Battle Vixens! - 144

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Episode 144: Deep Breath

Marcus came back from his 'training montage' with Light, opening the apartment door to a sight he would have found positively surreal just a week or so earlier: A curvy, blond-haired catgirl lying on the couch asleep, hugging one of the pillows. Yet now, it was just Thad—or maybe 'Thalia'. As worn out as he felt from all of the sparring and experiments with magic, a stray part of his mind sputtered out that he should put on his hat and join her...but he immediately shook his head to dispel the thought, continuing on to his own bedroom. The rest of the day was pretty much uneventful.

After Emma left to negotiate and possibly sign a contract with the VI, Amory headed back to his own apartment. Both of them kind of wanted to go back to what they'd been doing before the call...but there was an eventual, mutual, semi-reluctant agreement that they'd do so the next day, after all the fights were over. It was good to have something to look forward to, maybe, for both of them—and besides, they both had some other things to take care of. He pestered Blake to go to bed early that night instead of continuing to read comic scans on his computer, and turned in himself not long afterward. Well—more like herself, given the plan for the night.

Rowan sighed, leaning back in her chair. Fox ears didn't miss a single whisper, of course, so a neighboring vixen at the table said, "Long hours getting to you?"
"I can't even rest when I'm asleep. If this crisis ever ends, I won't know what to do with myself," she admitted. "I may end up committed."
"Don't count on getting free time anytime soon," she advised; despite her young appearance, this person was in her nineties, if Rowan recalled right. "The cleanup after a hurricane is often far more work than living through it."
"True..." She looked over to where Espadas was busy arguing with an Italian vixen, noting their volume getting louder and their tones increasingly heated, and took a sharp breath in before standing up to intercede.

Simon treated his wife to a dinner out. Sure, he had dramatically instigated a few large-group meals which she also attended over the past couple of days, but that wasn't quite the same thing as just the two of them sitting across from each other at a table, with nobody else around.

"I think I've got her warming up to the idea," he was saying.
"You mean you feel like you've bullied her enough for the moment?" Karis retorted.

"Sure," he said with a small shrug. "There's an art to this sort of thing, you know. Push too little and they'll forget; too much and they'll refuse to do it just to spite you."

"You're not gonna forget that it is Cynthia's own choice what to do with her life, are you?"

"Oh, perish the thought. But it would be a terrible shame for the art world to lose such a talent just because she's a superhero," he said. "Now, look—she's going to have to pass the GED. If going to college is what she wants. And I have no idea how good her math skills are; they might be even worse than mine."
"Now that's scary," Karis said.

"Right? So I was just wondering, you know, pre-emptively, whether you'd be willing to play tutor once in a while. In the event that it's needed?"
"I guess that wouldn't be too bad. As long as she doesn't start burning the books or something."

"Rowan's been helping her learn better control. Besides, I don't think that's the kind of thing she'd have done even before all this."

"Good, good. Say—you're not worried at all about tomorrow, are you?"

"Worrying really isn't in my nature, my dear."
"I know, I know. But, after everything we've been through so far...I admit I don't really like imagining what 'even worse' is supposed to look like. Maybe we'd better, at least, go to bed early tonight."

"Well, I am more or less caught up on my portraits for the moment," he mused. "I've got some projects from before this disaster started that I really should get back to, but I think the people waiting on them will be understanding if I put them off just a bit longer."

"So you spent more than half your day off talking to youg'uns?"
"Yeeeah...but it's not so bad. I mean, it helps I look like one of 'em again," Ning said, "complete with all the energy." She'd called Corporal Samuel Langdon for a chat a couple of hours after her lunch, now that the shop was empty of both applicants and customers. "I got some pretty good applicants once the folks who were just there to gawk had their fun."

"Being the owner of your own business seems awful tough. Can't say I'd be cut out for it."

"Well—what'd you do today, army man?"
"First thing in the morning, back to base to help run a few drills. After that..Simon bugged me to do a press spot in that t-shirt Lucy gave me."

"Lucy, Lucy...ah! You mean No Evil's leader, right?"
"Seems I'm an 'honorary member', on account of missing half a leg. He reckoned it'd be a 'good angle', for me to talk about what it's like going around on a prosthetic."

"Uh-huh. So, did you do it?"
"Aaaafter some thinkin'. On a couple-a things Lucy told me when she was handing over the shirt. It would be awful nice if everyone who's missing pieces could get 'em back as easily as I did mine...or, 'least, something more similar than what they can make now."

"Heheh~, well, I guess even talking to the press can be tolerated for a good cause.

"Hey—you get any time to talk to your kids? Or grandkids?"

"Just over the phone. They gave their well-wishes, told me to be careful, all that. I said they might want to locate the nearest storm shelters, print out some maps—just in case."

"You think it'll be as bad as that?"
"I don't know, but...it don't hurt to be careful. Our 'spy' told us the enemy's got something big coming for us; it'd be a fool who doesn't take a threat like that seriously."

"True. I guess I'll be sharing Nadia's bedtime tonight.."

"I wanna have some fun tonight, too!"
Clark sighed, then chuckled slightly. "You realize that would mostly defeat the point of turning in early, right?" It was good to have his wife fully back. Even if it wasn't precisely the "old Rory", he would still call it a "new and improved" version. But some things hadn't changed.
"Bleeh, nonsense!" Rory said. "I sleep way better after. You're telling me you don't?"
"I suppose I can't argue otherwise." Now that she'd had a taste again, she was back to being insatiable.

...Well, that was something he'd always loved about her.

Ezekiel walked back inside, and then to the office, reporting: "That's the last set packed up and shipped out."
"Good..." Dr. Brand nodded slowly, lifting his near-empty coffee cup like it was made of lead and attempting to take a sip from it.

"Have you considered, maybe...using that younger form of yours instead of ingesting unhealthy amounts of caffeine?"
He glared up, ever-so-slightly, and then slowly put the cup down. "I know my limits. Exhaustion carries between appearances anyway."

"I told everyone to go home, you know—of those who didn't already need to before. It's past 2 AM—we're really testing the limits of 'same-day delivery' at this point. I'm about to head home to catch a little shut-eye myself. What've you been staring at there, anyway?" Ezekiel leaned over the paper on his colleague's desk; the fact he was looking at it upside-down didn't make it any more comprehensible.
Dr. Brand just shook his head in that 'you're-not-a-physicist' way, then sighed. "If our work is done for the day, then I will go to sleep."

"You make it sound like you intend to collapse at your desk." Ezekiel offered his arms over. "C'mon, I can drive you home if you need me to."
"I'm sleepy, not drunk," he said, rising a little slowly from the chair.
"Impaired judgement comes from both."
"My judgement is not impaired."
"Okay, okay—just, take it easy, you know? Maybe sleep in a little bit?"
"This body loathes a late morning."
"That body? What about the other one?"
Dr. Brand glared briefly, then shrugged. "Haven't tested."
"In that case, I'd venture that an experiment is warranted. You've got to get some rest somehow, right?"
"Hmmph."

---

"Let's see..." Amp had her laptop at the kitchen table, and scrolled around a map of the college and town. "Attacks here, here, here..." She was mostly mumbling to herself. "Not exactly simultaneous. If we go from one to the next...three teams might be able to manage it. Probably gonna have to do some kiting, though..."

Her ears picked up Blake getting out of bed, going about a typical morning routine in his room and bathroom...and then he came into the kitchen. "Hey! I've got breakfast in the oven," she said. "Actually—it's prolly done by now."
"Thanks. Smells good," he said, going over to get it out. "We already have warnings?"

"Yep! I was just thinking about the most efficient way to handle the first set. Looks like it's gonna involve a lot of running around no matter what."
"Greeeat." He put together plates for both of them, setting hers next to the computer before sitting down on the opposite side of the table. "How long do we have?"
"At least another hour right now. Uh, the probably bad news is—this is first of four. And she's said there will be 'at last thirty minutes' between one attack and the next, which...isn't much time to rest."

"That's...hmm. If they happen as soon as possible, they'd be over by the afternoon," Blake computed aloud. "But if they're as spread out as they can be, two to two-and-a-half hours between."
"Right, right," the fox-girl nodded.

"You had a look at how things are for our neighbors?"
"Grrmfh," she mumbled through a mouthful of food. Then, after swallowing: "Not yet. Lessee...oh, oof."
"What's 'oof'?"
"The city's getting a 'swarm' like last Friday, plus several Class 1's and a few 2's around to make it extra spicy. They're already putting out public warnings and notices to 'shelter in place'. Aaand..No Evil's town has got something similar to ours. Oh, hey—they added a new team member! Uh...'Love No Evil'? ...Treatment-resistant arrhythmia, apparently..."

"Getting off-track there."
"Oh! Right. Anyway, I'm in a group-text with Dr. Quinn an' Rowan an' Lift in case one of us gets a bigger attack when either of the others has a gap, or anything like that—so we can send support back and forth. The police are volunteering some vehicles for rapid transport, you know, kitted out for a high-speed chase."

