A Summoning, Part XXV

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I want to put a small content warning on this one. If you read my other ongoing stories then you probably know that I'm not squeamish or shy about action scenes, describing violence and injuries and so on. But since this story is very much not action-oriented, I appreciate that some people who like this one might not be much into that? 

So, just to let you know, the first section of this part involves a little bit of violence and injury near the middle-to-end. I tried to tone myself down in this part a bit in terms of explicit description, since it's not the focus of the story, but I couldn't completely leave it out because it reveals and/or introduces some things which are kind of important to what's going to happen next in this story.

Anyway, hope you like it.

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Part XXV
~Death~

When Thomas went outside, the full scope of that fox-guy's prank became much more clear, and the little flags in the ground here and there were really the least of it. There were some much bigger flags, banners hung over the walls, printed paper on many of the general-purpose corkboards, and even some of the chalk- or white-board had new drawings on them. It was all variants of the same general idea, which taken together sent a certain overall message:
-“April fools! Enjoy the day off!” with that cartoon fox head winking and a disembodied, red-fuzzed hand giving a thumbs up.

-“Your new mascot!” with an arrow pointing to picture of the same fox's full body. It had an old-school sort of “cartoon animal” look to it, with humanish hands and feet but no clothes or need for them; it was red with bright blue eyes and a cream-colored underside.

-The fox again, waving its arms enthusiastically with a speech bubble saying “Let me be your new mascot!”

-Just the fox's upper body with puppy-dog eyes, saying “Please?”

-A piece of paper depicting the full body of the fox and “Name me!” on top, usually with another piece of paper labeled “Name our new mascot!” at the top with the rest a series of blanks nearby on the same corkboard. When the dragon-girl encountered these, they were typically full of names already.

The campus was in a chaotic state, with students wandering all over the place talking: Was the thunderstorm a hoax? If so, how do you fake weather? Was this an official event? How did they get all the banners and stuff up so fast? And, of course, people were arguing about the proposed mascot's name. Campus staff was trying to clean some of it up, but at the same time a lot of students were grabbing up things—the little flags from the ground especially—as personal souvenirs and carrying them all around campus.

Thinking about it, she had no idea what their mascot was in the first place. Did they even have one? It seemed like that was going to be an irrelevant line of inquiry very soon, by the way everyone was talking. At least—it would if anyone in charge of the college wanted merchandising money and possessed the bare-minimum of intellect to grab for it.

The fact that the pop-up flags were activated by water, and the pranksters were obviously identifying themselves and/or their proposed mascot as responsible for the thunderstorm that closed the campus, Thomas concluded that weather magic was real, and that guy must either be capable of it, or know someone who was. It probably wasn't him since large-scale weather magic, she figured, was powerful enough to maybe confront a freshly-hatched dragon instead of being terrified at the very sight of her. And, as promised, it seemed that even the thunderstorm hadn't hurt anyone, or even damaged any property by all accounts—so she wondered: Was this something she needed to tell Zotha about? She wasn't really certain of the relative power levels. Obviously the goddess was more powerful than a young dragon, maybe even an old dragon too. Where was 'weather mage' on that scale?

As she pondered this, standing out in the middle of the quad after a meat-heavy breakfast, Thomas became distracted by something. Through her sense of the ground throughout the surrounding area she perceived something being repeatedly slammed into it off just past the edge of campus. If it was only once, she might have ignored it as possibly someone or something falling from a moderate height, but it was repeated. The force was heavy, enough to crack concrete after a few hits. In fact, it was cracking the concrete. That...seemed like it warranted investigation.

Running was easy; flying was possible, but seemed unwise with so many potential witnesses. But, wanting to get somewhere swiftly, the dragon-girl found the solution so obvious as to be nearly instinctual. First: Get out of sight. Then: Go underground. It was almost distressingly simple to just take a deep breath and dive into the soft earth like it was water, 'swimming' through it and letting her magic propel herself through it like a humanoid rocket. In no time at all she popped out at her destination, within eyesight of the disturbance but far enough away to not be noticed right away by its source. Such an act seemed liable to damage her clothes or leave her covered in dirt and other nastiness from being underground, but—no problem at all there. The trip hadn't scratched a thing, and she automatically dropped (half shook, really) every bit of earth off herself, being just as in control of the little particles of dirt as any rock currently in the ground.

