Aetuornos Beta 3b-2

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3b-2: Firebrand's Foray

"It's a battle of wits and wills. Manual dexterity too, sure, but that's mostly practice. Once you get good—so good there's no barrier between what you want to do and what you fighter does—it's your avatar versus theirs. Outthink, outplay." He tapped his forehead with an index finger. "The thrill of victory! The cheering of the crowds! The rush of being just two or three pixels of health away from dying! No risk of actually dying," he added quickly. "It's a sport perfect for people of my, uh, physique, too." And then, finally, with a big grin: "Yeah, the prize money doesn't hurt, either."

Blake was fully aware that it was a very slow news day, for them to be covering some nerdy fighting game competition. He didn't particularly care. Being famous wasn't his goal, but hamming it up for the camera was a lot of fun. Miraculously, someone in charge actually liked his somewhat theatric response to a simple question about why he liked these games enough to make more-or-less a career out of competing in tournaments, resulting in maybe dozens of eyes watching that performance from an overweight, bunny-eared nerd. But perhaps one or two of those people would be his future competitors in few years..that'd be nice.

One thing he hadn't mentioned, figuring maybe it went without saying: The ridiculous, fantastical worlds the fighters took place in were a lot of fun. Sure, he was a Rabbit who'd lived outside the veil his entire life, but they still didn't live in a world where a girl who looked like she was twelve years old had an entire army of squeaky-talking, lego-looking robots under her command, or a maid attacked people with brooms and vacuum cleaners, or literally little red riding hood herself beat people up with a purse. It was probably a good thing the real world wasn't like that, but it was fun to be transported into a world so ridiculous and see all those crazy animations play out.

When it came to the reasons people tended to enjoy video games, Blake mainly liked just three things: Real competition-slash-cooperation with other people, raw challenge, and...aesthetics. Okay, he liked the cute girls—he was a dude in his early twenties, so sue him! The point is, not a lot besides fighting games tended to interest him. But, when the consolation prize for second place after he lost a very hard-fought match against a worthy opponent was beta access to the universe's first real, true, full-immersion-tech virtual reality game, he couldn't very well say no! The more he heard about how it all worked, the more excited he got. The game was going to be so freeform and his own player character so customizable that he could basically make the experience exactly what he wanted it to be.

The goal for Blake was simple. His whole life, he'd played as all manner of ridiculous characters with loud personalities—mostly cute girls—and flashy powers and attacks. This time, he'd live out that fantasy as for real as he possibly could: No screen in the way, but his own physical form's lack of physical fitness not getting in the way either. For this, he selected an entire persona to embody from the ground up, kitting out his stats like a DND minmaxer.

A strength-based fire mage, with plenty of agility—firework-like punches and kicks! A voluntary no-weapon, no-armor penalty in exchange for access to unarmed fighter skills. Last-second dodges, fast combos! And loose clothes rather than armor, so nothing would get in the way. A ferocious wolf-person for flair, plus the extra bonuses to strength, balance, and reflexes. And then, of course, a name to reflect this character's bombastic personality: Blaze!

He was very excited for the game's release, and the opportunity to finally embody this person he'd envisioned and meticulously set up. It was a shame he was out of town winning another competition for those first few days, but at least they'd released some new content by the time he was back home and ready to play. Wednesday evening, he finally lay himself down in the weird little pod and mashed go, already feeling pumped for what was going to come.

Blake had been browsing the beta forums off and on since the game's initial release, so he had a pretty good idea of what to expect when things started: His body seeming to fall away out of the real world and into a blank sort of sky, where it would be reshaped into the form he'd chosen. There was still a little bit of reflexive shock and flailing around from the sensation, but he got over it quick. And—the change was already starting, he noticed, with a feeling of tingling rolling across his ears.

The tingling gave way to a pushing, downward and inward, compressing his familiar tall black rabbit ears into a shorter, wider, spikier canine shape. At the same time, his tail suddenly stretched itself out, growing longer and thicker until it was a huge mass of fluffy fur nearly the length of an arm behind him. He turned around, brushing a hand across it. "Haha, wow." All the predatory beastfolk, and plenty of demons too, had super-long tails; he always thought they looked kind of inconvenient for everyday life. But this wasn't going to be any everyday life for him.

After fixing which animal-hybrid he was, the change moved on to pushing Blake's entire body inward: A sharp yet pleasing, almost massage-like pressure causing him to rapidly shrink smaller and shorter in nearly every way. "Who~oa~ah..!" His clothes quickly tented around him, especially his shirt as this shrinking seemed strongest on his belly, flattening it out in a matter of seconds. "Aa~aah..!" At the same time, his voice cracked and squeaked a couple of times as it quickly changed, by the end paradoxically sounding deeper, yet no longer the slightest bit male. After all—just like all of Blake's other favorite characters to play as, Blaze was a girl.

"Mnnh—rrfh!" a high, cute bark came out as he shivered, feeling his skin erupt into tingling and his hair suddenly burst out into a long, wild mane falling nearly down to his hips in the back. Already his very loose clothes were starting to pull closer again, even though he still wasn't quite done shrinking. His flab was all gone by now, leaving his midsection flat and his arms and legs slim, but this last bit of pressure shrank his frame into a particularly slender shape, with narrow shoulders and a soft, round, cute face.

When the tingling hit him between the legs, it didn't stop—even as it faded from everywhere else. Instead it grew steadily stronger, as Blake's pants slid off of his hips and broke apart in the middle, turning into a pair of long stockings, and his underwear lost most of its leggings and pulled quickly tighter about his hips and, of course, down there too. "Maan, aa~aah...mrr~rfh..!" His cheeks felt the warmth of a blush as the tingling progressed into the slipping, tugging feeling of his manhood giving way. It felt strangely good, he thought, squirming his legs against each other as it swiftly melted away.

"Oo~ooh..." Blake's deep, womanly alto came out in a soft cry as she felt a burst of exciting, fuzzy feelings down there—even as her lowerwear pulled snug and flat between her legs. Her t-shirt was actually getting a little overzealous with the shrinking at this point, as its hem yanked itself halfway up her midriff. Exposing more skin was fine with her, really, but it shouldn't disappear entirely! At the same time, she could feel her hips and thighs gently plumping out, followed by a rush of tingles across her chest. "Mm~nnh..rrfh!" A low hum gave way to one more high bark as the wolf-girl's chest burst forward, taking only a couple of seconds to go from flat to—well, some still kind of small but undeniably present breasts, filling out her small, slender form nicely.

"H-heheh..!" Blaze patted her body down with a satisfied grin, letting a cute giggle emerge from her lips. This was perfect! She then noticed the ground had appeared at some point below her, and with a small shrug, she tilted around so that her arms were below her in a full-on downward dive. She wasn't falling at the kind of speed that normal gravity would've provided, and anyway it wasn't like anything in the game could really hurt her, so this just looked like fun! After a moment, she landed on her hands, did a neat, easy front flip to land on her feet. Putting one hand on her hip and feeling her tail wag happily behind her, she lifted the other one in an open, palm-up position, and effortlessly summoned a flame hovering above it. She hadn't seen it happen, but her eyes were now much the same color as that bright orange light.

"Yeah, this'll do nicely," she said, closing her fist to dismiss the flame. Looking around, it seemed she was in a forest. That wasn't a very good place to find people, and—since her character was supposed to be a hero anyway—it wasn't really somewhere she felt appropriate to properly let loose, either. So she just picked a random direction and took off at a run, which soon enough turned into a rather effortless sprint.

After a couple of minutes, Blaze 'felt' something ahead of her and to the right, and quickly jumped away from it, twisting in midair to land facing it. She felt not the least bit sore or winded! Was this what it was like to be fit in real life, too? Questions like that would probably have to wait until, at least, after she'd exterminated the monster that had interrupted her run.

It was roughly the shape of a deer, maybe a little larger in size, and did have hooves, but it had short and spiky horns rather than antlers, sharp teeth in a shorter muzzle, and—most strikingly—was covered in reddish-brown scales rather than fur. Now that she was standing across from it in a 'ready' stance, the creature reared itself up and kicked its feet in the air like a horse, its mouth making a hostile hissing noise.