"That's good..."

They ate quietly for a couple of minutes.

"Three weeks," Blake said eventually. "Almost a month."
"Yeah."
"I guess we've been over this a dozen times already, but—tell me I'd wake up to a blond, curvy fox-girl making breakfast in the kitchen, I'd have thought someone had been...watching too much anime or something. Maybe sleep deprivation from studying too much."

"Heehee."

"The thing really making it surreal is that it's just so...normal now. I don't really notice it unless I take a step back and try to put myself in that frame of mind."

"I have a cute, strong, brave, girlfriend," Amp added. "I, myself, literally am a classified asset. There are other universes out there—not just a few, but too many to count. Like the stars in our sky, and each one with its own sky full of stars and planets. The list goes on and on, huh?"

"Yeah. And yet, somehow..our lives go on."

"Not if we don't really want them to. Not if we don't keep fighting for it."
"Right—right," he nodded.

"I won't let everything we've fought for and struggled through and suffered be for nothing. Not now, not ever. Today I...today we'll be heroes. And again tomorrow, and..for as long as it takes."

"Pfft. Finish your breakfast, hero. Then I'll put us on a call to figure out who goes where."

"Y-yeah."

The Next Chapter: 17

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The Next Chapter
Chapter 17: Who's Coming to Dinner?

"Hmm hmm hmm~mnnnh..."

L'hoxifel was cooking tonight's supper for most of OZK's membership, plus one visitor. She caught herself humming one of the songs from the previous week's karaoke night without quite being sure of its title or who had sung it. Eventually she zeroed in on it being Ed's performance, and then she managed to recall some of the words in the final chorus.

"Must be a love-spell~ you've cast on me; can't be a hate-spell~, I don't wanna be free..hmm hmm hmm hmnnn~ hmm..."

A little later, she had everything to the point where the only thing left to do was wait a while, so she stepped out to the dining area to take a seat. After she'd sat there a minute or two, the door opened, and a fairly tall, white-haired wolf-girl in a tight-fitting suit wandered in, her head tilted upward as she visibly sniffed the air.

"Something smell good?" the demon-girl said. "Sorry, it's not quite ready yet."
"Oh, hey—sorry, didn't know someone was in here. I'm Tokanwa—gonna be joining up real soon, I hope," she said, hurrying over to offer a handshake. "You must be L'hoxifel, right?"
"That's me," she said, taking the offer. "I've been on my feet in the kitchen for a while, so I hope it's all right if I don't get up."
"Yeah, that's no issue. Maan, though, you really are an actual demon!"

"Uh-huh..?"

"Sorry—it's just that I've never actually met one before. And your skin's purple! I wonder what kinda chemicals are involved in the pigmentation. I'd love to get some samples under a microscope. Plus your horns!"

L'hoxifel's face flushed a little bit. "Uhm, you like them or something?"

"Yeah! I wonder if it'd hurt to file off a little bit, and try to figure out the exact makeup of the surface keratin. Does the shape run in families? Maybe you have some pictures of your relatives to compare?"
Her blush deepened. "Errrm, Toka. Not to interrupt your fun too much buuut..."

"Oh, yeah—sorry." Tokanwa slid into a chair two away from the one the demon-girl was sitting in. "I can get kinda carried away about this stuff. There's just so much to learn!"

"It's just, even though they aren't physically sensitive, demons' horns are kind of an emotionally intimate part of our bodies. What you were saying there, was kinda like someone talking about taking clippings off the fur of, like, the base of your tail. Or your inner ear-fluff."

"I'd allow it," Tokanwa said, "for science. But—yeah, point taken. Sorry, I'm way more ignorant than you'd think about this stuff!

"...Okay, I got one question about it. Seriously. Not invasive—I hope. You can say no if it is!"
"Shoot."
"Did you ever, right before they started a growth spurt or something, get like a super-specific craving?"

"Hmm. I guess, sometimes? Actually, it's more like my mom would make some pretty unusual dishes sometimes, and when I tried them I liked them way more than I thought I would...but then I didn't like them as much later on. I guess that was when my horns were really growing, though, now that you mention it..."
The werewolf leaned forward slightly, her tail wagging excitedly. "D'you know what was in those dishes?!" Ed hadn't mentioned how cute Tokanwa would look when starting to nerd out about stuff like this, but she also wasn't necessarily Ed's type.
"Pfft—easy, girl~. I've got the recipes in my phone; I can send 'em along if you give me a number."
"Sure!"

---

"Whoa..what happened to your eyes? Is..it my imagination, or 's your hair blue now, too?"

Fritz sighed. "I'll..tell you later. Let's just get supper, okay?"

"Sure..." Hendrix nodded, picking up on it being a sensitive topic, and the two of them headed into the dining hall together.

Fritz's roommate was a tall, handsome, smooth-shaven Adonis of a guy who wore his golden locks long, all the way out to his shoulders. His parents had named him after a rock legend, and he swore from their very first meeting that he was "gonna be a rockstar!" He was double-majoring in music theory and advertising, since apparently the second-most-important thing for a star (after having amazing songs to play, of course) was being able to promote oneself.

They sat across from each other in one of the booths, chatting—and pointedly avoiding the subject of Fritz's eyes now being pink. Hendrix also didn't mention the visit to OZK at all, even though he'd probably heard about the angel-girl through Ivan at some point.

"Oh yeah—you remember that freshman dude in the choir, who showed up last Monday as a fox-girl all of a sudden?"

"Mmhm?" Fritz's mouth was full, and he needn't contribute more than this to the conversation anyway.

"Today she was—he was back as a fox-boy! Our director pulled him aside and was like, 'pick a lane! Do you want to sing bass or soprano?' And he kinda scratched his head and said 'uhh, whichever is best for the choir?' She couldn't really get upset about that, and just said 'bass it is, then'. But dude, last week she was singin' a totally different part with no trouble at all, practically sight-reading all of it. Guy or girl, that's a talent that's going places, man!"

It occurred to Fritz that this person was probably another member of OZK. But mentioning that now would mean bringing up that entire topic, and he still didn't want to—not in public. Instead he just nodded along.

After that, they went back to their dorm room. Fritz carefully closed the door behind him, dropped his stuff, and shed his pants like he usually would when not planning to leave the dorm again until morning. "Okay, so like—what happened?" Hendrix asked. "I guess it had to do with that weird chick that dragged you and Gio off somewhere?"

"Yeah. Uh, so..she's in a weird sorority that takes guys. Their whole house is enchanted to transform people, but apparently it's supposed to only do that if you sleep inside," Fritz explained first. "Only..I guess whoever did that screwed it up somehow. It uh..transformed me anyway, even though I was awake. So they gave me this..." He pointed to the ring he was wearing. "It...let me turn back into a guy—with some mistakes, apparently. Gio didn't bother mentioning that 'till after we'd left, though," he said, annoyed.

"Wow—that's pretty crazy. Too bad I wasn't there; I'm a little curious how you'd look as a chick," Hendrix said.

"Well—uh.." Fritz blushed a bit. "The thing is, this ring..comes off if I fall asleep for some reason. And then I'd turn back into a girl. They promised a more, uh, permanent solution soon, but this is gonna make things..pretty awkward until then."

"Ooh, I gotcha," Hendrix said. "Well—don't worry about me. We're bros, even if you're a chick, dig? I'll be a perfect gentleman. What's it like, though, having an enchanted house transform you? I mean—if you don't mind me askin'?"

"It was...hmmh." He shook his head slightly. "It was weird—it's like I could feel it was enchanted as soon as I stepped inside. I didn't, realize that's what it was until after it all happened, but it must be. There was this...power, this energy, that seemed to be pushing at me, like it really wanted in.

"I..changed...when it got to be too much, and I did let it in. The..the really weird thing is, right after it happened, I felt like something similar was in me. Almost like I could, control it—make it do whatever I wanted. And it didn't seem like it was coming from the house, from outside; it was more like...it had always been there, only I never realized it before. But...I don't feel that anymore. It's like that feeling...disappeared all of a sudden, not long afterward."

"Hmm. You have any idea of exactly when?" Hendrix asked, scratching his head.
"I guess..it must've been before we left the place. After we went upstairs..."

It took him a second, but Fritz finally put it together. "..Oh." He remembered it, now that he was really thinking about it. "It was...it must've been...when I put this on," he said, holding the ring up in front of his face. "When I..turned back into a guy. Weird."

"Hey, that might mean something, man! I've heard a little about how magic stuff works from some of my classmates," Hendrix said. "Apparently there's some people who're crazy powerful, but either like—only as dudes, or only as chicks. That might be you!"

"I..kinda hope not..."

"Well, hey, there's really only one good way to find out, right? You were gonna have to go back the other way at some point tonight, right?"

"...I guess so."