There was no time to be amazed at her own newly-understood power to travel quickly without a car, however, as the source of the pounding was immediately obvious now. There was a giant thing—one might say animal—standing there in the middle of this alley. It looked like some kind of horrible chimera, with gigantic fleshy, furless wings, a semi-humanoid shape with slightly longer hind legs than forelegs, each of which terminated in appendages with something between claws and talons on them. Its skin was a dark red, its head like a boar's but with razor-sharp teeth and two big, long horns coming from above the eyes.

Furthermore—and this made her flinch in sympathy to see—it was standing hunched over on its hind legs with those talon-claw-fingers at the end of one foreleg wrapped around a person's waist. That person was in poor shape; it looked like he was supposed to have two big, feathery wings coming from his back but one of them was—well—lying on the concrete nearby without him. And the way the big monster was holding him, plus the impression in the concrete just in front of it, made it fairly clear he was in the middle of being pounded into the ground. There was a sword off to one side, too, stuck half in some softer earth with its blade glowing faintly blue.

Once again—Thomas had no idea how to gauge the relative powers of things. She hadn't been noticed by the monster thanks to her carefully-chosen landing—surfacing, rather—place, and practically had a goddess on speed dial. But the monster was raising its 'hand' to slam a person into the concrete...again, so she acted before thinking.

“Hey!” Did that thing understand speech? Her voice got its attention and made it pause all the same, which was enough of a distraction. A sizable chunk of concrete behind it lifted from the ground and slammed it in the side of the head. Thinking back on it later, she realized that would've probably killed a normal human, but for this creature it was merely enough to stun and daze it briefly, making it drop the person it was holding. He fell roughly to the ground and rolled along it briefly; it was a man in what looked to be leather armor (very torn up, like the monster's talons had gone right through the material) with pure white hair and white-feathered wings—wing, that is, although it was stained a bit red at the moment.

Now it saw her, and wasted time screeching at her. It was a really ugly noise that made Thomas want to roar back, but instead she took a deep breath and pushed the ground under it down and to the sides, dropping it into a pit down to its 'shoulders', then slammed the compressed ground all around it inward, crushing it and holding it in place. The monster struggled, making more horrid screeching noises, while the dragon-girl's rescuee seemed to miraculously push himself to his feet and stagger over toward the sword. Making a bit of a guess as to the weapon's importance, Thomas used the ground it was stuck in to pick it up and float its hilt carefully over toward his hand. Her left hand was squeezed tightly into a fist, 'holding' the ground around the monster, while her right waved to make this more delicate movement; she had the sense that neither gesture was strictly necessary, but doing it this way made it much easier to concentrate on two different actions at the same time.

He seemed briefly surprised, turned and noticed her, and just sort of weakly nodded before taking the sword. Then, with a few other staggering steps, he came up to the thing's head, drew himself up with the sword raised, and drove it into the thing's neck. It finally quit squealing, and disappeared in a puff of red light at the moment that Thomas otherwise might have guessed it should go limp and die. Finding the pit she'd made earlier empty, the dragon-girl carefully put that bit of ground back together as she walked up to the one-winged man, who was presently busy collapsing to the ground.

“Hey! Uh, stay with me..” Why hadn't she ever learned first aid? Then again, this looked well beyond a simple patch job.

“Thank you...” he said quietly. “Kind dragon, you've helped me...fulfill my purpose...”

“What do you mean?”

“The demon...vanquished, I can...”

“What? Hey, don't talk like that.”

“Praise Sol, who gave me...” His eyes looked distant; he was probably somewhat delirious from blood loss and maybe some damaged internal organs? Thomas had the impression that he was much tougher than an average human, but being slammed repeatedly into the ground couldn't be good for anyone. At this point, his speech trailed off entirely. A quick wrist check confirmed he still had a pulse, but might not for much longer.

“Uuuhh...” This was when Thomas remembered that she had a literal goddess on speed-dial. Keeping the strange man carefully held up in one arm, she used the other to get her phone and make that very obvious call.

---

Channeling a bunch of magic to temporarily affect the weather, as it turns out, was totally exhausting. Anika needed an hour or so's nap afterward, and still felt only capable of her usual, relatively lightweight illusions afterward, like there wasn't enough in her to do something big, dramatic and sweeping again for a while. Nonetheless, walking around on the quad after her nap, she couldn't help but feel it was worth it. Whether she ever would have considered “chaos” a good thing before was hard to say, but watching the students (and some professors) mill around campus like this, it was easy to see...they were having fun. The closure, and borderline vandalism, had maybe annoyed some of the people in charge, but it seemed like this was going to be a net positive, all things considered.