"Yeah? Come on then, if you're so tough!" Blaze taunted, making a 'come get some' gesture with her right hand. The lizard-deer immediately charged at her, and she ducked aside, wreathing that same hand in flame as she punched into the thing's side, knocking it over into a forward-sideways tumble along the ground until a tree trunk stopped its momentum.

She couldn't follow that strike up, however, as her 'instincts' had her jumping forward and rolling out of the way of a charge from a second member of the same species. It turned itself around to pursue her, but she was ready before it arrived, ducking backwards under its charge, bending into a handstand-backflip that had her flame-wreathed feet kicking up into its body to send it briefly flying up-forward through the air.

The first monster had recovered its feet by now, so it charged at her from her side. "Pfft, predictable," she said, bending slightly to spring up past the reach of its horns and land herself directly on the monster's back. Grabbing its horns in her hands, she sent a fire down into it as it bucked and thrashed wildly to try and get her off of it. She yanked it sideways to point it toward a tree before using the momentum of its bucking to leap off it into the air and land on the other one's back fist-first, knocking it over and leaving her free to hop off and away from it.

The other deer-lizard indeed rammed itself into that tree, and continued flailing around in a desperate attempt to no longer be on fire. In fact, its act of running around with Blaze on top of it had spread quite a lot of fire all around. But that was no problem for the little wolf-girl mage; in fact, this kind of thing was simply a part of her tactics—part of her theming. She spread out her arms with the hands palm-up, and all of that fire swirled into the space above them as a pair of burning fireballs. Then she put her hands together and made a quick 'hadouken' gesture, sending that ball of fire flying straight into the beast she'd just knocked over, smacking it hard in the side just as it recovered its feet. It was bowled over by the impact, and the fire wreathed itself all around its body as it fell and tumbled.

Now that it wasn't on fire anymore, the other monster hissed loudly again and charged Blaze's way. She readied herself to counter it again when something bright flashed into view between her and the beast: A humanoid shape of glowing fiery bright-gray light a little shorter than herself, floating off the ground. It caught the thing's head in its 'hands', not seeming to mind those hands being gored in the process, and pushed it back. Another near-identical looking thing was floating over to the other monster as it shook off the last of her flames, its hand turning into a small knife-like blade as it raised that arm and then slashed into the beast's throat.

"Aaaalright then?" Figuring that these things were on her side, at least for the moment, Blaze ran up and around the one blocking the nearest beast, leaping to flaming-bicycle-kick it in the side. The floating light-man let go when her feet made contact, letting it fall naturally over onto its side, and then floated over to assist the other one in continuing to restrain/cut up that other beast.

Blaze's target stood up shakily, looking pretty badly injured to her eyes, but hissed again, jumping and opening its mouth to snap its teeth at her. She smoothly dodged the bite and socked it in the side of the head, then hopped back out of the way as it raised itself up and tried to kick at her with its front hooves. By now, the other monster was out of commission, and the two light-things floated up to stab some blade-hands into the remaining one from its sides. It was sufficiently concentrated on Blaze to be completely blindsided by this attack, and only briefly convulsed before falling over dead, too.

The wolf-girl looked back and forth between her two 'helpers', not entirely dropping her ready stance. "Sssooooo..." Both of them blinked out of existence, and then she could see someone behind them: A guy in a robe with a staff, the spitting image of a 'normal' mage.

"Hey...I saw a bunch of smoke, and thought someone might be in trouble. Sorry, I guess people don't like 'kill stealing', but..."

"You couldn't let a cutie like me fight all on her own~?" she said teasingly with a big grin, taking a couple of steps closer. "Really though, I appreciate it. We are supposed to work together here, right?"
"Yeah, that..was what I thought," he said a little uncertainly, like he wasn't used to people flirting with him. That just made her want to mess with him a little more.

"So—are you a new player too?" she asked.

"Well, everyone's new if you.." he sighed. "No, I've been on before. My name is Ronin."
"Blaze~!" she said, eagerly offering her hand up at him to shake, which he accepted after a second's hesitation.
"I, came back to these woods to look for..newcomers. Especially mages."
"Oh really~, that's interesting. I'm kinda a mage myself," she said, wreathing her right arm in a spiral of fire for a second or two. "Fire mage, to be more specific. So, what's your interest? Hoping to form an all-mage party for a challenge run or something?"

"No, I..hmm. How do I put this..." Ronin seemed to need a moment to think.

"Follow me out of these woods first, okay? The exit's not far, we can talk on the way."

"Alright then," Blaze nodded. "Lead the way."

He still seemed to need a moment to gather his thoughts, after which he quietly cleared his throat. "Listen...soon, a massive army of demons and monsters will descend on this country."
"Oh, yeah?" That sounded like fun.

"Already I've heard news of some of their leaders and elites scouting out the land, taking out groups of adventurers and seeming to have some mysterious missions of their own to complete, in advance of that army's arrival."

"Oh yeah! I heard about some stuff like that," Blaze admitted—although it was more 'read in the forums' than 'heard'. This phrasing worked for the roleplaying.

Ronin nodded and continued: "Their ruler, the Demon Queen. There is one thing she fears most, and all of those aligned with her will seek to destroy it. I was asked to...spread this thing, to as many people as possible. It's something only mages can use. And there is one specific...'form' of it, that we need."

The trees thinned as they arrived at the forest's edge. "So..you're thinking of 'spreading' this thing to me?" Blaze said, keeping the conversation going as they came out onto a much more open roadway.

"Right. You see..it's.." He took a moment to summon one of those humanoid light-things from before, pointing at it. "The gray glow there. That's what it is for me. It makes my summons a little tougher than they would be otherwise."

"So, it's not just this Demon Queen's weakness. It gives other advantages?"
"Yeah. But, I mean—disadvantages too. And also...I'm not really entirely clear on this, but it might destroy the world later. So there are some...risks."

"Bah, I can handle it! Especially if it's flame," Blaze said. "I mean, did you see what I did earlier? I can handle any fire. I'm literally an expert at it!"

"Okay then." He stopped, turning to face her. "So, to be clear—we're looking for someone with a white flame. But I don't think there's any way to tell what color someone will have until they get it. If someone gets a white flame, the Demon Queen and her minions will target that person especially, so there's a big risk."
"I don't mind a little risk. I'm in this for the thrill anyway," the wolf-girl said, grinning. "I say, let 'em come! So what do we need to do to 'spread' this thing?"
"Well..it's a pretty simple ritual. You..pick it up along with the fire itself. Just hold still...it does involve drawing a tiny bit of your blood."
"Alright," she shrugged, holding out her left arm.

Ronin nodded, having his summoned creature poke her finger with its blade-hand before dismissing it. He placed his left hand under hers, and his entire body started to glow with the same bright gray shade of flamelike flickering as the summon had a moment go. "This fire, kindled as the world began. This fire, to consume the world at its end. In the time between, it must through mages spread. Will you take it in?"
"Yeah!"

"Then...take this Secret Fire. Handle it wisely." Ronin gently placed his other hand atop hers, and the gray flame raced across her arm to the rest of her body. Its color brightened steadily until it became what she thought of as the color fire should be: Bright, blazing orange, like her magic usually was; like her eyes were. It disappeared from view a moment after covering her, but she could still 'feel' it inside of her, now a part of her own magic, and understood exactly how to spread it to another mage.

"Hmm..orange."

"Are you disappointed?" she asked.
"No..hff.." he paused, panting slightly to catch his breath. "We just need to get it to a lot of people. I am curious what it 'means', though. I only know what purple and gray do, and that white is supposedly important..."
"Well, I'm sure I'll figure it out soon enough. Anyway, thanks~," she said, pouncing up at him with a hug. He was too baffled by this act to really respond before she'd let go and hopped back a couple of feet, and he was left cutely blushing afterward.

"I guess you're not really looking for a party at the moment, then?" Blaze said. "Just more newbie mages for this Fire thing?"
"Y-yeah..pretty much."
"Well, I'm gonna get back to exploring—maybe I'll find a party to run with if I keep looking. So, see ya later, Ronin! Maybe we'll really party up then, huh?"
"Uh, sure..." He was still blushing! Blaze just giggled and gave one last quick wave before heading out on the road.