On the one hand, the idea of having magic power of his own was kind of exciting. On the other...Fritz wasn't so sure about being stuck as a girl all the time, or most of the time, or even just when he wanted to use that power. It had just felt so...weird. But it worried him even more that part of the weirdness was him, deep down, sort of enjoying it.

He stared at the ring for a moment longer, then took a deep breath and slid it off. Instantly, he could feel the same energy—that same power as before—welling up from inside himself. It spread out quickly to his whole body: Lengthening his hair, softening his skin. Shrinking him down. "Aa~aah..!" His boxers shrank rapidly tighter as his manhood retreated inward and his hips spread themselves out. One quick tug turned Fritz back into a girl, just as her light-blue hair started tickling her thighs, and then her shirt split itself apart down the middle at the same time as her chest pressed itself up and out into the same pair of breasts as earlier that afternoon...!

"Aah!"

Her face burned with a blush all over again. "M-my shirt!" It had suddenly turned into a white, button-down, collared shirt, but more importantly—it was completely unbuttoned! She felt intensely exposed, especially with a guy in the same bedroom! Not to mention a pair of tiny little, pink, hip-hugging shorts being the only other clothes she had on now.

"Uh, don't worry—I noticed it happening and turned around," Hendrix assured her. And he was, indeed, staring at the wall opposite her right now. "Just lemme know when you're decent."
"Uh...s-sure..." If anything, him being a 'perfect gentleman' as promised made her feel uncomfortably excited for a second or two. Quickly swallowing that down, she hurried to her dresser, tossing off the tiny unbuttoned shirt to pull on a regular t-shirt. It was very loose around her slender frame, which did a decent job of hiding her figure, but it also slid off of one her shoulders, showing that off along with part of her neckline. Well—this was still way better than before, and hadn't taken nearly as long as awkwardly putting all of those buttons together would have!

"I'm good now," she said, and he turned around now.

"Huh. Well, you are pretty good-looking as a chick, at least."

The blush she'd been starting to lose came back even worse. "Reeeaally not helping!"

"Hah, sorry. But, what about that power? You feel it again?"
"I...do," she realized aloud. It had spread out to change her, and now it was just..there, the same as it had been right after the initial transformation. Waiting for her to command it—to want to do something with it, and then it would.

"So—you wanna try something with it, then? Test stuff out?"

"I guess..." She held up her left hand, palm-up, and just tried to..put some of that energy into the space above it. Some sparks visibly went up from her fingers to the area above her palm, forming a bunch of flickering sparks in a small orb floating in the air—like the inside of a plasma globe.

Hendrix leaned in slightly, watching this. "Coooool...! Hey, what'd happen if I touched that?"

"I don't...know? I don't really suggest it—" she started, but he'd already moved closer. "Uh, Hendrix, wait—!"

The warning seemed to fall on deaf ears. He'd stuck his hand right into the middle of the orb. "Yeeow!" He drew it back again, shaking it around. "That's some serious static shock, man."
"W-well you should've listened to me! I have no idea what this stuff is, or how to control it! You could've gotten seriously hurt!!"
"Aww, I'm glad you're concerned for me," he said, reaching a hand up to scratch one of his ears. "Hate to say it, but that pouty look is really cute on you, too." Then he let go of that ear to scratch the other.
"I'm not 'pouty', I'm annoyed!" she said.

"Right, right—sorry. Hey uh.." Hendrix now had both of his hands scratching both of his ears pretty hard. He lifted them away for a moment, brushing the hair aside to make the ears easier to see.

"D'you...see anything weird? My ears just got super itchy, and now..."

"Um, yeah." She did see something weird; those ears were covered in soft, blond hairs, which seemed to be in the process of growing rapidly longer and thicker. "That sparkly orb thing...definitely did more than shock you," she said. "A-and I'm not really sure how to stop it!"

"Oh, well—my bad, I guess," he said, then shuddered. "W-whooaa, this feels pretty trippy, though. Aah..aah...arrrffh." His mouth was wide open for the first couple of vocalizations, enough that she could see some of his teeth growing longer and sharper—turning into fangs. And with that...bark?...a short, golden-furred tail sprouted from his lower back. "Aaa~aa~aaAA~AARRFh...!" Then...Hendrix shrank. His voice lilted higher and higher, as his body got smaller and shorter; at the same time, that tail grew quickly longer and fluffier, his ears spreading up and out to become a big pair of fluffy dog-ears.

Fritz began to understand what was happening. The power she'd tried to make float above her hand wasn't just something generic, like sparks and glowy lights. She'd been trying to put something like the power she'd felt in the OZK house. That was: The power that had transformed her! Which could only mean that now Hendrix was...

He blinked once, and his eyes were a much lighter brown. A second time, and they were bright yellow. "O-o~oh wow, this fe~els..?" he said, his voice audibly leaving masculine range. "Pretty, n-nice..?" His face was lighting up with a blush; his boxers were shrinking shorter and tighter, and the tracksuit jacket he had on—which was shrinking with him to continue to fit properly—suddenly unzipped itself, coming apart to reveal a torso completely bereft of chest and belly hair. "Aa~ah..y-yip...rrufh..!" The shorts pulled close against a bulge between his legs, and then the bulge visibly shrank. Hendrix's height plummeted a little farther, until it was the same as the blue-haired girl's, and his frame collapsed the rest of the way to a slender, feminine look. "Mrr~rrrrfh..!" His already-long hair spilled out another couple of inches, turning a little bit wilder and messier an the process.

"Oh..oo~oh..." Finally, the shorts pulled flat between Hendrix's legs. "Ooo~oooh, d-duu~uude...!" She wriggled back and forth in place as her hips began to spread apart, and a pair of small bumps raised themselves up from her chest. "H-heehee~!" Her voice settled into a mid-range alto: Cute yet mature...kind of sexy. "Mm~mnnfffh....rrufh..! W-wow...!" Her tail whipped back and forth excitedly behind her as those small breasts grew out faster and faster, soon far exceeding the size of Fritz's own pair, before abruptly coming to a halt. A high, cute "Y-yip!" came from the dog-girl's lips as this happened, and her suddenly-big bust bounced gently out into place.

Hendrix giggled nervously, blushing and grinning. "H-heehee..." She leaned forward toward Fritz slightly, reaching a hand back to touch her tail, while the other one seemed uncertain whether to try to pull her top together or take it the rest of the way off.

"Well, I guess I don't need to worry about being a gentleman anymore, huh?" She did try to zip the jacket up now, but it didn't want to go past her generous new bosom, so she quickly gave up with a slight shrug—leaving some extreme cleavage in easy view. "Did it feel that good for you, too?"
"I-I guess so..? I was a little overwhelmed, at the time," Fritz said. Then: "H-how can you be so calm about this?! I don't know how to turn you back!"
"Awwh, I'm sure you can figure that out. Anyway, this is neat! A totally different look, and voice, and everything. Aren't I pretty cute, too!?"

"Uhm, y-yeah..." Try way too cute. Fritz was feeling even more conflicted about her roommate turning into that than she was about herself! "I-i-isn't having a tail just..really weird, though?"
"Haha, yeah, it's totally bizarre! And I was barking the whole way through the change! Guess I'd do that in bed with someone too~," she added, which made Fritz feel yet more conflicted.

"Well, hey—for tonight, problem's solved, right? Not too awkward that you've gotta be a chick if we both are!" Hendrix declared, not seeming to sense that this was making things more awkward for Fritz.
"Could you—at least—try to get a little more decent, please?"
"Huh?" She tilted her head slightly. "I mean, I'm not topless or anything like this—and chicks see each other's boobs all the time. But—sure, if it'll make ya feel better. The 'too-big-shirt' thing is plenty cute, too~."

"I'm...gonna focus on how to turn you back now," Fritz announced, going over to her desk. "I mean, like, in the morning. Before I put on the ring to go back to normal too."
"Yeah, sure! Guess I'll get a little bit of homework done—like I was planning before all this stuff." She then heard the sound of a tracksuit jacket hitting the floor, and tried to focus very hard on the ring that had turned her into a guy now sitting on the desk in front of her. Fritz really had already seen enough of her roommate's new dog-girl form to very easily imagine it topless, however, so she couldn't do much more than take some deep breaths and try to make her whole entire face stop burning until she finally heard the shirt coming down onto Hendrix's torso.

That she could do magic now was an amazing, probably life-changing realization..! But Fritz found it quite hard to focus on that, being far too distracted by just how bizarre her life had gotten in only the last five hours. Gio had sounded like he kind of liked the idea of living in a sorority full of 'cuties' too, and if he followed through on that thought, he'd probably drag Ivan in along with him...

---

Feeling thoroughly overwhelmed by the range and intensity of emotions she'd gone through across the afternoon, Nancy collapsed onto a couch in the lounge with intentions of doing absolutely nothing for the hour-and-a-half or so remaining until supper. She was grateful that Tokanwa had wandered off on her own pretty quickly, and quite certain the werewolf could entertain herself for a good while. She paid no attention to the real world while in this state, so other people coming in and out of the lounge, or walking through the hall outside of it, only just barely registered to her consciousness.