The Kitsune's ears picked up the sound of someone running closer, and she turned to find it was Jess. “Hey, good morning!” she said cheerfully, before taking real note of the short girl's expression. It was—not angry, but definitely serious.

“Morning. I guess all this was what you were working on for today..including the rain?”

“Uh, right. And for her part in it, I awarded that girl the second tail she wanted, too! Is uh...something wrong?”
“Well, someone used your rain to transform people who were caught out in it against their will, as far as we can tell. Maybe as many as twenty or thirty of them. I've been tracking down those on campus who were affected; Zotha's checking off campus since she can pretty much teleport.”

“I'm..sorry?” Anika's ears drooped; she wasn't sure how to take this news. “I didn't notice anything at all...”
“Our guess is that Fox was the culprit. Or if not, some other deity who wanted to use your prank for one of their own. In either case, I wouldn't really blame you for not catching it.”

“Why would she cause trouble, though? I thought she said she was on our side!”
Jess shrugged. “I could guess, but it's better to ask. So: We may want an audience with her sometime this afternoon, once things have calmed down a bit.”
“That...sounds, fine,” the Kitsune said, nodding, after thinking about it for a second and 'feeling' the fox god's approval of a meeting at that time. “Are you okay, though? Do you need any help with the, fixing things?”

“I think we've got it,” Jess said with a small nod, but Anika's big ears picked up the sound of her stomach growling.

“Wait, have you not had breakfast yet?”

“No, we headed out as soon as the weather cleared to see what had happened and then started tracking people down from there.”
“Well—you should do that, then!” she said, waving her hands forward. “Get something from the dining hall, or just 'wish' something up. I'll take care of it for you until then. As you, if you want.”

“Hmm...all right,” Jess nodded slightly after (and possibly conferring with the goddess) thinking about it. “Just call on Zotha's power to guide you to the right people, and to change them back, or make whatever other changes they want instead. I'll text you when I'm ready to get back to it so there won't be two of me.” With that, she turned and started off in the direction of her dorm.

Anika grinned, feeling glad to have a use for some of her pent-up energy which even involved innocently fooling a few people. Then she went to find somewhere to hide and 'become' Jess for a little while.

---

Ferris was rethinking some assumptions.

Like any proper Rabbit, Ferris had been taught to hide the lagomorphic traits at a fairly young age, and generally encouraged to look like a human his entire life. The grand majority of beastfolk in the world, after all, were predatory in nature, and there was a long, terrible history of Rabbits being treated poorly by not just them, but several others as well. Sticking with humans under the veil, and pretending to be one, generally kept them safer than anything else. However...

Shane made a very cute catgirl. There was no denying that. And all throughout breakfast, even with her attention focused mainly on eating and wishing to turn 'back to normal', she was visibly distracted now and then by Ferris's own new appearance, which included the ears her own transformation had forced out into view. Probably, being transformed like that had torn the veil off almost entirely for Shane, so...maybe it wouldn't hurt to let just one person see more of her real appearance.

Aside from this, there was, of course, the matter of them both turning into girls. The veilkeepers—as some called them—didn't usually undo transformations, from Ferris's memory. It was too costly to do it for everyone, sometimes changes couldn't be undone and the changed might blame the veilkeepers for distributing help unevenly as a result of ignorance, and they were ultimately just too few with too little power between them. For the Rabbit, being male had simply been the default state he was used to, so—although there were probably ways—transforming to the opposite sex wasn't really of interest. Maybe it'd be fun for a while—or maybe she'd turn out to like this best. The change had, at least, gone out of its way to take off some extra weight and leave her physically much healthier than before, by all appearances. That by itself was perhaps worth the difficulties of being female.