A short walk later, Blaze caught sight of an unusual monster from the top of a hill. It was shaped like a wildcat, but very clearly made of ice. If that wasn't a perfect target to test her newly-enhanced magic on, she didn't know what was. So she hurried, running and then sliding her way down the hill to stop off just in front of it.

"Hello there, kitty cat~!" On the off chance that it was a summon like those things Ronin used, or someone's magical familiar or something, an ambush just seemed wrong. However, it proved to be just as much of a generic enemy as expected when it quickly leaned its head back and then jerked it forward, spitting out a big spiky chunk of ice right at her! She dove aside and rolled, popping back to her feet in no time. "Wow, ruuude!"

The ice-cat monster wasn't interested in being polite, however, as it now charged straight at her with clear intent to pounce. But this was really the kind of attack Blaze had been hoping to see all along. She ducked back just out of the way of its pounce, drew her arm back, concentrating a swirling mass of fire around her fist, and punched straight down into the top of its head. The impact immediately shattered the monster apart, much of its mass melting—it was dead in one hit!

"Whooo yeah!" Blaze cheered, punching a fist up into the air. Her fire magic felt hotter and was clearly even stronger than before. Even if that thing was super weak to fire, it definitely didn't look like the kind of enemy that was supposed to go down that easily. "Awesome."

"..Excuse me." The wolf-girl's ears twitched, and she turned to find the owner of that voice making their way down a hill opposite the one she'd come from. It was a human girl with dark hair done up into some stupidly long twintails, wearing shorts and a tank top. Something about her, maybe something 'in the game', told Blaze she was a monk. Her expression was: Stern, severe, serious.

"Oh, hey—did I kill steal on ya? Sorry 'bout that," Blaze said, kicking a bit of dirt behind her. If someone else had damaged that monster first, no wonder she'd killed it in one hit—but that was a somewhat disappointing possibility.

"I was hoping to track the origin of that beast. Its kind is not normally seen at this elevation." The stranger stopped a couple of yards away. "However, more importantly: You are a mage?"
"Yeah. Guess I don't look the part, huh?" It hadn't really registered to the wolf-girl when she was talking to a guy earlier, but—she was really short now! She even needed to tilt her head upward to look this monk in the face. Still, she maintained a winning grin.

"And did I see a trace of the Secret Fire in your magic?"

"I guess so? Some guy called Ronin did just 'spread' it to me."
The monk girl's expression turned even darker than before—if that was possible. Blaze definitely had the sense that this was a real frown she was looking at now. "Irresponsible. Have you any idea of the danger?"
"What, you mean how the Demon Queen's minions will be after me? Just sounds like fun to me!"

"Beyond that. The gods of this world themselves abhor this power. It poses a danger of destroying this world one day. It may even be capable of consuming one of weak will, who uses it recklessly and without consideration."
"Eh, maybe," she shrugged. "My will's pretty dang strong, though!"

In response to this, the monk shifted her stance just slightly. It was still pretty loose, relaxed—but between 'ingame' instincts and years of watching animations of fighting-game characters at the start of their matches, Blaze could spot instantly that she was getting ready to fight. "I will test that claim. Prepare yourself."
"Oo~oh, yeah?" The wolf-girl got ready herself, her grin getting even bigger. "Bring it on!" She could practically hear a deep-throated, male voice saying: Round One. Fight!

The monk came up on her surprisingly fast. It was a good thing she dodged sideways and slightly early, because instead of just a fist, there was a golden blade of light just barely missing her neck. She tried to punch back with some fire on her fist, but her opponent kept moving forward like she'd been expecting to miss, making that fist only hit air. Then she flawlessly continued her run while turning around to go for a diving kick (complete with another of those blades coming from her foot) that Blaze had to dive to get away from. She rolled and whirled as she stood halfway up, more obeying an instinct than making a decision when she put her hands up and caught the monk's wrist between them—the hand attached to which had a light-blade on it, and had been halfway into a downward chop that very well could've cut her head in half otherwise.

Thinking fast, the wolf-girl sent her flames up across her hands onto the monk's arm as she did a kind of judo-throw sideways. Picking up and throwing another person felt effortless, and from that brief exchange it felt like her opponent was physically weaker than her—in terms of pure physical strength, that was, with her arm so easily pushed away by Blaze's hands. She went flying, bouncing off the ground a couple of times before managing to make a perfect landing onto her feet and skid along the ground a couple of feet from the momentum.

By that point, the wolf-girl was back on her feet, and running toward her in hopes of capitalizing on a briefly prone state. Seeing now that that idea wasn't going to work out, she jumped as she closed in, going for flaming bicycle kick and hoping the unexpected angle would at least catch the monk somewhat off-guard. The attack was perfectly and completely dodged, and she had to tilt herself around awkwardly after landing to avoid a couple of bladed hand-chops, then nearly lost her balance—would have completely lost it if not for her tail—to an awkward sideways-downward duck out of the way of a bladed roundhouse kick.

She tilted back upright as the monk went into what her brain registered as a brief 'recovery animation' from that big kick, which made her instinctively want to punish with some kind of counterattack. Remembering what had worked before, she grabbed the monk by the upper leg and judo-threw her straight over her own head onto the ground. Her opponent predictably didn't stay prone for even half a second, cartwheeling to upright and immediately starting to advance on Blaze again.

It occurred to her that she was perhaps underusing her fire magic in this fight—and she was a fire mage, after all! So rather than retreating or preparing to dodge, Blaze summoned up a whirling flame around herself to a distance of a couple of feet, making her opponent flinch back slightly out of her aggressive motion rather than get burned. She dove forward—still wreathed in flames—hoping to tackle the monk-girl to the ground, engulf her in that fire, maybe get some face-punches in while on top of her. This..turned out to be quite a mistake.

The monk's brief hesitation wasn't nearly the opening Blaze was hoping it would be. And rather than trying to dodge partway out of the tackle or the flames, she simply kicked her foot forward and upward into the air, a light-blade flickering into view—placed perfectly where the wolf-girl's belly was going to be in about half a nanosecond. She couldn't very well dodge that, and so managed to impale herself directly into it.

It was a very good thing that injuries in the game didn't truly, physically hurt like their equivalents in the real world. Even though the monk dismissed the blade and let Blaze flop face-forward onto the ground immediately after the hit, she could tell her injuries were 'very bad' and 'hurt an awful lot'. The fire she'd been wreathed in went out with that hit, too—since she wasn't exactly concentrating on keeping it up anymore.

She turned her head over to one side to breathe something other than dirt, and found the monk knelt over next to her. "You show some promise. Not as foolish in combat as you act."

"Pfft. This is a game, you know? Just, hff—smile and...enjoy the.....victory." It felt kind of difficult to breathe and talk at this point.

Kay Oooh!

Dying in the game was kind of weird. 'Blaze' lost consciousness, but not 'Blake'. There was the brief impression of a choice: Stay and wait to be revived, or respawn at a 'nearby religious site'. Figuring that someone who'd attacked her unprovoked wouldn't likely be willing to waste any revival magic or items on her, Blaze immediately chose the latter. She was mentally fed a blurb about a 'kind miko' finding her collapsed in the wilds and carrying her off to be healed...and then she 'woke up' to find herself lying down on her back, on a hard cot sort of bed.

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That's right, I can kill off whoever I want in this story because it's all in a video game anyway! It might seem weird for Blaze to die in practically just one solid hit, but that's the price of minmaxing. She's still a squishy mage wearing zero armor, even with all the strength, martial skills, and fast movement. Besides, it was a very nasty hit.

Aetuornos Beta 3a-2

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3a-2: Encountering Foliage

While their group started out in a reasonably strict formation, it didn't take long at all for Kite to go and join Scylla up at the front of the party. And then the fox-girl went curling one of her tails up along the wolf-girl's own, drawing an initial yip from her but no apparent objection; in fact, the samurai girl soon responded by giggling and rubbing the top of Kite's head a little bit.

