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

 First / Previous / Next / Latest

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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.

The Next Chapter: 14

 First / Previous / Next / Latest

---

The Next Chapter
Chapter 14: How About a Lunch Date?

Money is...like electricity going through a wire. Like the rivers going into the sea, only to evaporate and fall back down to the mountains as rain. You spend it up, you get some back. Around and around in an endless cycle. Along the way, everyone gets what they want. That is how prosperity is meant to work. That is true wealth.

After learning how electricity really worked, how the water cycle and weather patterns functioned, and especially the way pollution and single-use resources interacted with all of those things, Nancy had come to find her parents' explanations a bit less compelling. But, as long as they or her big sister Valencia believed it—as long as it meant she wasn't really the one footing the bill—she wasn't going to argue. Anyway, Kyosuke must've been taught, at some point in her kitsune life, how to spend someone else's money.

"I want this one...and this one...ooh, this top's kinda like a kimono! You think this dress'd be cute?"
"Probably. Better try it on before you commit, though," Nancy advised. "Girl clothes aren't quite as 'one-fits-all' as it is for guys, you know."
"Right, right. Ooh, what about this one!?"

"I think that'd go better with a darker skirt. Maybe some stockings."
"Hmmn...yeah, you're right! I'll go look for some."

It was a good thing this place had shopping baskets. Otherwise Nancy would've probably been the one with a mountain of clothes piled on top of her when Kyo bounced her way over to the dressing rooms.

While waiting outside the dressing room's door, she said, "Hey, Kyo..."
"Eh?"
"Not to be nosy, but—just as someone concerned that people in OZK get along with each other...you seem a little nervous around Mary."

"Nervous? Are you kidding? Hahah...I'm terrified."

This last word was unexpected. "Uh—really? Why?"

"You've seen her power for yourself. Isn't it scary?"

"A little, I guess."

"No, I mean—think about how you felt when you saw that thing. Her power makes people feel that. But even if it didn't, well, do you know some magic?"

"Enough to get by," she understated.

"Then I'm sure you could feel how powerful it was, too! Right?"
"Yeah, but there's tons of powerful people in this world. I'm sure you don't cower around your, like, six-tailed relatives or whatever."
"Sure, 'cause those are my family. I know they're friendly, and want to protect me. And they're not constantly displaying their full power; it only comes out when it needs to.

"Mary's different. I don't know if she can't hide her power that well, or—what'd be worse—if she already is hiding most of it. To someone as sensitive to magic as your average fox, it's like she has that thing showing all the time. For me, being around her is like—like how a mouse would feel around a bear. Even if it doesn't notice the mouse, there's still the possibility of getting stepped on and squished!"
"Polaris doesn't seem bothered by her."
"That celestial was literally created to deal with her! She's way better at hiding it, but her power is pretty close to the same level. Besides, she has way too much pride to leave any room for petty emotions like fear. It really doesn't help that I never know how Mary's feeling or what she's really thinking. I can't tell the difference between 'calm and happy' and 'one little annoyance away from snapping'.

"Look, I can be civil. I can be polite. She's a friend-of-a-friend, and I honestly feel safe enough as long as Polaris is there too. But I can't help feeling afraid of her. It's just instinct. Anyway—" Kyo opened the door, appearing from behind it in a frilly dress that trailed about down to her thighs, white with some red ribbons.

"What do you think? I'm considering wearing this one out~!"

"Very cute—very you. Though, I didn't think that one had a hole in the back for tails."
"Not a problem for a two-tailed fox," Kyo said, shrugging.

"You already tried everything else on?"
"Yep! I've got a method." The kitsune picked up her pile of rejects (around a third of the whole) and set them down where the store workers could re-stock them, and then put the rest back in the basket.
"Great, let's go."

While they were checking out, Nancy said, "Y'know..you really don't come off as someone who was a guy literally yesterday. Including the way you shop..."
"I'm adaptable," Kyo said with a shrug. "It's fun taking on new 'roles'. Learned that from a pretty young age."

"Does that mean you're faking it?"

"Well, uh..is it fake if I'm really enjoying it?"
"..Fair." Guess you and Jay have that in common.

After a few more stops, they returned to the house. Nancy used a little bit of magic to help carry everything from the car to the door in just one trip, but decided it was Kyo's job to get all the bags the rest of the way to her room.

"..And that's pretty much the whole place! Cool, right?" A male voice Nancy was fairly sure she knew the identity of was saying.
"Yeah. This is some pretty sweet digs," a less-familiar woman's voice replied, as the owners of the two rounded a corner to the entryway.

"Oh, hi! You're back!" Jay had chosen a male form. It was very...pretty. He waved, and Nancy waved back. The other person was a slim, buff, white-furred wolf-girl in exercise clothes.

