan had always been half a head taller than Gio; it was weird to find that reversed now that they had both shrunk in the process of becoming girls.
"Totally! You look great too, though! You're super curvy, and those ears are adorable! Did I see a fluffy little tail back there, too?"

Ivan tilted her head slightly. "You know...somehow stuff like that coming out of your mouth sounds a little less bad now that you're a girl."
"Huh?" She tilted her head. "What'sat supposed to mean?"

The bunny-girl exhaled a small sigh. "Never mind." Her stomach then audibly growled.

"Ooh, are you hungry? Me too!"

"I-I guess so," she said, blushing slightly. "But I ain't going out in this. You should, uh, put on another shirt too. Those things are gonna put someone's eyes out in that top." Ivan went for her suitcase—still packed—and Gio shrugged before going to her own suitcase too.

While they changed, the catgirl said, "Are you gonna use a different name as a girl, or the old one? I mean, you really don't look 'Ivan'-ish to me."

"What're you gonna do?"

"I think I wanna girl name! Dunno what yet, though. Hmmn."
"Well, everyone calls you 'Gio', but that's like less than half of your whole first name."
"Right, yeah...Vanni? Vann uh..oh, I've got it! Vanilla," she decided. "That works, right?"
"Sure," the bunny-girl shrugged.
"And for you...Ooh, wasn't your middle name Sasha?" In fact, Gio had teased him about this for a little bit after their initial meeting—since Ivan's full name was on the forms they both signed in the process of becoming roommates.

"Yeeaah. That's technically a—"
"—guy's name? But it can be both, riiight?"
"Hmm, yeah, maybe. I guess it'd save me the trouble of making something up."
"Okay~! Sasha it is, then!"

Only halfway to the kitchen, the catgirl could smell sausages, and her ears easily picked up the sizzle of meat on a skillet. The pair entered the dining area to find Fritz and Hendrix sitting at a table, both in cute-girl form. "Morning~!" she said, heading their way.

"Whoa. Uh—Gio?" Fritz guessed, her eyes not leaving that huge chest.

"Morning, girls!" Hendrix said, waving.

"Got it in one," the bunny-girl said, coming up next to her roommate.

"Yeah, but—I wanna go by 'Vanilla' as a girl!" she announced. "And—Sasha!" she added, excitedly gesturing both arms the pink-haired woman's way. The latter shrugged slightly in response to a questioning look from Fritz.

"I guess that makes sense," the dog-girl mused. "Chick names, huh..I guess Lyrica went for that, too."
"I don't need two names to juggle around," Fritz said, crossing her arms.

The demon-girl they'd met during their tour poked her head through the door to the adjoining kitchen to briefly interrupt: "Morning~! Breakfast will be ready in just a minute."

L'hoxifel was supposed to be handling the "adjustment" for all four of them—that is, going with them to help buy clothes and other necessities for living as women. Fritz hadn't been sure that was necessary, but some gentle persuasion that it was basically free stuff whether (s)he used it or not had convinced him. They had already heard about the demon-girl's legendary cooking, so even Vanilla had enough patience to just take a seat and wait a couple of minute more for that.

She brought out some fresh-cooked sausages and biscuits, mustard, cheese, and juices. Then all five of them ate together.

"So—using a different name, huh?"
"Is that typical?" Fritz asked.

L'hoxifel shrugged. "Some do, some don't. I think it's less common now than it was with the veil intact, since back then there was a need to keep up appearances. That, or—maybe it's just that more people are getting transformed, so more of them are people with the disposition of not wanting to complicate things that way. I went with only a tiny change, myself."
Fritz stopped with her sausage-biscuit sandwich halfway to her mouth. "Uh...hold on. You went with—?"
"Mm-hm! 'Fel' is a more feminine-sounding name ending than 'Van', at least for demon names," she said.
"I thought you were one of the 'originally-a-girl' group, though," Sasha said.

"That depends on what you mean by 'original'?" she said with a slight shrug. "I have been since before college, at least.

"What do you think of your new forms, huh? I gather Fritz doesn't like hers too much."
"It's just—being a girl feels weird," she protested.

"Mine is great~!" Vanilla reported cheerfully.

"It's uh..fine," Sasha said. "I mean—a lot of it doesn't bother me, or I even kinda like, but.."
"But?"