Franka watched this display of affection with a slightly conflicted emotion. She'd..heard of people with animal traits acting like this toward each other sometimes, even if they were just totally platonic friends, but no matter what it meant to those two, it was most definitely adorable to her—so, fun to watch on an otherwise kind of boring walk toward either their destination or a random encounter on the way.

But..the bunny-girl also felt a tinge of what might be called jealousy. Not that she wanted either Scylla or Kite to..behave that way...toward her, but she kind of wished for another person who'd be willing to do that? Glancing back, Hatchet had a quite neutral look on his face (and even his ears and tail, which were typically much more telling for animal-people), and was doing probably the most honest job out of all of them in watching out for threats in every possible direction. He..probably wouldn't be interested, even if Franka was—and she kind of wasn't. He just didn't seem like her type somehow. And anyway, maybe he already had his eyes on someone else? Regardless, she was just going to have to put up with that slight sense of frustration for now. And...just try to appreciate the cuteness of the pair in front instead.

Fortunately, Hatchet rescued her from this by starting a conversation. "You know," he said, "I know it's 'more immersive' and all, but I'm really disappointed there isn't any background music. The trailers had great music, and I was seriously hoping to be able to hear more from the composer in-game."

"Maybe they're just saving it?" Scylla suggested, looking halfway back. "Like, for major story bosses or raids or whatever? Or maybe we're just supposed to make our own music, like, if a bard hangs out in the tavern, he can play his lute or whatever."

"First problem I think of is, where'd you make it come from?" the fox-girl pitched in. "We ain't sittin' in front of monitors with speakers to play stereo sound out of; we got 'real ears' here to hear with. You'd have to come up with a sound source that works for everyone, even while we're all in motion."

"Orrr..just put the music 'in our heads'?" Franka suggested.

Kite replied, "I dunno, the first thing I expect if I start hearin' things in my head ain't 'oh, that's good music', it's 'where's the psychic attack comin' from?' And if someone don't like the music, or gets bored, or needs to hear better 'cause someone might be sneakin' up on us...ain't nothin' in place to turn it down or off."

"Sure, but those are all solvable problems," Hatchet said. "It can't be that hard to add an interface for some sound settings. And anyway, if there's enough control over our senses to make us aware of 'being hurt' without us really experiencing pain, then surely there's enough to make us hear music and quiet sounds in our surroundings at the same time."

The bunny-girl's body turned around before she'd mentally processed why: A strange sort of thwip sound, followed by Hatchet saying: "—Speaking of which!" A long, apparently-mobile vine extending out from what had appeared to be a large, but otherwise ordinary, bush as they'd passed it a moment ago had wrapped itself vertically partway around one of his eponymous weapons, probably in an effort to grab his arm, and he was now quickly chopping down into it with the weapon in his other hand. While he didn't succeed in completely severing the end of the thorny appendage, it evidently felt enough pain from his attack to withdraw that vine and throw out another at him. This one he managed to duck to one side of.

By now, Franka had called her buddy out, and—wreathing it in flames, naturally—pointed the way for the magical stuffed rabbit to go running along the ground toward the hostile plant life. It looked a lot less innocuous now, with several of those thorny vines stretching themselves out all around it and writhing and whipping around in the air.

Kite was somewhat taken aback by this new monster's appearance. "Wha—th—tentacle bush!?"

"Tentacle buuuush!" Scylla repeated, drawing her sword and rushing at it, easily overtaking Franka's bunny. When it whipped several of its vines in roughly their direction, she swatted or chopped them all aside, even catching one midway through its travel in the bunny-girl's direction. Seeing this, the fox-girl miko ran up next to Franka and firmly planted her staff thing in the ground, summoning a dome-shaped barrier around them.

"There ya go!" she said, her barrier demonstrating its use as the monster's vines whipped against it but failed to get through. "You can still control your, uh, 'buddy' through this, right?"
"Sure!"

Hatchet was similarly occupied by the thing's whipping vines, although his lower agility necessitated trying to duck aside and get out of range rather than countering them the way Scylla was. He made his way around closer to the wolf-girl, and the two of them seemed to hold enough of the monstrous bush's attention for Franka's buddy to run right up and dive into it, setting a sizable portion of it ablaze. It quickly grabbed the stuffed rabbit in a vine and threw it away, but the fiery aura had already dissipated on contact anyway—and had very much done its job.

"Go go go~!" Scylla was adroit enough to take the opening, rushing in and making a flurry of swipes at the hostile flora, cutting off several of its vines at the source. It retaliated with some vines based on the opposite side from where the damage was, managing to scratch and cut her up a bit before she leapt and backflipped away. Hatchet made a couple of expert axe-throws to prevent two particularly thick vines from grabbing her in midair and pulling her back in.

Once the stuffed rabbit was about halfway from the peak of its arc through the air to the ground, Franka raised both her hands in its direction, and the purple glow of her power surrounded it, slowing its fall to a halt about far enough off the ground for its head to be at the level of her own. Then she brought her hands out and closed them as if taking hold of invisible hilts, and her buddy's arms moved the same way, growing two long, steak-knife-like blades of bright purple light into the grip of its 'hands'.

It held one up in front of its face, wreathing it in flames like the whole rabbit had been before, then drew that arm back and moved it as though pitching a baseball. Both of these motions were imitations of what Franka was doing as well, and the end result was the fire-wreathed blade sailing through the air right at the center of the fire-and-katana-damaged part of the bush. The other knife received a similar treatment, and came flying at the monster a couple of seconds after the first.

The first knife buried itself in some central mass, seemingly causing enough pain for the outstretched vines to all recoil inward, frantically grabbing for the source of the fire to throw it away—but the knife had already burst apart into a brief puff of magical fire and vanished by then. The second one missed its mark, instead sailing right through some of those inward-facing vines, its hot, sharp blade slicing through them like they were freshly-microwaved butter.

Scylla had stuck the landing from her earlier backflip, followed by countering some more vines while Franka prepared her attack. Hatchet moved even closer to and a bit behind the wolf-girl, seemingly deciding to let her take the aggro and watch for openings to provide assistance—which he found plenty of, either chopping away some vines coming from the blind spot of her swing or occasionally sending an axe spinning through the air to counter an attack neither of them could've otherwise reacted to. After the two flaming knives made their mark, she cheered—"Whoooo~!"—and charged forward again, sheathing her blade. Putting her weapon away like that seemed a little strange at first, but when she got up close to what seemed to be the all-important core of the beast, she drew and sliced out in a wide arc with it that seemed to go faster than one's eye could see—in the sheath one instant, and well out to her side the next, with the only evidence that it had physically moved between the two locations rather than teleporting being the many pieces of plant along its path now severed and falling apart from each other.

The bunny-girl had dropped her arms, letting her buddy fall limp for a moment, and was bent slightly forward, panting from the effort of the knife-throwing trick. Hatchet was using the opening in a different way—running around and quickly retrieving his thrown weapons off the ground—and he now stopped a bit behind the wolf-girl, noticing that their enemy wasn't quite finished yet.

"Heads up!" Two axes went up on either side of Scylla, hitting some surviving vines just hard enough to knock them back briefly and give her time to recover her stance from the attack.
"Thanks~!" The wolf-girl chopped her blade up through both of the stunned vines, then stabbed it right into the center of the monster. At this, its relatively few remaining vines stretched all the way out and convulsed violently around in the air for a couple of seconds before all falling limp at once.

"...Think that did it...phew," Kite said, picking her staff up and releasing the barrier.

"Yeeaah~!" Scylla cheered. "Loot time!"

"You seemed awfully..vocal throughout the encounter," Hatchet remarked, watching her excitedly pick up and sort the few items the big bush had dropped on death.

"Nah, that was nothing. I usually taunt way more to keep the monsters' attention, but I didn't think a plant could hear me to appreciate it."