However, she was yanked partway out by a certain special sound. It was the noise of someone knocking on the front door to the OZK house. She sat slightly up, looking around. Was anyone here she could send to take care of it so that she could slide back into her haze? Of course not. Today had to be one where her astrological sign was fated for the worst luck possible...or something. The knocking was repeated, and she heard nobody in the hallway outside hurrying to the door to take care of it, either. So she sighed, closed her eyes, rubbed her temples, and pushed herself back to a normal mindset again. By the time the third knock came, she was quickly hopping to her feet and hurrying to the door, eager to see who it could be.

"Hello~?"

A skinny, dark-haired guy was waiting. "Hey! Is this Omega Zeta Kappa?"
"It is," she nodded, resisting an urge to answer No, this is Nancy. "How can—?"

"Can I join!? I need to be a girl!"

"Uuuuhh." Even she hadn't been prepared for that to come out of his mouth. Was her brother right in saying that a lot of people truly wanted this kind of thing?!

"Uh—hey, wait. You're the costume lady!" he said suddenly, and Nancy realized that he did look pretty familiar. This was one of the younger theater majors. "Nancy uh...Tuh..Trent?"

"Tanner. Close," she said. "That'd make you Ulrich, right?" It was a relatively hard name to forget.
"Yeah! So..?"
"You do realize there's normally an application process to join a GLO, right? In our case, it'd be nice to at least know whether you'd fit in with the existing members."
"But I really need to be a girl! You can do that, right?"

"Why is this so urgent, exactly?"

"It's for a part! So I can achieve my dreams," he said, spreading his arms out dramatically. "You're a theater major, right? So—you understand?!"

"A little, but—lemme get this straight: You're willing to join a sorority full of near-total strangers, so our house's enchantment can change your sex and completely transform your looks, just so you can try out for a part in a specific play."
"Yeah," he nodded.

"Well...you're dedicated to your art, if nothing else. But there are certain things you'd really need to live as a girl, and we usually like to provide those the morning right after the transformation. It'd be pretty awkward for you to go around campus as a shorter girl, for example, in the clothes that fit you now. Plus that'd reflect kinda badly on us."
"Yeah, Kyo told me all about that. I'm free all morning tomorrow!" Given what she knew of him so far, Nancy had a suspicion that Ulrich would be perfectly willing to skip classes if he had to to make himself free. But that was no skin off her nose.

"Okay, well—someone would need to go with you. Plus we do need to actually decide whether we want you to join?"

He looked slightly dejected by this hint of a delay, if not potential rejection. Nancy kind of got that; she wasn't an actor herself, but had seen firsthand just how cutthroat the competition for parts could be. Sometimes the director decided that they liked the first person they saw for a specific part, and all of the other try-outs might as well have just not shown up.

"Okay, how's this? You can have supper with us, and maybe hang out for a bit afterward—to meet the members. We can find out whether you're a good fit with the group we've got so far, and also whether any of them have an opening tomorrow morning—since I certainly don't." L'hoxifel always made more than enough for everybody, plus leftovers; adding an extra plate tonight wouldn't cause any problems there.

"Yeah! That'd be great," he said, nodding. "Thanks so much!"

"Don't thank me just yet," she advised. "Wait until we see how this actually turns out..."

---

"Love-spell Hate-spell" probably has some ridiculous spelling involving a lot of colons and backslashes. Its lyrics, at least for the chorus, kind of write themselves in my opinion.

I hadn't planned it to go this way, but it is kind of funny: Nancy fancies herself a bringer of chaos in a certain way...but she actually can't handle it that well if too much chaos at once comes to her of its own volition.

The Next Chapter: 16

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The Next Chapter
Chapter 16: Who Will Punish Her?

Gio could hardly believe his eyes. Fritz had been acting kind of distracted ever since the weird angel-girl had started the tour, but he'd thought it was because he was bored and thinking about something else. But to have his friend suddenly start glowing and shrinking and then—just—turn into a super-cute girl right in front of him—well, that was a shock!

Polaris hurried into the room while she was yelling. "Oh? How unusual and entirely unexpected," she said, very unconvincingly. "That isn't intended to occur."
"What? What happened?" she demanded, grabbing the winged girl's shoulders. "Did you do this!? Turn me back!"
"Please, inhale deeply and try to calm down," she said gently, with a reassuring-looking smile. "I cast no enchantment on you, and the means exist nearby to return your physical form to its original semblance."

Fritz let go of her, took that deep breath, and then said: "Th-then can you go get it? A-and you didn't answer my first question!"

"Oh, but of course. It appears the house's enchantment malfunctioned, ever so slightly."

As she was speaking, another girl—presumably a resident of the place—also showed up in the doorway. "What's all the yelling about?" Unlike the first two members of the sorority they'd met, she was an ordinary human, stylishly dressed, with brown hair. "Polariiis..did you do something?" she said, crossing her arms and glaring.
"I cannot comprehend why it's so automatic to assume that I am at fault," she said, placing a hand on her chest and looking slightly offended. "I was merely giving a pair of prospective applicants a standard tour of the living spaces, and the house transformed this one despite his clearly being entirely conscious," she said, gesturing toward Fritz. Gio's friend looked back and forth between the two of them with her expression shifting from shock toward anger.

"Th-th-this house transforms people!? Unconscious people!? There is no way that's legal!" Fritz was in a pre-law major, so she would presumably know.

The brunette cleared her throat. "Excuse me—my name is Nancy, nice-to-meet-you. Did Polaris not explain this before inviting you two in? Or show you the very clearly-worded disclaimer next to the door?"

"Nope," Gio answered. "She also kinda opened the door where we couldn't see anything next to it, if there was."

"Mmmmmmrrrrrrrrrgh....!" Nancy made some fists hard enough for her arms to shake and her knuckles to turn white, all the while giving Polaris an absolutely withering glare.

"Oh, dear—what awful negligence on my part," Polaris said, putting her hands out palm-up to either side while still smiling innocently. "Although it's not as if it should have mattered, if the enchantment were functioning entirely as intended."

She raised one of her hands to point an index finger. "You. I'll deal with. Later." Then, with a very brief in-and-out breath, her entire demeanor instantaneously changed. She smiled apologetically in Fritz's direction. "I'm terribly sorry about this mess. If you'd like, I have the means to help you temporarily transform back to your original appearance right away, and I can call some people to help make it actually permanent. If you two wouldn't mind coming with me?"

"Uh...sure," Fritz said.

Gio wasn't sure why it was, really. Nancy gave off the impression of being quite ordinary—if cute and well-dressed—but he suddenly felt like it would be an incredibly bad idea to ever annoy or cross her. Especially not when she'd just bottled up a fury like that in under a second. Besides undoubtedly wanting to go back to being a dude, Fritz probably had the same intuition, so—at least for the moment—she wasn't arguing.

Once they were out in the hallway, Nancy said, "Well. Allow me to explain what Polaris should have. We're a rather unusual sorority, and brand new to campus—the second chapter ever of Omega Zeta Kappa. We can accept male applicants thanks to an enchantment on the house that is sup-posed to only transform men into women if they sleep inside. As a concession, there are also some enchanted rings that can help previously-male members take on male forms at basically any other time than when sleeping in the house—which I will be lending you one of. That's the 'temporary means' I mentioned before."

She paused this rapid explanation as they entered a door to a stairwell, then continued as they went up: "We are also very well-connected with some powerful mages, enchanters, and so on—I'll just need to ask one of them to come around to help you stay male in a way that won't require wearing the ring all the time. Ah—but, because they're supposed to work with the enchantment on the house, it'll come off if you fall asleep with it on. I'm sorry about that inconvenience, and will again try to get someone to come help you out as soon as possible."

Gio had to stop at the landing to the third floor, hunching over slightly to catch his breath. Turning into a pretty girl hadn't diminished Fritz's stamina any, and it seemed like Nancy was quite fit as well. Since the former paused to wait for him, though, the latter did too. He quickly tried to regain his composure, standing upright and giving a grin and thumbs up. "Uh—I'm good!" And so they continued.

It sometimes took a moment for wheels to start turning in Gio's head. He didn't fully put together everything Nancy had said until the three of them were in a spacious room with a big table occupying the middle. He'd never considered it before, since it sounded so absurd, but..the idea of living in a sorority house, surrounded by cute girls...sounded pretty sweet! Apparently it'd involve turning into a girl while asleep, but who cared what they looked like when sleeping anyway? Besides, Polaris had given a pretty great tour of the place—neglecting to mention the transformation part aside—and compared to the living arrangements he and Ivan had been in since starting out at this school, they were positively heavenly! Gio could almost imagine putting up with being a girl most of the time just to enjoy that. He wondered whether he could convince Ivan to come along too...