Shane was sitting on the couch moping right now while they supposedly waited for the veilkeepers' office to be open. Ferris had actually lied about when they opened, figuring that if the rain was transforming people then they'd be swamped, and she wanted to spare her roommate the embarrassment of being seen like that in a crowd of people. It would be nice to help her get what she really wanted, and maybe they'd at least point them the right way if the catgirl whined enough and Ferris begged them enough. The unfortunate thing about pretending to be under the veil one's whole life was a distinct inability to get to know any witches, wizards, or so on that could help with incidents like this. Ferris, of course, was just sitting in a chair with a book in front of her, pretending to read while she thought through all of this. Both of them jumped when there was a knock on the door, Shane even making a cute little startled squeak.

“I'll get it,” the Rabbit said, getting to her feet. Shane was still wearing the shirt and shorts she'd come in with, which were so comically oversized on her that she couldn't stand or walk without the latter trying to fall off, so—once again—sparing her some embarrassment seemed best. So Ferris went to the door and checked the eyehole while wondering why neither of them had heard a car pulling up, or even someone taking the last couple of steps on the concrete to the door.

The person outside looked...weird. A little like a demon, but with feathered black wings, the tiniest of horns, and a normal-human skin tone. However, Ferris's ears and the hairs on the back of her neck stood up as she felt a certain pressure from the other side of the door, and she became fully aware of the power exuding from the unusual visitor. Two things were clear from the sense of that power: This person was not a demon, whatever she was; and, if she wanted inside, the door really wouldn't do much to stop her. Since such a person was being so polite as to knock, Ferris concluded that the most survivable course of action was to open up. Slowly.

“...Hello?” Behind her, the catgirl was peeking just her head over the back of the couch.
“Hi,” the stranger said cheerfully. “My name's Zotha. Has anyone who lived here been, unexpectedly changed in the recent past?”

Still uncertain and mildly suspicious of her motives, Ferris said, “Uh...how do you mean?”

“Well. I couldn't help but notice a certain meteorological event early this morning had an unusual effect on some people,” she said cheerfully; it sounded a bit rehearsed, in fact. “I thought I might try and help out anyone who didn't like how they...wound up.”

“That is...suspiciously convenient,” Ferris said. “How do I know you weren't responsible for this 'meteorological event', hypothetically speaking?”

“I don't know of a way to prove it, but I was fast asleep when it started,” she said, shrugging. “If you don't want my help just now, perhaps I could at least leave you my card?” She offered a card the Rabbit was fairly sure she hadn't been holding a moment ago, holding it toward—but not through—the door.

“Wait!” The catgirl had practically (maybe literally) jumped over the couch. “You can turn us back to normal?”
“Most likely,” Zotha nodded.

“Shane! We can't trust this random stranger,” Ferris said.
“Why not? It can't get any worse. Just look at me!” The bunny-girl was going to argue further, but looking at her roommate and seeing her miserable expression made it difficult to deny her even a possibly-false hope. Looking between her and the strange, powerful being outside the door a couple of times, Ferris sighed.
“Okay, you can come in I guess. But no funny business!”

“Of course.” Zotha stepped inside gracefully, letting the door shut behind her. “Anyway, surely you know that if I wanted to do anything bad, I already could have.”
“Y-yeah...” Ferris mumbled, not liking the implication that she knew the Rabbit could 'sense' her power. Was this what high-level mages were like? Maybe it was better she didn't already know any, then.

“Now then,” Zotha said, turning her attention entirely to the catgirl. “The rain didn't apply an 'enchantment'-transformation to people, which would allow me to simply dispel the enchantment to turn you back. It changed your 'base form'. So, to turn that back, I need to know what you originally looked like. Make sense?”
“Yeah,” the catgirl nodded. “Okay. So, I'm supposed to be tall, and buff. I'm on the school track team. These clothes used to fit me,” she said, tugging at her shirt. Their visitor just nodded to each point, as if making a mental note of it.
“Got it. So, I'll make you look like that,” she said, “alright?”
“Yes! Please,” Shane nodded eagerly.

Ferris sighed internally, already guessing the results of that description. However, she expected Zotha to accomplish this by chanting a spell or pulling out some enchanted gadget, not to just wave her hands and have some streams of purple energy flow from her fingertips into the catgirl. This forced her to attempt to reevaluate what sort of magic person she was dealing with yet again; it had to be something she'd never even heard of before at this point. Or a several-tailed Kitsune using illusions to make it look like that, maybe...