Franka stepped forward, stretching out her arms as if to hug someone. "C'mere, buddy~..." Her stuffed rabbit stood itself up and ran, leaping up into her arms. "That nasty plant made some little cuts, huh? Nothing serious, but not to be ignored either!" She took out a needle and some thread, having it float in the air in front of her to free up her hands to work. Thankfully, needing to actually know how to sew wasn't a requirement for this class; her body sort of ran on automatic for the 'healing' process.

"I guess you gotta do upkeep like that after every fight?" Kite asked, heading over to tend to Scylla's minor wounds.
"Little buddies can take damage just like people do," she said, nodding. "That's one reason Franka wants more of them!"

"Got it sorted~!" the wolf-girl announced. "Everything should be pretty much even, but you guys can double-check if you wanna. Let's see...I guess at this point, Ara would say we should 'analyze our teamfight' or something like that."
"Ara?" Hatchet asked.

"A mage we partied up with on our first session," Kite said. "Real-life friend of Scylla's."

"Well, that sounds like a reasonable suggestion anyway," he said, shaking his head. "I guess you have to stay still to do anything complicated with your, uh, doll?"

"Mm-hm," Franka nodded. "Franka can give basic commands, but powerful stuff needs focus. More friends could be used to distract bad guys later, though!"
"Sure," he said, crossing his arms, "but for now, you sticking with our barrier maiden seems like a pretty good plan."

"Don't get the idea stickin' in one place like that is all I'm good for," the fox-girl said. "Just seemed smart with so many vines flailin' around."

"Hey, you and me work pretty great together too!" the wolf-girl said. "I don't mind being the center of attention if you've got my back."

"Sure. I'm not really the 'starring role' type anyway," Hatchet agreed, nodding. "Franka, you can do more than fire halos and energy knives, right?"
"Yep~! Franka can make cold or lightning halos for this little one, too. Plus she can use other weapons like big swords 'n stuff, and can swing at close range instead of throwing them. And Franka's little buddies can be really powerful bombs too! Buut, they'll need lots of repair work afterward, so it's a pretty desperate, one-time kinda thing."

"Wellp." The fox-girl moved closer to one of the piles of loot. "I guess if you're all done with repairs, and nobody else is injured, we oughta grab our stuff and get goin'. Don't have all 'day', right?"
Scylla nodded, hurrying to grab the contents of another pile. "True, true..."

---

This part was sitting there mostly finished for quite a while. The reason is I thought it needed to be longer, yet couldn't think of what to do in that extra length. I eventually decided that it was okay for it to be a bit short, just so the story could move forward. Also, I tried to come up with some way to have the title refer to "getting a shrubbery", but couldn't quite come up with anything that felt right.

Release - Part 2

To Part 1

---

Vezin felt a little nervous. While he accepted that the person he was going to meet was only 'partially' his wife, and was elated to have her alive and no longer suffering in any way that it could be done, it had also been made clear that her memory may be imperfect, or even broken entirely. It would break the selfish part of his heart if she were alive again, but didn't recognize him at all. Or if this 'new person' built of the two of them hated him, or...

His worries were interrupted by the little orb of pink light in front of him brightening its glow, dimming, brightening again, three times in a row: A prearranged signal from the witch. Immediately he stepped forward, reappearing in the room his wife, trapped in crystal, had been kept in for all those years. Lyra was standing there, and also a girl who was largely the spitting image of her, with a only a few slight details' difference. "Hello—?"

"Vezin!" His worries and nerves evaporated when the first thing the blond-haired fox-girl did on sight was call out his name and practically pounce a third of the way across the room to tackle him into a close hug. He hurried to gently return the embrace, letting a feeling of relief wash across him as she gently nuzzled his cheek for a moment.

"M-my dear...you're alright," he said quietly, a couple of tears coming down his cheeks.
She pulled her head back off of his cheek to face him, smiling. "Indeed I am! I've lost..some memories, but I think not the most important ones. May I..?" He quietly nodded, and she planted a brief but loving kiss on his lips before letting go and hopping back slightly.

"Listen..I'd like you to call me Joanna," she announced. "One thing I am missing is my 'old' name, and 'Johann' hardly fits...but overall, I feel it's better this way. You can remind me what it was once we're used to the new one, perhaps. Any objection?"
"Not at all. That's a lovely name," he said, nodding.

"And—it's gratifying to know how much you've done to try and help me..but do you know I only have one tail now to your nine?"

"I..thought as much might happen," he admitted. "I can certainly help you along in that regard, if you'll allow me."

"We'll see. First—what sort of Deal did you make with this witch in the first place?"

"There are some..historical artifacts she's most interested in. I agreed to help seek them out. And.."
"Wait, allow me to guess—you already found one, to prove your sincerity," she said, a hint of sarcasm in her tone
"Well..."

"You do love doing things that way," she said, "even did it with me, now I think of it. Well, now I'm curious what's got such a powerful person so interested?"

Vezin turned Lyra's way, quietly summoning the item he planned to give her from his private collection into his hands. He had some idea of her interest, but wasn't certain how much she really wished to share—and, even though he'd happily give away all secrets he knew to his wife anyway, it'd still be rude to do it in front of their owner.

"Let's see.." Fortunately, Lyra appeared willing to share; she was just trying to think of the best place to start. "You're both aware there are multiple Earths, right? And universes in general?"

"Indeed," Vezin nodded. Joanna jumped slightly.

"That's...huh, I feel half-surprised? I don't remember specifically being told that, but it feels familiar anyhow," she said. "That is—Johann certainly didn't know that, but then, Kitsune were a surprise to me 'till today!"

"Well, I'm..let's say, not from around here," Lyra said, "I've been to lots of places, and observed many more, and the ancient civilization I'm interested in is unique to this particular Earth—yours. They don't seem to have been around for very long, and took up a pretty limited geographic area, but the fact that they existed at all is a little odd all on its own."

"It sounds as if there is another reason for your interest?" Vezin said, walking closer and offering her his piece. It was a broken-off chunk of a wall with some pictographs on it; the person he'd acquired it from thought they were Egyptian heiroglyphs, but they were clearly nothing of the sort.

"I guess I can let you in on it, since you're helping me out," Lyra said, carefully taking the piece of wall from him and staring into it for a couple of seconds before continuing. "They appear to have had some level of, let's say, premonitional knowledge of certain major events in your world." A translucent pink bubble appeared around the piece in her hands, and then the whole thing vanished—likely to her own abode. Then she waved her hand to one side, making the image of another chunk of wall shimmer into view next to her for the two foxes to see. "For example: This one I found earlier says something about, 'Descendants of the sun...conflict, or 'attack' as a verb...demons and monsters. That sound familiar?"

Vezin nodded, his ears folding down slightly. "The war.."

Joanna tilted her head. "Wait, which one?"
"The very same one I lost you to," he explained to her. "A group of humans—descendants of celestials, who were made by 'the sun', took up a 'righetous war' against us 'monsters'. The demons' help was indispensible in resolving the crisis. Although.."
"Yes, that wording makes it sound like the 'descendants of the sun' were on the side of right," she nodded.

"That's the way it is with a lot of prophecy," Lyra said. "Even knowing that the grammar clearly places them as the aggressors, your first instinct is to assume they're meant to be the heroes, compared to some 'demons and monsters'. This isn't the only major event they seem to have predicted either, although in most cases it's nearly impossible to tell what they're talking about until it actually happens.

"The piece you just handed me says something about the touch of—hmmh, a few words I haven't seen before, I think the last one is something like 'rejection' or 'defense'? Then, the sun...and then it says 'the moon bears a new...'" The witch paused, tilting her head slightly. "The last word's usually used for something like 'powerful', but here it's in the place of a noun."

"So, overall: Something—we aren't certain what—involving touch, rejects the sun, and the moon bears a new power, or 'powerful one'," Vezin said.

"Something like that. Obviously it must be talking about Sol and La Lune, but the rest of it doesn't make much sense to me," Lyra said with a shrug. "Maybe some more fragments will help, or maybe it'll only make sense in retrospect, like the rest of them. Either way, I'm very interested to see what else they had to say."