Meanwhile, Nancy had taken a plain-looking metal ring out of somewhere in the room, plus a piece of paper and a pen. She used the table to write something down on the paper, then brought it over to Fritz. "Now, look—I agree, Polaris crossed a line here. But there are plenty of much more innocent people living at OZK, besides our other chapter being entirely uninvolved. Don't consider it a condition for getting my help—I'm handing over this ring either way—but I'd appreciate it if you'd sign this waiver saying you aren't gonna sue us over this rather engineered accident."

Fritz took the paper, staring at it briefly with her head slightly tilted. "Uhh, as far as a contract goes, there's loopholes in this big enough to drive an eighteen-wheeler through," she said.
"Well—I'm not a lawyer, okay?" Nancy's 'happy, friendly' mask slipped for a second, and she paused briefly to put it back on. "Let's—just—consider this a temporary understanding, and I can have my people draft up something more proper later on, if it's needed. I'm trusting you to act in good faith—which is a ton of trust to give a stranger, but consider that a part of my apology."

"Hmmn, okay then. I'll return your trust in kind." The blue-haired girl nodded, scribbling a signature on the hastily-drawn line at the bottom of the paper, and then traded it for the ring in Nancy's hand.

"Okay, so—to use that, all you have to do is put it on while focusing very specifically on how you want it to make you look," she explained.
"...Got it."

Gio was very tempted to provide a distraction, in the hopes it might make something funny happen...but Fritz had suffered enough already, and could be terrifying when made actually angry. So he stayed quiet as his friend slipped the ring on, and her body and clothes shifted most of the way back to how they had been before entering the house of this bizarre sorority. The exceptions were that Fritz's hair was very dark blue now instead of brown...and his eyes were still pink. He probably hadn't even realized they'd changed.

He looked down to examine himself, and—since he couldn't see either of those imperfections in his present looks—breathed a small sigh of relief. "Phew...thanks, really. That was so weird."

"No need to thank me—I'm making up for a couple of my own mistakes, after all," Nancy said. "Just remember what I said about sleeping...I apologize for how awkward this might make your living arrangements for a day or two."

Fritz blushed slightly. "Uh—right. Yeah..."

---

After leading the two visitors into the OZK house, Rob perked his feline ears up to try and pick up on just what that screaming earlier had been about. He just heard Nancy in the stairwell giving what sounded like a typical recruitment pitch, and vaguely shrugged Camilla's way.

"I guess someone just got excited at a game or something," she suggested to Alyssa and Beth.

However, they'd only taken a few steps through the entryway before witnessing something that was probably related. Mary was walking through the hallway in front of them with a huge black, shadowy, spindly arm going out from her right shoulder to reach a couple of feet behind her, its spiky-fingered hand holding onto...Polaris's right ear, dragging the celestial along behind her by it. "Aaaagh!" She hurried along behind, visibly struggling and rapidly babbling: "I am perfectly willing to accompany you under my own volition! Relinquish my auditory apparatus! Cease this injurious maneuver post-haaaaaste!!!"

On the one hand, this was pretty funny, conceptually. On the other, the mere sight of that shadowy arm thing completely paralyzed Rob with a deep, instinctual, involuntary terror until it was finally out of sight. As such, the four of them were silent for a long moment.

Alyssa finally spoke up, squeaking quietly: "What was that?"

"Some kinda crazy magic stuff for sure," Beth concluded, her tone of voice betraying absolutely no hint of fear.
"Uhhmm...I'm not exactly sure," Camilla said, "but I think Polaris is in huge trouble for..some reason. That's the uh, th'one with the wings. Mary—the goth chick—has some kind of terrifying powers, but has said multiple times that she never uses them in public."

"I don't think she saw us," Rob concluded. "Anyway uh—they're two of our weirder members."

"Hey, does that mean everyone else is normal?" Beth asked.
He mentally ran down the list of the other members briefly, then shook his head. "It's just a matter of degree, I guess."
"Hahah. Point in your favor, I'd say."

Their tour focused on bringing the pair to the game room first, since it was meant to be the main attraction for them. Beth and Alyssa wandered around the room for a bit, taking in its size and shape, the big windows and lighting, and the items on the shelves and in the cabinets.

"This is a pretty good spot," Beth said. "How close is it to the kitchen?"
"That's a short way down the hall," Camilla said.
"Sweet."

"Beth.." Alyssa waved to her friend, having just opened one particular cabinet door. "They have the rule books here." The shelves inside were lined with a number of DND-related books, as far as Rob could tell.

"Which ones?" Beth went over to take a look herself.

"Looks like...all of them? Including every expansion I know about..."
"Some of the older editions look kinda new to me," she said, pulling one out to flip through it for a moment. "Reprint, I guess? Still though..."
"I thought, nobody in OZK was playing already?" Alyssa asked their guides.

"Nancy told me this room was stocked by some of the alumni from the original chapter of OZK," Camilla said with a slight shrug. "I guess one of them knows their stuff."

"Well," Beth punctuated her pause with shutting the book in her hands to replace it on the shelf. "They got good taste, whoever it is."

Eventually they came to the end of the tour, circling back to the entryway. The visitors seemed reasonably impressed by the facilities, and of course had been happy with the game room itself. But so far they hadn't met any current members of OZK who'd actually want to play.

"This does seem like a pretty sweet place to live," Beth admitted. "I'm a little on the fence, though.."

"Yeah." Alyssa said, "Since you admit guys...I mean, even if they do get turned into girls when they join, and stay girls some of the time, um..."

"I get ya," Camilla said, nodding. "It's an understandable concern, but none of the 'boys' who've joined us were really that kind of guy in the first place. And obviously none of 'em have stepped out of line yet. Pretty sure there's a ton of magical power on the 'girl' side that could inflict some serious punishment for anything like that anyway. Like: My roommate's a pretty powerful demon; Nancy told me she learned a bunch of magic spells specifically for self-defense; and you kinda saw what Mary can do."

"Besides, anyone like that would get kicked out of this place," Rob added, "banned for good. Plus everyone would hate you. I think there's plenty of deterrents."

Alyssa said, "Yes...as long as everyone actually thinks about, and cares about, those things..."

The front door opened then, and Ed stepped through, followed by Jay. Both had their bags, meaning they'd just come from classes. "So then I—oh, hey!" Jay interrupted himself, eagerly hurrying over to just in front of the two strangers. "Hi I'm Jay! Are you new members? Wow you're tall!"
"Eeehhh, I get that a lot," Beth said.

"Is he literally a puppy?" Alyssa whispered, kind of in Rob's direction; he just shrugged in reply.

"Potential members," Camilla answered. "They were looking for place to play DND, and people to play with, so—"
"When?" Ed interrupted, displaying an uncharacteristic level of excitement as soon as that the three-letter abbreviation came up.

"Oh, are you interested?" the tall woman said. "We haven't got a group yet, but we were thinkiinnng...weekends, maybe? Sometime everyone involved can play. I'm Beth."
They shook hands briefly. "Ed. Jay's my roommate."
"Guess you two are among the 'boys' Cammy was talkin' about, huh? You played before?"
The wolf-girl folded her ears down slightly. "No..couldn't really find anyone else interested."

"That's all good, we're open to newbies, 'specially since we're just now forming a group."

"Could I play too, then?" Jay asked.

"Yeah, sure, hahah." Alyssa also nodded her agreement with this.

"I guess you could come in to play as their 'guests', at least," Rob concluded.
"Sweet. We'll give some serious thought to joining too, I guess. We'll pretty definitely be back either way—oh, Cammy, can you put me and Ed here in touch? I can send along some starter material and stuff, plus we can figure out a meeting time and all that."

"No prob'."

---

Once the day's first pair of visitors were dealt with—and Nancy had finished making a couple of calls that were required to resolve that entire incident—she headed down the stairs.

As soon as the two guys had left her sight, and aside from a brief pause to sound cheerful and friendly on the phone, Nancy had been positively fuming, busying her mind with trying to think up the worst possible torture she could put Polaris through. That girl's...irresponsible, selfish behavior...could've ruined everything! Did a celestial not understand how human law worked?! Did she not comprehend OZK's precarious position with the university? When she saw Polaris again, she'd pluck her wings off feather-by-feather! She'd make her run laps around the entire campus until she collapsed! She would...!

Exiting the stairwell to the first floor, Nancy nearly ran into Mary. "Hey." It was as monotone as ever, but the way the vampiresque girl was standing perfectly still in her path afterward made it clear this was an 'attention-getting' hey and not a greeting.
She needed a fraction of a second to affix a neutral emotion to her face and voice. "Uh..hello?"

"I've had a little talk with Polaris about her actions. She's very sorry, and so am I."

"Oh...okay. Grreeeaat," Nancy said, nodding and smiling.