Kyo slid over next to Nancy, whispering: "I have never felt so attracted to a guy in my whole life..."
"I guess you better get used to it," she whispered back quickly, and then said, "Who's this?" She also took a couple of steps toward the pair to offer the newcomer her hand.

"This is Toka!" Jay said. "Ed brought her in!"
"Ed, really? Well, nice to meet you; I'm Nancy."

"Likewise—Tokanwa," she added, giving a somewhat aggressive handshake. "So you're in charge of this whole thing?"
"Weeellll..I wouldn't necessarily say that. I started it, but our official charter says there's supposed to be a 'high council' voted in at some point."
"Either way—you've got some rings that can turn girls into guys, temporary-like?"
"For our members, sure. Since we allow guys to join, and—well, I'm sure you've heard about the enchantment on the house." Nancy tried to more or less ignore the back-and-forth chattering that Kyo and Jay had started up by this point. They were mostly just exclaiming how cute each other were, which was adorable but not productive to listen to.

"Right, but—say a girl joined and wanted one of those? Is that allowed?" Tokanwa asked, tilting her head slightly.
Officially, the rings were specifically bought to help attract male members to the sorority. But there were enough of them for around half the house's occupancy limit, and Nancy knew a question whose answer would decide whether or not they gained a new member when she heard one. So she just shrugged and said, "I don't see why not."

"Sweeeet.

"Look, I've got an apartment with a lease right now. I'd like to apply to join you guys, but I'm gonna have to negotiate with the owner and stuff."
"Let me know if you have any serious trouble with them," Nancy said. "My family employs some very capable lawyers. Actually—let me give you my number so you can."

"Uh, sure," the wolf-girl said, looking slightly taken aback by the extremity of the offer.

---

At their lunch date, Ed sat across from L'hoxifel at a table. She struggled for a moment to come up with something to talk about. Then: "So...um...I tried jogging, this morning."
"Oh, yeah? How'd you like it?"
"...Less bad than I thought it'd be," Ed said eventually. "I ran into..like, an actual werewolf I guess, who seems to love it. She, might be joining OZK later, from what I can tell."

"Neat! Guess I'll meet her later, then," L'hoxifel said with a little nod.

"Is it..you think, dumb? To start an exercise habit, when there's ways to just get transformed fit?"

"Oh, no—not at all." She shook her head lightly. "For one thing, the rule of magic—or the world in general, really—is 'nothing without a price'. And in the full calculation, it's usually way 'less expensive' to just exercise than it is to repeatedly get magically fit. Plus, there's risks involved with getting repeatedly transformed to more-or-less the same appearance. Basically, wild magic effects get more and more likely. Prolly an issue with using changing magic to try to stay unchanging. Unlike technology, magic has to worry about conceptual hang-ups like that. Anyway—even for someone with the power to transform any way they want at will—what's the point of even having muscles and stamina if you don't ever use them?"

"I guess, it'd be that they like the look?" Ed suggested.

"There is that, I guess."

"I heard your roommate got a male form, by the way~."

"Mm-hm," she nodded. "Jay kept long hair, the furry ears and tail, and a pretty face, too. I wouldn't have thought that'd look right before...uh, all this happened, but it does seem fitting now."

"Are you planning on doing that soon too?"
"Yeah, I guess so." The wolf-girl paused a moment, taking a sip of her drink. "Don't want to take a ring until I know exactly how I want to look. I think I'd like, mostly how I did before...not any taller, but maybe at least as fit as I am now. I'm just...debating, whether or not to stay uh, 'furry'. I guess, uh...do you, like guys with that stuff too?"

"Well now~...you shouldn't make a decision like that based on what I like."

"I know. Just, curious."

"Hmmmn. Actually, I dunno. I haven't met too many guys with animal ears—girls either, before college, you know. Since I was a guy when I started, feeling that stuff out, you know, I more or less defaulted that way." The demon-girl smiled flirtatiously. "Who knows? It might even turn out I like wolf-boys better than girls~."

"Uh..s-sure..." Ed looked away, feeling her cheeks blush and her heart briefly race. L'hoxifel's giggle told her she'd been going for a reaction like that.

After a waiter came to take their food orders, it was the demon-girl who drifted the topic off to something a little 'safer', seeming to sense Ed's nerves. They continued to talk for a while about the things that magic and technology seemed to have in common, and the ways they could be made—or even had been made—to interact. She was fun to talk to—about basically anything, it seemed. Ed felt like they'd easily be friends if they weren't dating.

A while later, Ed paid the bill, and they headed out onto the street. A short walk out, in a less-crowded area, L'hoxifel stopped. "Psst. Hey, Ed."
"Wha—ack!" They'd been walking side-by-side, so the wolf-girl hadn't been looking; now the other girl was looking up at her with a slightly-blushing smile, and...