Joanna said, "So, I take it you're intending on traveling around the world looking for more of their stuff to handle your end of the bargain?"
"Indeed," Vezin nodded.
"Then—let's go together! I've got a pretty limited view of the modern world from Johann, and the other part of me hasn't been anywhere in over half a century. Adventuring around the world sounds like an awful lot of fun~," she said, smiling beautifully and wagging her tail a bit.
"Well—certainly. If you'd like to so much," he nodded. Then, to Lyra he said: "I will contact you the moment I find anything of interest."
"Heheh, very well. I'll leave you two alone, then," Lyra said, starting toward the door. "Don't mind me—I know the way out."
"I'd have guessed as much."

Vezin turned to the girl who was, at least partially, his wife, and gestured at the door out of the room she'd been trapped in for so long. "Shall we?"

"Certainly!"

So he led the way across the hall toward a much more pleasant room, a sort of lounge with plenty of comfortable seating. While they walked, Joanna said: "I wonder, if you'd let me borrow some of your power? While there's such a gap between us, at least."
"Anytime you like," he said, nodding, as they came into the room.
"Well, what about...right now? There's just one thing I'd like to try out with you, if you don't mind."

Turning toward her, Vezin found the blond vixen standing with her arms behind her back and a small grin on. It didn't take a genius to figure out she had some trick in mind, but—to see her as happy as that, he'd be tricked by her a thousand times. "Very well," he shrugged, granting her unrestricted access to his power.

She smiled a little wider, and came up close to him. "Alright~! Hold still a moment, would you dear?"

Vezin's heart raced as she pulled her arms around him again in a close hug, her fingers touching his ears for the first time in so many years. He shuddered slightly as she began exercising his power through her hands, sending a tingling down through his ears to the top of his head. It ran down his scalp to his face, and from there flowed down through the rest of him. His arms wrapped around Joanna as this happened, and he gave in to an urge to start nuzzling her cheek as she continued petting his ears, a soft, low vulpine churring coming from his throat.

The old fox could feel the tingling progressing into a gentle pressure all across his body. One of Joanna's hands moved from his ears to his hair, brushing through it as it started growing longer and longer. In the front it brushed across the fox-girl's hair with the motion of his nuzzling, and in the back he could soon feel its weight on his shoulders. At the same time, he could feel that pressure starting to shrink his form. His frame softened, his shoulders narrowing and his waist, arms and legs all slimming down; his clothes fell steadily looser around him as it happened. Joanna's weight had been entirely in his arms at first, but he felt it leave him as his height diminished. First her toes, then the balls of her feet, and finally her heels landed on the ground—leaving him just as short as her.

"Mmh—mrr~rrh...!" Vezin's cheek rubbing against Joanna's felt softer and smoother than before. His churring voice rose in pitch, starting to sound decidedly less masculine. He could feel through his clothes the slight weight of hair as far down as the small of his back. "Mnnh—aa~aah..!" And now..a tingling, slipping sensation began to hit him between the legs. It wasn't hard to guess what she was doing to him by now, but he was also..enjoying it to a rather unexpected degree. Joanna nuzzled him back, her tail curling itself around his, and kept on petting his ears, as he felt the thing between his legs steadily shrink smaller and smaller, his form slimming the rest of the way down to a slender, effeminate shape. The resulting looseness of his clothes didn't last, however, as the suit he had on began to pull closer and tighter around his small frame, reshaping itself to fit what he was turning into...

"Mrrh, nn~nngh..!" A dark, sultry alto tone emerged from Vezin's throat as he felt the change down below progressing into one final, sharp tug down there. "Mrr~rffh..! Oo~OOO~OOh...!" Finally, the gray-haired Kitsune's sex changed, and immediately she was hit with a burst of wonderful, fuzzy feelings down there, at the same time as her pants and undergarments pulled snug and flat right between her legs. "Mmr~rrfh..!" Her hips pressed themselves outward, her thighs and bottom growing plump—all of which pushed against the suit bottom, making it grow just enough to fit them while staying tight. Then her chest erupted in a burst of tingles, just as something tickled the base of her tail and made her let out a high "Y-yip!" That something turned out to be her hair, the bright gray locks now falling far enough down for their tips to touch her there.

But she was, of course, much more occupied by what immediately followed that tingling, as her chest immediately sprang to life. "M-mrr~rnnh..!" A bump rose up from under each nipple, pressing her shirt, vest and jacket all out at once as they quickly grew larger and larger. "O-oo~ooh..!" The way Joanna was holding onto her made the growing breasts press directly into hers, a very strange yet pleasant sensation all its own. "Aah, aa~aah...m-mmr~rrrnnh..!" The feeling of her breasts blossoming out larger and larger treated the newly-female fox to still more fuzzy, pleasant feelings down between her legs, and she helplessly squirmed in the other girl's arms, alternating between human and vulpine noises to express these intense feelings. But before she knew it, her breasts were giving one final, hard push, drawing a helpless high, breathy "Aa~aah...!" from her lips as her girlish pleasure finally, satisfyingly resolved...and then, at last, the change was finished.

"Mm-mrr~rrnnnh...!" Vezin helplessly nuzzled the blond vixen for a moment longer.

"H-heheh..!" Joanna giggled, rubbing the other girl's ears in return, before finally letting go and pulling herself back enough to get a good look at her. "My goodness, you look good in that!" she announced—not clarifying whether she meant Vezin's curvy new female form, or how it looked wearing a tight, female-tailored suit.

"I-I'm glad you think so...this was, quite a surprise," Vezin said slowly, trying to get used to hearing a deep alto tone ring out from her own lips.

(old image)

Joanna had done a little more than just shift her form; while the tail she'd had out before was just as present as ever, the other eight were now partially sealed, able to reapppear only with the other fox's permission. The power from them was still present, of course, but it still made her feel a little more vulnerable. Joanna..probably had in mind for them to 'match' available tails, a next-best thing to them having close to the same actual number.

"N-not that I'm..complaining, but...what ever gave you the idea to do this?"

"Well, I just changed from male to female, and somewhat enjoyed it," Joanna said. "And—I'm a 'new person' after all, and you must have changed some in the years since we last knew each other. I thought it might be nice to get to know each other anew on this adventure...and perhaps it'd be nice to give you something unfamiliar to enjoy it with?"

"Unfamiliar..yes, I've certainly never tried this before," she admitted. "Did you have in mind..being the 'husband'?"
"Mmh, perhaps later. For now, I rather like it like this," Joanna said, coming near again and pulling her into another tight hug. "Don't you~?" she asked teasingly, a teasing, blushing grin on her face—which was not two inches away from the other girl's.

"Er...yes..."
"Heheh..you're exceedingly cute, looking so nervous," she said, rubbing one of Vezin's ears again.

"M-mrr~rrh.." This time, she couldn't help returning the favor, even as her head slid forward to start nuzzling Joanna's cheek again.

"Aa~ah..oh, that's nice too! Mrr~rh..."

They stayed like that for a minute or two, wordlessly enjoying each other's affection, before Joanna finally let go of her ears, using that hand to stroke down through her long hair instead. Vezin slid her hand down to hold the other girl in her arms, feeling her chin lean against a shoulder. "I'm thinking..maybe a new name would fit you, too. How about Ziva?"

"I could..get used to it," she said.

"That settles that, then! Maybe we can set out tomorrow. For now..would you like to lie down for a bit?"
"Y-yes...my legs are, feeling a little weak..."
"Heheh~! I don't know if I could stand without leaning on you right now, either! Come along, then...!"

Joanna gently guided Ziva over to one of the couches and down onto it, landing on top of the gray-haired vixen. Immediately they were back to petting and nuzzling, their tails winding around each other. This was...very different from how things had been before. But Joanna clearly liked it this way, and Ziva was quite happy too...if anything, happier than ever before!

---

Ziva's image was generated, of course. I just couldn't find anything drawn that quite matched what I wanted for her, which contributed a lot to my writer's block for even part 1 of this story.

Lyra's a pretty important character in my "multiversal setting", but tends to be off in the background of most stories; she kind of prefers it that way. She's been mentioned before here and there as "the pink witch", and just about anytime in a caption/story that someone shows up with bright pink hair and is never named, it's probably her. I thought it'd be fun to have a small story that properly semi-introduced her.