"Polaris is basically a good person, mostly, but...every once in a while, she'll get so fixated on a goal that the usual guardrails start to disappear. I'm usually the one who has to provide a little reminder. Sooo...can't promise it'll never happen again. But not for a long while."

Nancy thought about what she'd seen of Mary's power, what she could always passively feel with her relatively weak magical senses, and that entire conversation with Kyo back on Saturday. All of a sudden, the torments she'd been imagining for the celestial girl seemed absolutely petty and ineffectual. "Well...thanks for that," she said. "No hard feelings. We can't always control our friends, right?"
"Yeah. I reminded her we've got a pretty good thing going here, with OZK. Hate to screw it up."

"Oh, really? I'm pretty glad you feel that way, at least," Nancy said with a winning smile.

Mary didn't respond much to this, as expected, and instead just concluded: "Got a class to get to. See ya later." And with that, she turned and left.

That was just as well; OZK had an expected visitor coming soon. Nancy took a circuitous route to the front door in an effort to avoid awkwardly running into Mary again on her way out, which took her through the hallway Ed was living in—and had her happen across said wolf-girl not far from her bedroom. "Hi, Ed!" she greeted with a friendly wave.

"Oh, uh, hi." She fidgeted nervously, wringing her hands. "Um...I was, just about to head upstairs to look for you."

"Uh-huh?" So it was finally time. Nancy had some half-formed ideas about how to capitalize on this moment, but she was quite frankly just not in the mood today. So she instead dug around in her purse, pulled out the ring reserved for Ed, and tossed it at her underhand. "Well, here you go." Her script would survive this bit of improv just fine.

"Aack!" Ed's catch was a little clumsy, the ring bouncing from one hand to the other a couple of times before it stopped. She only recognized the object after staring down at it in her palm for a second; then she looked up again. "Um, thanks? B-but how did you—?"
"You pretty much wear your whole mind on your face," she said, shrugging. "Have fun!"

That had provided enough of a delay by itself, so she now made a beeline for the entrance and watched out the window. It was only a minute or two before she saw who she was looking for. Then she went and opened the door.

"Hey theeere."

"Tokanwa, nice to see you again! You're—uh—wearing a suit?"

The white-haired werewolf girl had wrapped her body in a full-on, black-and-white, three-piece suit, complete with a black tie. "Yeah? I'm supposed to be interviewing, right?" She was also carrying a briefcase in her left hand.

"Errrh...it's not really that kind of..well, whatever. Come on in~!"

They sat across from each other in the lounge. "Sooo, I got the gist of things from Ed, but—you're a fourth-year junior, in biology?"

"That's right. It's not 'cause my grades are bad, though—oh, I got some transcripts if you want 'em."

"N-no need for that!" She'd been about to open the suitcase on the coffee table between them to retrieve the paperwork. "I am a little curious, but it's the college's job to make sure people's grades are up to the right standard before joining a sorority, not ours."

"Oh, cool. Yeah, it's just that I got interested in a lot of different classes, and now I've started working on a couple-a projects with some of my profs. Advisor says I should still graduate next school year, and wants me to apply to the grad program and stuff."

"Nnneat." Some people, mentally as well as physically, were just built different. "Well, our original chapter does have a history of letting doctoral students stick around if they're going to the same university."

"Now, I'll ask what I usually do: Why're you interested in joining?"

"Heh, well, pretty mercenary. Can't compete with free rent. Plus Ed and Jay seem pretty fun to hang with, at least. I'm sure you're attracting some more fun people, too, right?"
"I certainly hope so~."

"Plus—I do want one of those rings. Never had access to magic like that before, after all. My pack back home pretty much live like humans with a little bit of fur, and have for generations. So not much contact with the rest of the magic world 'till lately."

Nancy nodded. "Like I said, shouldn't be a problem. It will transform what you're wearing when you put it on to fit, but you will have to figure out the rest of your wardrobe for yourself. Speaking of rent though—have you got things sorted with your apartment?"
The werewolf nodded. "I had a close look at my lease. I think the easiest thing is to sub-let, and there's someone—not a college student—who's expressed interest. They get cheaper rent, I get out of the lease, owner gets their money. Everybody's happy."

"That's great. Do forward me a copy of any agreements before you make them; I can have some people look over them to make sure nobody's trying to pull something sneaky."

"Nice of you to offer—guess I'd better. Fine print has never really been my jam," Tokanwa said. "Sooo, in that case..?"

"You're free to join us as soon as you're ready to move," Nancy said with a small nod. "Welcome—I think we'll be glad to have you," she said, offering a hand across the table.

"Hahah, cool!" Tokanwa gave it a sturdy shake. "You think I could hang for the afternoon, before I head back tonight? It'd be nice to meet some of the other girls...or guys, whatever."

"No problem~."

---

"Well..I got the ring." Ed closed the door behind her after coming in.
"Wow, that was quick! You sprint up the stairs?" Jay (who'd taken her ring off a few minutes ago) paused just long enough for her to inhale in preparation to answer, then giggled. "Heheh—kidding; I can hear out the door."

"Rrrright. So uh.." She fiddled with it for a second or two, flipping it around between her fingers and thumb.

This was ridiculous. She'd decided what she wanted to do the day before. Or maybe it had been on Saturday. But the hesitation persisted: What if I don't like it? If I get sick of it after another week? Or what if I don't use the ring correctly and end up not looking at all how I wanted?...

Ed sighed. "Jay...how do you do it?"
"Hmn? Do what?"

"How do you keep yourself from overthinking things? And just, leap in, when you've decided what you want?"

"Uhmmm...I guess Iiii...just don't think about stuff much in the first place?" The fox-girl shrugged. "Honestly, I probably don't think enough. Can't overthink if you don't think! Anyway, it's not like you always do that. You responded pretty quickly to a chance to actually play DND!"
"R-right. Hmm."

She nodded slightly (mostly to herself), then slid the ring onto the appropriate finger, closing her eyes and picturing what she wanted. Then there was a swift series of sensations that were sort of similar to that first transformation over a week ago, and...Ed was a man again.

He blinked his eyes open, looking down to check. The girl-cut shorts and shirt had, of course, shifted into looser clothes that properly fit him. He was essentially the same height and build as before all of this began, as much as one's genes would have an influence over; his hair was back to a comfortable, short length. But he was as just as physically fit as the female form, with a decent bit of facial hair, and...was still part wolf. The furry ears, tail, and fangs stayed. "..Phew. Looks, about how I expected," he said, and found the sound of a male voice slightly alien to his ears. Had it really been just a couple of Fridays ago? But this was definitely how he'd sounded before.

"Cool! You look good like that," the fox-girl said.
"Uh, th-thanks..." She was probably just being supportive—though no doubt honest—but having a girl as pretty as Jay was right now compliment his appearance still felt pretty nice.

"Though, you are gonna have to take it off again tonight to sleep."
"Yeah, I know..."

---

Thanks to some tips from FrostedPines, I've been experimenting with some stuff to get images in different-looking styles lately. The one in this chapter is a more obvious example of that which I'm pretty happy with.

The Next Chapter: 15

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The Next Chapter
Chapter 15: How Will We Grow the Ranks?

Mid-afternoon on Monday, Camilla and Rob met up outside of the student center, both of them looking around. "So.." the catboy said after a moment, "Any idea what they look like?"
"Well, the email just said 'gray hair, can't miss me'. They know how we look, at least," she said, shrugging.

"Um..e-excuse me..?" A girl sitting on the bench by the sidewalk near them stood up; she'd had her head buried so far into a book that they hadn't really noticed her at all before then. She had waist-length brown hair, gray eyes behind some large, round glasses, and was fairly casually dressed, wearing a t-shirt and skirt. Her height and build were about average, at least for a girl in college.

"Are you..Camilla?" she asked very quietly.

"Yep, that's me. Though..?"
"Yo!" Another, much deeper female voice interrupted them, and turning toward the source, Rob found himself facing a woman who had to be at least six feet tall. Her hair, which cascaded out long enough to tickle her thighs, really was a deep shade of gray, and her eyes shone bright orange. Her bust was really something to behold, even partially hidden by a bulky sweater; for lowerwear she had on only a tiny pair of shorts, because apparently her legs weren't capable of getting cold.

"That's Allie—Alyssa, formally speakin'. I'm Beth, from the email," she said, taking a hand out of the sweater's pocket to wave.
"'Kay." Even Camilla needed a second to stare, being not particularly used to looking up at anyone's face. "I'm Camilla, he's Rob. Nice to meet you guys."
"Likewise~," the tall one said; Alyssa just quietly nodded. "Soo, not to rush things, but you said you knew a good place to play? Maybe some folks who'd be interested?"

"Yep," Camilla said. "Soo, you said you two are freshmen?"

"Hah, yeah," Beth strode over next to her friend, gently placing a hand on top of her head. "Allie here's more like a first-year sophomore, really." The shorter girl looked flustered by this, but didn't try to move away until the hand was off of her.