Her bust was at least two sizes larger all of a sudden. "Y-you uh..transformed yourself?" Although, after noticing that, her tail whipping back and forth behind her drew the eye even more.

"Heehee~. Just for a minute or two. But—pick me up? Lemme pet you?" she asked, each question a whisper. "It's not a good date if it doesn't end with some kinda show of affection, ri~ight?"
"Um..." Not that Ed had any idea. She guessed it was better to defer to the 'expert', and picked up the smaller girl into her arms. The larger breasts squished harder against hers than before, but were no obstruction to feeling L'hoxifel's heart race in time with her own.

Of course, then she went for Ed's fur. Hands were on her ears, and the demon-girl's tail wound itself around her own. "M-mrrfh...! Aah...mm~mnngh..." She nuzzled the demon's cheek affectionately, just letting herself enjoy these feelings. It was starting to sink in that this was real: A woman this smart and kind and beautiful actually liked Ed, and feelings like this could be theirs...whenever they both wanted!

"Pffft...super cute~," L'hoxifel said, her hands going from Ed's ears to her back and hair. "Hey—" her lips were maybe two inches from one of those ears, still, so even this very soft whisper was easy to hear. "Can I call you 'Eddy'? Just me?"
"Um..uh...rrfh..." She gave Ed a moment to process the question, but didn't stop sliding her tail up and down the wolf-girl's during that moment. "If...if I can call you 'Fel'. Then..s-sure."

"Heheh~...it's a deal." At this point, Ed noticed that their chests were pressing together much less tightly than a moment ago. "Spell's wearing off. I guess that's enough PDA for now, huh?"
"Um..r-right." She set L'hoxifel down after that, and already the demon-girl was back to her usual figure. She was still blushing too, but looked satisfied enough.

"So...Fel.....Let's uh, g-go back to the house?" Ed suggested.
"Sure, Eddy~." A couple of yards of walking later, she said, "Hahah~, I gotta admit. There was more to that spell than the physical shift. Actually, that was a side-effect. I just wanted a tiny bit more boldness, is all. Was it, too much?"
"Uh...n-no, I guess not..." The wolf-girl thought: There's no way I would've been brave enough to do that in public without being asked like that...

---

Camilla and Rob went to lunch together again. As this usual haunt of theirs was frequented by plenty of students, it had a corkboard out in front with loads of flyers for various school- and student-run activities. They paused in front of it for a moment, and something caught Rob's eye. "Hey," he pointed, "Look at this."

Looking for group! And a venue!

It was a letter-sized paper flyer with most of its space taken up by imagery that looked stolen from the cover of a DND book. This was very fitting, as whoever made the poster was, in fact, looking for people to play with. The contact information at the bottom was just an email address—but it was a student email address for their school, which revealed most of the name of the owner. It appeared to be a girl's name.

"Huh. You suddenly interested in that stuff?" Camilla asked.
"Not really, but—OZK is supposed to be a 'nerd sorority' above all else, right? What's nerdier than role-playing?"
"I can think of a few things, but...guess I catch your point."

"If they're looking for a place to play, we've got one. This might be a ticket to getting a few new members, right?"
"Hmmn, good thinking. I guess I'll reach out, see if there's any kinda reply."

---

Jay helped lug all of Kyosuke's new stuff to the latter's room, and then they, very naturally, went to OZK's kitchen and dining room to have lunch together. The kitsune knew this was dangerous, especially with how she'd felt as soon as the fox-boy started complimenting her looks in the new dress, but...it was a kind of danger she was beginning to like.

A short while into the conversation, Jay actually brought that up. "Hey—when I said I liked your dress. You said something like 'ay-toe'?"
"Ah. Uh. Heheh~." Kyo paused a moment to gather herself. "That's basically 'uhhm'. Turns out my native language comes out when I'm super flustered, and you saying that made my heart skip a beat or two."
"Oh. Heh, that's kinda cute too, actually."

Kyo made sue to immediately stuff some food in her mouth so nothing too dumb could come out. "Mnnf."

"So, hey—" He tilted his head slightly. "When I pet you this morning? Was that what happened then, too?"

"Mm..hmn." Well, she was probably going to want to bring this up at some point, after all.

"Oh! So, so—I mean, if you don't mind. What'd that mean? Just saying thanks?"
"Errh, no. That's be 'arigatou', or something including that. It was..." Maybe it was better to have it out in the open. "Lemme explain."