Release - Part 1

What appeared to be a young woman wearing a long, dark-blue dress and a somewhat wide-brimmed, conical hat in the same shade, with distinctive bright, bubble-gum-pink hair trailing down to where her knees probably were under that dress's skirt, walked what most would think to be a meandering, lost path through the midst of some particular woods. Eventually she arrived at something which didn't really belong—and, indeed, which most people who entered those woods would never encounter: A grand mansion, with architecture dating from at least a century prior to the present day. She came to the front doors and used their ornate, fox-themed knocker, waiting patiently for the mansion's owner.

Before long, one of the gigantic front doors opened, swinging inward to reveal a tall, light-gray-haired man, sharply dressed, with the telltale ears and tail of a fox. This was a Kitsune, and while he only had one tail visible at the moment, this was one of the older and most powerful of their kind, possessing nine tails and a great deal of experience and wisdom. He smiled to his visitor. "You came after all!"
"Mmhm, I found a little bit of spare time," she said. "You know, I don't usually take requests, but the Deal you offered is still attractive. Just be forewarned that I don't take too kindly to being tricked." She kept a pleasant smile on the entire time.
"Oh no, my intentions with you are entirely honest, miss Lyra," he said. "Please, come in, and allow me to explain what has made this old fox so desperate as to make offers." He gestured politely inside.
"Sure." She followed him into an antechamber, and from there through several hallways and rooms; the mansion was a maze full of furniture, appliances, and decorations characteristic of many different eras placed not quite where they would entirely clash, but enough to give it all a distinctly surreal, timeless feel.

"I wanted your help in particular, first and most obviously because I know that you are exceedingly powerful, far more than your better-known actions would suggest," the old fox said as he guided her. "Obviously, if I or someone with equal power to me could resolve this, it would already be done. And secondly, I know that you dabble sometimes in souls, and in unsealing things."

Eventually, they arrived in a mid-sized room, empty apart from just one thing prominently on display in its center: Seemingly a statue made of bright blue crystal depicting, in detail, a badly injured Kitsune woman in a state of obvious distress. Without even looking at the statue, one had the strange, unsettling impression that someone was screaming in pain nearby.

"This is the woman I love," he said as an initial explanation for this sight.

"Uh...huh." Lyra took a few steps toward the statue. "Yep, there's...definitely a soul in there," she nodded. "And this is, awfully complicated-looking—no run-of-the-mill petrification, that's for sure."

"Those fools a few decades back—you know, in the war—used very poorly understood celestial magic to do this to her. I believe that they were unsure whether they wanted to try to seal or kill her, and this confused, tangled state is the result."

The witch nodded. "I could brute-force this crystal back into flesh, but it looks like she'd just die then. I assume you don't want that."

"Not, except as a last resort," he said. "But if nothing else will work, I am willing to accept that. Better she be at peace than...this."

Lyra came close enough to reach out a hand and gently touch the statue at chest-level, closing her eyes as though listening in. After a long moment she said, "Hmmh, this is no good. It's not too difficult for me to pull a soul into a different body, so in theory we could just make a simulacrum, but—that's..not gonna do it here. There's...damage, to the soul itself." She opened her eyes again, looking at him and seeing an expression close to despair. "Believe me, I've seen worse—far worse. This is less like a bunch of torn-up rags and more like some frayed edges here and there. I'd guess, from being in this state some sixty years? But on a soul, that's still really bad; it leaves openings for things to really break over time, even after it's in a healthy body."

"Can anything be done?" he asked quietly.
"Yeah, sorry! I didn't mean to worry you quite so much," she said, stepping back away from the statue and turning fully toward the nine-tailed one. "It's just—what I'd need in order to fix this is more complicated than just 'power' or 'stuff'." She sighed. "It requires...a person. And I have conditions if we are going to use a person."

"Name them," he said without hesitation.

---

A dark-haired, middle-aged man in a disheveled suit followed the fox through a door, passing from a hospital hallway into one of the mansion's many lounges, pausing a moment to look around the suddenly opulent surroundings in wonder. "Goodness..."

"This way, please. Across the hall." There was a little bit of eagerness and impatience in his voice; the visitor picked up on this enough to hurry and catch up to him. Lyra was waiting in the room with the statue, standing next to a complicated magic circle freshly chalked onto the floor.

"So.." The visitor shuddered, looking across at the statue and feeling it 'scream'. "That's, your wife? The one I'll be sharing a body with?"
"Ahem.." He turned toward the pink-haired woman when she cleared her throat, and paused again; there was something about her hair, he thought, that made it seem...alive? Like the way it was moving around couldn't quite be accounted for by the movement of the air across it. "So, my name is Lyra. And you?"
"Er..Johann, miss."
"And are you aware of what's going on?"

"Sure." Johann gestured to the fox standing opposite her. "This fellow introduced himself as Vezin, said he could cure my brother and make him rich. Set for life. Sure I didn't believe him at first, but he proved his wealth pretty convincingly already, and then did that first part for free. And..in exchange for him taking care of Harry, I'm supposed to help him revive his wife trapped in crystal by letting her share my body. Is that about the size of it?"

"Hmm, pretty close," Lyra nodded. "To be absolutely clear about this, though—it's not that you're 'sharing a body' with another, separate identity. If we go through with this, you would merge your entire being with hers. You'd still be you, but you'd also be her—one person with all of the memories of both..or at least, yours plus those of hers which have survived the damage. You might find your personality entirely different as a result. And, this is pretty much irreversible."

"Huh, well—that's better than I thought," Johann said. "I thought we might be on some sort of time-share where it'd be hers most of the time, but I could still visit Harry now and again. But from what you're saying....I'd still, care about him, wouldn't I?"
"If you feel that way now, then almost certainly," Lyra said with a nod. "You'd also care just as much as she does about other things. Like him," she said, pointing at Vezin.
"I suppose that's alright."
"This would also make you a Kitsune, since that's what she is."
"That being...a fox-person like Vezin there?" Johann said, gesturing. "Is that why he can do miracles?"
"Sort of. But that level of power takes a long time to build up, and isn't guaranteed anyway."

"Well, that'd only be a bonus in the first place."

Vezin stepped slightly closer to his visitor. "What do you think, then? There is no rush to make a decision now that your brother is no longer on the verge of death. But if you are prepared to make a Deal..."

Johann nodded. "I'll do it." He glanced Lyra's way. "Vezin told me that a 'Deal' is something special to him. He can't go back on his word with that?"
"Kitsune have a very hard time not abiding by a Deal that was willingly made," she said nodding. "But it is important to be clear and explicit on the terms."

He looked back at the old fox. "So..."

"In exchange for your help in reviving my wife, I will take care of your brother Harry, keeping him wealthy and successful throughout my life. And, since you will 'be' her, I will also take as good a care of you as you wish," he said. "Are those terms acceptable?" He was looking Lyra's way with this question, and when she didn't object, extended a hand Johann's way.
Johann shrugged, taking the hand and shaking it. "Agreed."

"Then the Deal is struck. I'll step out of the way," the Kitsune said, taking a small step backwards and then fading entirely from view.

After briefly looking around the room and finding only Lyra and the statue present, he said, "Alright...what do I need to do, then?"
"Just stand in the center of the circle," she said, pointing, "and take deep breaths. I'll handle the rest."

Once he did as instructed, the witch began softly chanting, taking slow steps up to the statue to place her hand on its left arm. Some sort of bright, golden-yellow light slowly trailed out of the statue, winding istelf around her arm; this process terminated with the statue suddenly, loudly shattering and crumbling into a bunch of bluish dust on the ground. Then Lyra raised her hand up toward the ceiling, the light coiled around it arcing up into the air between her and him before darting down into the outer edge of the circle drawn on the floor, filling the chalk making it with the same golden glow, which ran all the way around its perimeter before progressing steadily inward along the lines of the diagram.

When the glow reached the middle, it became almost blinding, and he found his body becoming seemingly weightless and lifting slightly into the air, followed by a feeling like wind blowing upward against his body and clothes. It caught his hair and made it grow longer, the glow settling into it to brighten its shade rapidly into a brilliant blonde. Meanwhile, the glow pushed into his body, presenting as a distinct sensation of warmth spreading inward toward his core.