"Sure, but—I'll guess you didn't look into rushing any of the sororities, then?"
"Nah. Didn't really seem like we'd fit that life," Beth said.

"Well, there is a new sorority around that you might like a little better than the typical ones: Omega Zeta Kappa. Mainly, the house has a game room specifically for stuff like DND. If any of the members're interested in playing, you could use it as their guests. Though, you might also just want to join yourselves?"

"Hmmh. I guess you can't help but offer if you're a member, huh?" Beth said. "I appreciate you not being too pushy about it, at least."

"Actually, both of us are members," she said, gesturing Rob's way.

"Uh...pardon?" Beth looked between the two of them a couple of times; Alyssa put an index finger to her chin.

"Y-you have access to some kind of magic," the latter guessed after a second. "There are relatively few people walking around campus with real cat ears..."

"Yeah," Rob said. "So, OZK is pretty unusual. Like, this is the second chapter ever, and the first one started out as a fraternity specifically for nerds and artists. They accept guys too, but.."

"But it is a sorority," Camilla finished.

"Well—I guess that does make you unusual, at least," Beth shrugged. "I guess you were aiming to show us the place regardless?"
"Yeah. We're not really into DND or anything, but some of the others might be—so maybe you could meet some of them," Camilla said. "And see how the house itself looks while you're at it."
"Sure—makes sense," Beth said, nodding. "Lead on, then."

Along the way, Rob said: "So, Camilla and I are juniors. I'm in art; she's a business major. You two decided on your majors yet?"
"Chemistry," Alyssa sort of mumbled.

"Heey, I'm in art too!" Beth said just afterward—seeming to have intentionally waited until after her friend replied to say anything herself. "Graphic design, though I kinda just wanna make abstract paintings. What're you doing with it?"
"Mostly pixel art. I mean, I'm learning how to do lots of other things, but I've been doing that forever," Rob said.
"Neat."

"I get the impression you two met before college," Camilla said.
"Yep. Allie's pretty much my sister from another mother," Beth said. "She's also the best DM I know. We had a group all through high school; we've been talkin' about keeping that up online—you know, video calls and stuff. But nothing beats sitting around a real table with the physical people."
Alyssa nodded her agreement. "Plus, it'd help meet some other students with similar interests..."

Finally, they arrived at the front of the OZK chapter house. "Well," Beth said, leaning back slightly as she got a good look at it. "It's an impressive-lookin' building, at least."

"The impressive part's on the inside," Camilla said. "You've been living in the dorms for a couple of weeks, so—you might be pretty shocked by the difference."

"Uh.." Beth turned her head slightly, putting a hand to her right ear. "'s that why I just heard someone screaming inside?"

---

On his way out from a class Monday morning, Kyosuke encountered a fellow performing-arts student standing before a flyer calling for actors with an expression of utmost despair.

This wasn't someone Kyo personally knew, though he'd seen him around a few times, and was pretty sure this guy was in his second year. He had black hair, green eyes, and a fairly skinny build overall. "Uh, hey..you okay there?" the kitsune asked, approaching.
"Okay!? Do I look okay!? Look at this!" He gestured emphatically at the flyer. "This is one of my favorite plays! I know nearly every line by heart."

"That, sounds like good news?"

"Look closer—look closer! They're doing a 'genderswapped' version. So only the fairer sex need apply! Urrrrgh...!" He growled, grabbing the hair on the sides of his head and pulling like he wanted to make himself prematurely bald.
"Whoaaa, hey, let go of your hair—leggo!" Kyo batted at his hands until he stopped. "Now, listen—deep breaths, deeeep breaths. In-out, in-out—'kay?"

The guy humored him by taking a couple of deep breaths, then snapped: "I'm not having a panic attack! I'm just extremely upset! Something like this could be the ticket to the big time! Every season I'm not in a big role in a play is a step backwards! And I utterly despise the other one they're doing this semester, too!"

"Hmm, well, an actor's supposed to be adaptable, right? Surely a role in a play you dislike would be valuable experience," Kyo suggested. Then the guy pointed emphatically at the flyer to try out for that play, especially its title.

Kyosuke folded his ears down slightly on seeing that (not that the other guy could see them). "Ah. Yeeeaah, I wouldn't want to be in that either, if I was the acting type. Well, then—if they only want girls to try out, I guess that just means you'd need to be a girl."

"Wha—how? I cannot just change my sex with a snap of my fingers!"

"Weeeelll, magic does exist, you know? In fact.." Pausing to look around and finding the hallway thankfully unoccupied at the moment, the kitsune continued, "lemme show you something, huh?"

He slid the ring off of his finger, using just a little of his own magic mid-change to influence how his clothes were altered—and took care to remove the illusion hiding her furry ears tails around midway through, in a way that made them seem to 'grow out' as part of the transformation itself. As such, she wound up in a t-shirt, shorts, and some stockings.

"Heheh~. I've got the kind of magic you need."

"Uh..wow.." The other student was taken aback slightly, his face blushing just slightly at the sight of a cute two-tailed fox-girl where another fairly-normal-looking guy had been just a moment ago.

But then he snapped back to his senses. "How!? How'd you do that!?"

"Eeh, well, have you heard of the new sorority on campus? Omega Zeta Kappa? They accept male applicants too, under a certain condition. And membership comes with certain little perks~."

---

Fritz was hanging out with a couple of his friends after a late lunch on Monday, sitting at one of the tables outside the cafeteria. Gio (which was short for Giovanni) was a slightly overweight, average-height guy with blue eyes and blond hair. He'd gotten out his laptop to show off a demo he was working on for an emulated PS1 (which would eventually be tested and shown off using a real PS1). Ivan, Gio's roommate, was a huge guy with very dark red hair who seemed to have no trouble at all staying fit. At the moment, he wasn't really watching, instead sort of leaning back in his chair to stare up at the clouds. Fritz himself was the most average-looking of the three: Dark brown hair, brown eyes, average height, average build.

"So—what do you think?" he asked after it looped the second time or so.
"I don't think I get the demo scene," Fritz admitted. "It looks...neat, but what's the point? You sure can make an old console show a bunch of wavy lines and 3D textures and stuff, I guess.."
"Aww, come on. It's art, man!" Gio said, gesturing hard at the screen. "Like, making something amazing within stupid limitations is what art is. Plus the guys at Sony who made the hardware probably never knew it could do stuff like this."
"It's just something to do together," Ivan pitched in, still not looking at the screen. He'd probably seen it dozens of times in their room already.

"Yeah. A friend of mine over in Canada's working on the music to go with this one." The music with these things did usually sound pretty good, Fritz thought, but he'd be happy just listening to that instead of having to watch a bunch of lines dance around to the tune. "It's a remix of the one that was used for, like, the most famous demo on—whoa!"

Gio interrupted himself, quickly pointing and turning off toward Fritz's right. "Cutie alert!!" Both of the other guys turned to look. It definitely wasn't anyone they'd met before: A girl with short, light blue hair, brown eyes, and huge, feathered wings like those of a stork. She was very cute, too, with some nice gentle curves nestled into a short white-and-blue dress and some stockings, along with a huge white ribbon attached to the back whose ends fluttered lightly in the wind behind her.

"Huh, wow," Fritz said.
"You think those are real?" Ivan asked.

Gio started: "Hmmn, I mean they're not really big enough to even suspect—"

"The wings, dummy!" he interrupted.

"I think you're gonna get to ask," Fritz said. It seemed like almost as soon as they'd turned to face this girl, she'd noticed them and started walking very purposefully their way.

"Excuse me, gentlemen~," she said once in speaking distance. "Allow me to introduce myself. I am called Polaris," she said, placing a hand briefly on her own chest. "A junior studying magic. Who might you be?"
"Uuuuhhhhh..." Gio locked up completely.

"Fritz. Ivan. Gio," Fritz said, gesturing to the other two in turn. "We're all sophomores."

"'Scuze me for asking, but—are you like an angel or something?" Ivan said.
"A celestial I am," she said, emphasizing the correct word. "Created by the hand of Sol for the purpose of aiding humanity through their tribulations."

"That sounds kinda angelic to me," he said. "I mean—not tryin' to argue with ya or anything, though."

"Heeyyy, what brought you over to us, huh?" Gio said, having finally found his voice again. "My good looks, maybe? Or, are you curious about this stuff?" he gestured to the screen still showing the demo.

Polaris tilted her head slightly, watching that for a second or two. "That is a captivating display of..some sort, but I had no way of seeing it during my approach. Rather, I thought I sensed...hmmn." She glanced briefly between the three of them, before finally gesturing her left hand Fritz's way. "I'm quite certain it was you, sir."

"Uh, me? What'd you 'sense' about me?"

"It would be somewhat difficult to explain in detail. But you have an unusual signature of magic which I believe would be advantageous to a certain objective of mine."
"I don't..have any magic, though?"
"That's a common enough misconception, but everyone has magic of some sort. It's merely a matter of whether or not one has learned its use."