"Some foxes—ah, some kitsune, I mean. Like the idea of having someone as a 'master'. It's not—like, actually a master and servant relationship. Just a, special kind of game. Trying to find ways to please, or sometimes tease, the master, can help a kitsune learn and grow. A master who's 'playing along' well, though, does pretty much get the kistune's power at his or her disposal. Willing obedience, and coming up with fun orders, are the two sides of the game. It..has to be someone the fox really likes and trusts. And trying to 'cheat' or being too commanding can end super poorly for the 'master'. Soo, uh.."

Kyosuke paused a moment, twirling some of her hair around her left index finger. "To tell the truth, I reeeaally didn't think I was into that kinda thing. But when you were petting me, just then, there was definitely a part of me that yelled out 'that one! That's the master for me!' Uhhmm, I hope that's not too weird for you or anything."

"Awwh...it just sounds like you really like me, right?" Jay concluded. "I think I really like you, too!"

"Erk—" He'd said that with such a bright, straightforward smile, on the cute, handsome face this new male form of his had. Feeling her face burn up, Kyo said something very excitedly and quickly, then realized she was speaking the wrong language and repeated it a little more slowly in English: "Jay, you can't just suddenly come out and say stuff like that!!!"

"Huh?" He tilted his head a little bit again. "Why not?"

"W-w-we've barely even met at this point, for one thing! I mean...a couple of dates, talking a little bit. I am waaaay too far from knowing you well enough to get into anything too serious!"

"Errm..." Jay looked like he was thinking for a moment. Then he said, "Is this a cultural thing, or is it just that I'm clueless 'cause I've never been on any dates before this week? Like, uh, saying that you really like someone isn't supposed to be asking for any kinda commitment or anything, is it?"

"I..I guess not. But—but just suddenly saying it like that, making me want to jump across the table so you can pet me, is totally not fair," the kistune said, folding her ears back in a bit of pretend-annoyance.

"Oh. I guess, I'll try to be more careful, then?" During the pause between this and his next sentence, she made the mistake of trying to sip some water. "Like uh...only say something like that when you're in pouncing distance instead?"
"Pffffffh—!" Kyo launched into a brief coughing fit, and recovered out of that only into giggling.

When she could speak again, she started with: "Kistune-no-kami's sake, Jay, I had a mouth full of water!!!"

But the clueless look on the redheaded fox-boy's face already told her he hadn't done it on purpose. "Uhh...sorry?"

"J-just think a little about how someone's gonna react before you say stuff," Kyo advised. "I mean, if you conclude it's gonna be hilarious, then go for it, but maybe not when someone's gonna choke on their drink. The number one rule of pranks is that in the end, nobody gets seriously hurt."

"I guess that makes sense. Heh..you're not the first person to tell me to think before I talk, either," Jay admitted.

A little later, they finished up, and Jay grabbed the plates to go to the kitchen. Kyosuke thought about escaping while he was busy, but obeyed a desire seated much deeper than reason, and went over to wait for him near the door. It only took a moment for Jay to appear. "Eehto—ah. Ahem," she softly cleared her throat. "Since we're clear it's not a huge deal to say so—I do really like you too," she said.

"Awwh! Does that mean you want me pet you?"
"A little." The kitsune crossed her arms, feeling her ears lower and her tails both start wagging back and forth. "If you do it as a guy, though, I'm likely to go in for a kiss."

"Hmm...I don't think I'd mind that too much," he said, his own vulpine parts giving out some very similar body language to hers. "Okay, then—!"

So Jay picked her up and pet her. She pet him back much like that morning, curling her tails around his, and nuzzled his cheek for a little bit. Then she drew her head back enough to plant her lips on his. He returned the kiss gently but affectionately, matching the somewhat hesitant passion she was putting into it, and it was long enough to leave both of them breathless afterward. And she was left looking into his emerald-green eyes for a long moment afterward while they tried to catch their breath.

"Atash—uh, I. I'd, like to be put down, please?" she said after a moment.
"Sure," he said, gently placing her on the floor and taking a small step back. "Enjoyed it, though? I know I did!"
"Uh..heheh. Y-yeah. B-but I'm gonna run away now—!"

With that, she did. Her ears picked up Jay laughing in response to this sudden departure, so—at least he didn't mind it.

---

"Polaris..."

"What is it? I am presently occupied with a task requiring intense concentration!"

Mary knew for a fact that the celestial could multitask almost as well as she could. They were both back in their room on Saturday night; Mary was lying on the bed playing a game, while Polaris was busy messing with things in her dresser.

"Just. Answer me truthfully, will you?"
"What? When have I ever told you an untruth?"
"Once or twice. But anyway, really—are you...reducing your bust size over there? And changing all your clothes to match?"
"Th..that is..simply none of your business!!!"

...Which was a yes. "Pfft." Mary let out a brief puff of air, usually the closest she could get to laughing.