His ears tingled sharply before stretching out, pulling themselves up taller and wider as fur quickly spread across them, finally settling into the shape of some very large, vulpine ears. The warmth likewise spread out from the base of his spine into a slim tail, growing a foot or so out before tingling sharply as its fur spread out thicker and fluffier, growing steadily longer at the same time until it become a huge puff of bright yellow fur with a white tip.

Alongside these first few changes, Johann felt like he was starting to remember something. It was fuzzy and distant at first, like he'd been caught in a dream for a long time and was only just beginning to wake up, but they began to grow slightly more distinct at this point. In these memories, he had the same blond hair and bright yellow fur—and was, besides being a Kitsune, a woman as well.

Tingling raced across Johann's skin, making him shudder slightly, and was followed immediately by the warmth gently pushing his body inward. "Mmnnh..aa~aah...!" His voice lilted a little higher as he squirmed in place there in midair, feeling his body collapse shorter and smaller around him: His shoulders narrowed, his waist trimmed and flattened, his arms and legs grew shorter and slimmer, and even his face grew smaller, softer, and rounder. "Aah, aa~aah..." Yet, even as strange as this shrinking felt, there was also something familiar, and even right about it.

A bunch of scattered individual memories were starting to put themselves together into his head in the proper order: Growing up a girl in Japan in the late 19^th century, falling for a man and eventually eloping with him, traveling the world, settling down, and growing old with him before learning he was a fox, and regaining her youth by accepting his help in becoming one herself. Not all of it was completely clear, with gaps and fuzzy blurs in several places, but the overall story was clear enough.

Johann's clothes fluttered around him in the 'wind' of the magic changing him, the suit's coat and vest combining into a single garment, tightening around his slimming torso even as its sleeves billowed out wider, the tie undoing itself from his neck to wrap around his waist as a sash instead, the pants slipping off of his hips and splitting apart to reform into some tight, soft leggings. His underwear lost its leggings and pulled increasingly tight around what they did still cover, especially between the legs...

The cloth pulling closer and closer down there made it quite clear that something between his legs was smaller than before, and now it was tingling quite sharply, tugging and slipping itself inward. "Oh~...mn~nngh..!" A high, soft, cute voice came from Johann's lips now, as he felt—perhaps even welcomed—the steady loss of masculinity from his form, all of the shrinking resulting in such a slender, slight appearance that only the bulge between his legs marked him as male. But even that was rapidly getting smaller and smaller, until—with a soft cry of "Aa~aah..!"—it, too, melted away, and he'd turned entirely into a fox-girl.

"Mnngh..aah~nn...!" She squirmed in place a little more as an increasingly familiar fuzzy, pleasant feeling erupted between her legs, joined by the sensation of her hips and bottom puffing themselves out into some proper curves, her upper thighs following suit soon after. "Mr~rrfh..!" She barked happily, feeling the heat of a blush on her cheeks and a grin across her lips as her chest tingled before beginning to push itself out. This felt..almost as nice as being with him, soon after he'd helped her awaken as a fellow fox. Their life together after that moment flashed through her mind, a bit blurrier than what had come before it...but definitely, wonderfully blissful throughout. And..she knew from Johann's memories that something..terrible must have happened to her at the end of all that, but couldn't remember it at all—nor anything else past the night of their wedding anniversary in 1939.

"A~ah..ahh~nnnnNNNNhh...!" Oh, now this felt good! Her chest continued to push itself out, stretching and brushing across the cloth to become a proper bosom, fit for a beauty like herself—and the sensation of all of that brought on some very strong girlish pleasure! "Mnn~nh..rrfh, RRFH~!" She simply enjoyed the ride as her transformation completed, treating her to a perfectly wonderful resolution to all of that excitement just as her breasts pushed out one last time to their full new size, and then let out a high, soft sigh of relief as it ended, slowly opening her eyes as she felt herself starting to float back down toward the floor.

"H-hahah~! That was amazing!" Her top was a sort of kimono-dress, but its skirt-like hem didn't actually reach far enough down to hide her new panties, and the only thing on her legs were a pair of stockings that barely reached past her knees. But—that was fine! It showed off her looks pretty well.

"You're feeling okay?" Lyra said, moving slightly closer to the fox-girl as she landed, gently and gracefully setting her stockinged feet onto the floor.

"I'm not sure I can rightly describe what I'm feeling right now, but it's awfully nice! I guess—'good to be back'? But also—'this is a nice surprise'!"

"I needed to allow the 'new' soul to reshape your body however it saw fit to regain as much of that 'self' as possible," she explained. "Vezin or myself could now reshape you again, if you're uncomfortable with that look."
"No, no—not at all! I mean I hadn't imagined myself as a young woman before, but it certainly beats being an older man. I'd say 'I think I could get used to this', but I feel rather like I already am. So, no trouble with that, then. Could..is there a mirror around near here?" she asked, looking quickly this way and that.

"Here," Lyra said, waving and summoning a full-length mirror next to herself in a brief, blurry shimmer of motion. The fox-girl hurried up to right in front of it to get a good look, leaning in slightly. Johann had been blue-eyed, and..she was pretty sure 'she' had had green eyes...so it sort of made sense for her to have one of each. Getting to see herself full-on like this made her even more certain she approved of this form; it was, after all, even cuter than she'd hoped!

"How are your memories? As 'her', I mean, although you should tell me if you're having difficulty remembering Johann's life as well."
Johann stood up straight again to face the pink-haired woman. "Hmmn...pretty good? There's some holes, and it cuts off I think earlier than it's supposed to. I can't remember at all how I got in that statue, like? Aaaannnnd..." She leaned forward again just slightly, tapping the side of her head a couple of times. "Don't know my old name. It just comes back 'Johann', although I don't feel that fits me too well, either."

Lyra nodded. "That's overall pretty good news. Having one's soul damaged is about as bad as it sounds like it should be. And, while you certainly are both of those people, there's a sense in which you're a new person as well. You should not feel overly bound to whatever obligations either of them had, or at least—don't allow yourself to be weighed down by them. Coming up with a new name may help you feel freer."
She put a finger on her lips. "Joanna, perhaps?" Then, looking around the room: "By the way, where'd Vezin disappear to, exactly? From what I can remember...and how he was acting a couple minutes ago, I'd think he'd be jumping into my arms by now."

"I had conditions for doing this for you," Lyra explained. "Such as making sure you—'Johann'—knew exactly what you were getting into. And allowing the 'new' you as much time as you want, alone, to sort things out. It would be wrong to allow Vezin to impose who he thinks you should be before you're ready to meet him."

Joanna nodded. "That's awfully nice of you, but really...I've got one set of memories that never knew any romance, and a ready-made partner sounds pretty nice to that end—and another that was his wife for over half a century. I don't think there's all that much 'sorting out' to do. Only thing is.." She paused, twisting around slightly to run a hand down along her tail. "I recall having four of these?"

"The Ruler sees you as a 'new Kitsune', so no free tails—you must earn them from scratch," Lyra said.

"Makes sense. But Vezin was up to six back then. Where's he got to now?"
"He is a nine-tailed fox," Lyra said. "He might have fast-tracked the power gain in his desperation to get you out of that state."
"That's sweet, but also...hmmn, a bit disappointing. We were having a fun competition back then, and now the gap's so big?"

The Kitsune paused a moment, getting an idea—perhaps even more than one of them! And her frown turned into a slightly mischievious smile. "Pardon me about all that, miss Lyra. Those are complaints for him, not for you. I've got nothing but gratitude when it comes to you getting me out of that crystal cage, and alive again besides!"
"All I ask is that you make sure he holds up his end of the Deal he made with me," Lyra said.

"Certainly, but anything else—you just ask! Now, I'd really like to see him again, honestly," she said, rubbing her hands together. "Feels like it's been a near century."

"Very well," Lyra nodded.

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To Part 2

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This is a little standalone story with ties to lots of the long-runners, but it should make plenty of sense without having read any of them.