"What, really? What kinda magic do I have, then?" Gio asked, clearly wanting back in on the conversation. Polaris didn't seem to think this rude, instead taking a moment to stare at him and presumably 'sense' for whatever magic he had.
"..Nothing too unusual. 'Twould be little difficulty to learn some simple spells as you are now, with proper tutelage, but there also exists some potential for an awakening, given the right impetus and a sufficiently potent source."

"...I think I understood like half of that."

"Then I shan't waste more words." She turned immediately back to Fritz. "Now, if you are not otherwise occupied, I'd like to show you something."

"What kind of 'something'?" Fritz asked. Angel or not, Polaris was a bit weird. If she really was a magic major (or maybe even if she wasn't), there were probably some very dangerous spells or curses she could do, which made him feel uncertain about his safety if they went somewhere less public.

"It's not very far—still on campus. I'm in a certain sorority, and I'd like to..give you a brief tour of our facilities."

"Hey, can we come?" Gio asked, immediately interested in the idea of seeing a girls' dormitory.
"Don't include me in this," Ivan snapped. "I've got a class to get to pretty soon."

"Regardless, that would be no issue," Polaris said with a slight shrug. "The more the merrier, as they say."

He'd like it better if Ivan could come, but at least Gio coming along (despite it being for another reason) meant Fritz wouldn't be alone with this girl. He sighed slightly. "I guess I can see what this is about, then."
"Excellent~. Once you are prepared, please follow me."

Ivan stood up, getting his stuff. "Well, I'll see you guys later. Lemme know how this turns out, Fritz."
"Sure."
"Wha—hey! I can tell you what happened too!" Gio objected.

"Meant what I said," he said, then ignored his roommate's glare as he turned and swiftly left.
"You gonna pack up your laptop, or just leave it here?" Fritz asked after a moment of non-movement. Gio responded by immediately getting to work on that.

Including Fritz's roommate, the four of them had become fast friends right out of freshmen orientation back when their first year started. None of them had liked the idea of joining a fraternity, so they'd put up with the notoriously awful campus dorms for over a year so far—enough for even the worst parts to just feel like "home"—and had never walked by Greek row once. The GLO houses did all look pretty nice, and there were plenty of cute girls hanging around on the grounds of the sororities along the way to the one Polaris was in. This meant that at least Gio was enjoying himself.

The winged woman hurried to open the door ahead of the two of them, gesturing. "Please, venture inside. I'd like to display the impressive living space within."

"Uh, sure..." It was like she was trying to persuade them to live here, Fritz thought, but that made no sense. Guys couldn't join a sorority, after all.

When he crossed the threshold into the actual building, Fritz thought for a moment that he felt a brief jolt of static, like from shuffling on carpet and touching a doorknob. Only he hadn't touched any metal, and it was the wrong time of year to get static shock from one's own clothes. He jumped only slightly—neither of those with him noticing it—then briefly looked around before shrugging to himself. It must have been nothing.

She led the way through the halls, showing off a couple of rather impressive rooms for the use of the place's residents. After that, they ran across (presumably) another member of the sorority: A demon with purple skin and hair, complete with horns and a slim black tail ending in a spade-shaped spike. "Hey, Polaris," she said, waving; the celestial didn't seem at all perturbed by her presence. "Giving a tour?"
"I am indeed," she replied, and the demon continued on to another room.

"Hah..a demon and an ang—ah, celestial under the same roof, huh?" Gio said. "She's cute too!"

"Don't develop any hopeless ambitions," Polaris advised, "she's spoken for."
"Aww." He put on a dejected look for about two seconds before continuing to follow along on the tour.

Fritz thought he had to be imagining things. Since feeling that static shock earlier, he had the strangest sense...almost like he was walking through electricity. He'd put it down to his own imagination at first, and the sense had gone away for a minute or two, but then it had come back stronger. The concept didn't make any logical sense in the first place; electricity didn't just hang in the air like that, and they'd all be getting constantly electrocuted if it were anyway. But it seemed to him that it was there all the same, requiring him to push as he walked just a little bit to get through it. Come to think of it, that didn't make sense either; electricity shouldn't be a physical obstacle to motion.

A little while later, Polaris stopped to open another door. "This is a presently-unoccupied bedroom. I invite you to enter and behold its spacious size and copious amenities—bearing in mind that it is intended for the occupancy of two individuals." She'd been using verbose, half-archaic language this entire time; Gio often looked slightly confused by it until he could see whatever she'd been talking about. Fritz should've found this funnier, but he was too busy being distracted by the 'electricity' in the air around them. How did neither of them notice it?

Fritz felt something new from it, too, as he walked into the bedroom to take a look around. It didn't seem that it was actually doing something different, but rather that he was just now noticing: It wasn't sitting in place, with him having to push to get it out of his way; rather, it was constantly flowing around in all directions, but particularly toward, then across him. It was like it was...pressing, trying to get in. Again, electricity shouldn't work like that...maybe it was better to think of whatever this stuff was as, more vaguely, 'energy' instead. He stopped partway into the room, standing in place, because it felt like it was pressing harder than before, making it more difficult to keep walking. He realized after a second that he was panting slightly; even though he wasn't moving around, it seemed like it was taking a conscious, physical effort to keep that energy from pushing all the way into him.

"Uh...Fritz? You okay there, bro?"

Gio's voice felt kind of distant and echoey. Fritz closed his eyes, taking a deep breath. That energy wanted in so badly; he felt almost like he could just reach out and......

He did put his right hand out, closing it around a "clump" of the stuff, and then pulled it back towards himself. That did it. A sort of 'connection' formed, like an intangible wire going into his hand and through his arm, and the energy flowed easily and freely through it, into him. With some of it going in that way, the rest of it stopped pressing against his body, and he let out a small sigh of relief. Not only that, but the energy coming in felt..very nice. Freeing. Like something he could use to do anything he wanted. But first, it...

It wanted to do something of its own, first, before he could use it. That seemed...fine, he thought? It was confusing to be mentally negotiating with a probably-imaginary force, but...

Now that it had "permission", it went straight to work. Fritz could feel it racing up to his scalp, drawing his hair out into a flowing stream; the locks tickled his cheeks and lightly landed on his shoulders and back as they grew out. He could feel a faint tingling, making him shudder slightly, as his facial hair and most of his body hair retreated backwards into his skin, leaving it soft and smooth. It reached out to his clothes, pulling them tighter, and they in turn squeezed his body, making it shrink.

"Aa~aa~aah..." This felt..nice? His voice audibly softened and rose in pitch as he felt it happen: His arms and legs slimmed down, his shoulders narrowed, his waist flattened and trimmed. His pants split apart at the thighs, the top part pulling most of the way up his legs and becoming..awfully tight right between them. "O-oh..mm~mmh..." Fritz felt a heat in his cheeks and heard his voice shifting still higher as the power took hold of the thing making him male, and gently...but firmly..tugged it inward. A sharp tingling accompanied this change, making it grow excited even as it vanished away, and a high, cute "Aa~aah..!" came out off Fritz's lips as it disappeared completely, and the feeling of the power flowing around through his body was joined by a fuzzy feeling down there, and a gentle push into the pit of the stomach...changing that body into a girl's.

"O-oh..mmnfh.." That felt..nice. The new girl wobbled slightly in place, rubbing her bare lower thighs together, as she felt the power coursing through her make its final changes: Her hips pressed out wide and her butt puffed out behind her, her thighs plumped out a bit, and—of course—her chest filled itself out, pushing forward into the soft material of a t-shirt that had shrunk itself tight against her now-slender frame. It was..almost like...that energy belonged in a soft, curvy body like this; as her new breasts filled themselves out, she could feel the flow from outside coming to stop, but a similar energy welling up from inside herself, relinquishing itself entirely to her own control. This energy wasn't new, however—it had always been there, and she simply hadn't realized it.

"A~ah...mnfh..?" She blinked her eyes open, looking briefly around. Everything looked taller, especially Gio standing there in front of her. Looking down, she saw some bright blue hair trailing all the way down to her upper legs, some impressive, girly curves packed into a tight t-shirt, shorts, and thin black thigh-high stockings. Her elbows folded up, lifting some slender, delicate fingers up into her view. It would be later that she'd realize her eyes had turned a bright shade of pink. She slowly looked back up again. "Uh, wha..whaa..?"

"WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT!?"

---

Two things that the original OZK story had going for it were introducing lots of different characters with various personalities and dynamics going on between them, and (largely based on those characters and dynamics) a lot of humor. I feel like I've managed to start achieveing the latter, and here I'm trying to push for the former.

The ending of this chapter, if not the entire setup leading to it, is such a classical thing in this kind of story as to almost be a cliche. But I kind of feel like I made it work anyway? Hopefully, at least.