"It's just that I worked pretty hard to sculpt those muscles, and now I'm back to square one again. I guess it's fine—I mean, when I get a ring the male form can be back to being built again, but I'm gonna have to work pretty hard for a while..."

"You just wanna be more physically fit? Like you were as a boy? I can do that for you," she said with a small shrug.
"Wh—really? You can just zap people fit, like that?!" Vanilla said.

"Well—it's not without its price. But doing it once in a while isn't a big deal," L'hoxifel said. "I did a little adjustment for Ed just last week. Let's call it a 'member perk' of OZK, at least while I'm a member."

"I'd appreciate it, anyway," the bunny-girl said.

"Uh—this is gonna sound weird but...can I watch?" Fritz asked, her cheeks an adorable bright red.

"Oh, 'cause of your copying power thing?" Vanilla said.
"Y-yeah..."
"It's her talent as a witch or whatever," Hendrix explained for the demon-girl.

L'hoxifel shrugged. "I don't mind if you don't," she told Sasha, who also shrugged.
"Sure, whatever. Let's just do it in here when we're done eating, I say."

And so, when they had finished breakfast, L'hoxifel and the bunny-girl stood across from each other. The former visibly concentrated, lifting a hand to gently touch Sasha's forehead while a bright purple glow appeared all over that hand. The glow moved to the target's head, spreading down across her body while L'hoxifel dropped her hand and let out a brief huff of air from the effort.

"Mmh...aa~aah...!" Once it had enveloped her, the glow pushed in against Sasha's body. Her arms and legs quickly and visibly tightened and toned. She gasped alongside a sudden upward motion as her height increased an inch or two, and her bust puffed out bigger; then she exhaled slowly as the big, ill-fitting t-shirt and boy-cut shorts she'd put on earlier shrank into a much more tight-fitting outfit, perfectly hugging her curvy frame. The shirt shrank maybe a little too much, its lower hem not quite hiding some solid abs now adorning a belly that had been completely soft a moment ago.

"Haha...yeah!" she put her hands on her hips. "That's way more like it!"

"Ooh man, I was already missing these babies," she said, gently patting her abs with a hand.

"Um..so..." Fritz mumbled.
"If you're not gonna say it, I will," Vanilla said.

"Your rack got a little bigger," Hendrix concluded.
"Oh..yeah? I guess so," she said, hefting one of the breasts under her hand. "Well, whatever—I was gonna have boobs either way."

Fritz said, "I have no idea how you're all so okay with this..."

"So did you learn how to do that with that talent of yours?" L'hoxifel asked.
"Huh? Oh, yeah, I think," Fritz said, shrugging. "I guess...I can try it later. On myself, or something," "Thanks."

"No problem~! Now, we need to get out of here to have any hope of finishing the shopping by lunch time!"

Maybe a little under an hour later, Vanilla was standing in a dressing room. She'd had some help putting on a bra and some girl-type underwear, and now changed out an ill-fitting shirt and those pajama pants for a pair of shorts and a white t-shirt that were made to fit people of her new sex. Once she'd pulled the shirt on, she looked to the mirror. "Oh...wow~..heehee..." She giggled slightly, lifting one hand and grinning at the girl in the mirror.

I actually look good in this! It's super basic too! It's like I can look good in anything now...!

After turning and walking a little in that outfit, she took it off, deciding to go adventurous. L'hoxifel had been nice enough to whisper her a few tips when she'd seen the catgirl picking these things off the rack...

"Hii giiirrrls~!" She came out of the changing room to greet the others in that one: A full-on sailor suit type of outfit, with a short skirt, stockings, and an azure-blue tie to match. Her three friends—all of which were wearing some kind of pants still—paused to stare.

"Are you sure this's our Gio?" Fritz said.

"Dead certain," the bunny-girl assured her.

"Am I the only one seein' sparkles?" Hendrix asked.

"Well, you do look good in that," L'hoxifel said. "I presume you're all wearing what you wanna leave the store in, then?" A brief chorus of assent followed, and they gathered their huge pile of new purchases to take out with them.

"Isn't wearing a skirt really weird?" The blue-haired 'witch' asked.

Sasha added, "Especially one that short..."

"Heheh...it's definitely different," Vanilla admitted. "I think I could get used it, though, especially for something so cute~! You'd both look great in something like this too, y'know?"

Fritz's cheeks flushed red. "Uh, s-sure..."
"I think we've created a monster," the bunny-girl concluded (joking (probably)).