As the magic flowed into her, the catgirl began to grow taller, her muscles tightening as their strength steadily increased. Her arms and legs gained faintly visible muscles as her height shot upward, and a six-pack appeared on her belly. However, she also became much more visibly womanly at the same time, her hips and bottom spreading out further and her chest puffing forward one cup size after another. “W-waaa~aah...” she mumbled, looking down and blushing brightly at whatever she was feeling during this transformation, her eyes widening a bit as she saw her dramatic increase in curves. By the end of it, her shirt was still a little loose on the shoulders but rather tight on the chest, with so much of its material used up there that half of her slim, muscular midriff was visible past its hem. Her shorts hung tightly to her hips and thick thighs, doing little to hide her long, slender legs. She had a slim, athletic build in addition to the generous curves, and Ferris found herself blushing a little to look at it—the tight fit of the boy-clothes giving her a sexy, tomboyish look that clashed wonderfully with her long hair and still-adorable face.

“Buh..wah..” Shane patted her sides a couple of times in disbelief; her voice hadn't changed a bit, and was still the same high, squeaky tone as before. “I'm supposed to be a boy!” she said finally, waving her hands emphatically at Zotha. “A-and I didn't have cat ears before!”

“Oh.” The visitor shrugged. “Well, you probably should've mentioned that. Nothing that can't be fixed, I think. Hmm...” She leaned in slightly, seeming to examine the taller woman for a second; Shane just blushed some more at the close examination. “Yes, I can make you not part-cat too. There's a kind of people who are always that, which I might have some trouble with, but it looks like you're technically 'human granted cat features', so I can remove them easily enough.” After this explanation, Zotha stood upright and seemed to make ready to raise her hands and do...whatever she'd done before, again.

“Uh—w-wait!” Shane said, and she dropped her hands again.

“Yes?”
“Um...uh...” The tall, gorgeous, strong catgirl fidgeted adorably for a second or two, seeming uncertain how to even express what she wanted to say.

“You seem conflicted,” Zotha offered.
“W-well, I don't..I mean, I really wanna change back, but also I...”

“Oh, I see. You might like to look like this sometimes too, yes?” Blushing again, the catgirl slowly nodded, just a little. “I can just give you the power to go back and forth then,” she nodded back cheerfully.

Okay, what. Ferris's brain tried but failed to think of any being short of a deity that could just casually grant a person a power like that. However, she was familiar with several of the existing gods, and none of them were named 'Zotha' or looked anything like a demon. So...was this the Ruler of the Foxes? That would be weird, this was an impossibly nice way for such a person to act, but...

While the rabbit-girl was thinking about that, Zotha used some more of her power on Shane. The catgirl's curves faded away, her frame broadening a bit and her face switching from cute to handsome. The slender limbs became a bit thicker and more masculine, and soon enough Shane was a man again, letting out a low “Aah!” as something he'd been missing came rushing back. Now his clothes still seemed a little tight on him; overall he must've gained a few inches of height or so and definitely looked more muscular than before—though, still not bulky at all. And he still had bright golden eyes, tall fuzzy ears, a long, slim tail and the same long, soft hair as before. While he panted softly for a moment, blushing a bit from how the change had felt, Ferris took note of this appearance, and felt her heart racing. Her newly-female body really liked the way he looked now, cat ears and long hair and all, and feeling and thinking about that overrode her thoughts about the powerful visitor for the moment.

“Oh, I forgot the ears,” Zotha said.
“Wait!” Shane put up a hand. “Uh..”
“What, you want to keep those too?”
“M-maybe? I mean, if it won't...it's kinda nice...” he mumbled, running a hand across the fur on the back of an ear for a second. “But won't, um...?”
“If you're worried about people thinking you look weird, you don't have to worry about that at all,” Zotha explained. “Basically, anyone who'd think feline traits look unusual on a person will just see you as human, and everyone else is used to seeing people with animal ears and stuff. I'm certain your friend can explain this in more detail later.”

“Uh..I guess that's, good enough for now, then?” Shane said, looking Ferris's way for a second with a questioning look. Her expression was a bit helpless; he was going to have to have the veil explained at some point but she was sort of hoping to pretend to learn about it along with him. Well, maybe being honest with him was better, after all.

“Great. I'll still give you my card in case you change your mind about something. It may not be me who comes next time, but anyone I send should be able to help,” Zotha said, pressing the card from before (which had mysteriously disappeared until now) into one of his hands.

“Now then, are you sure you don't want anything?” she said, turning her attention toward Ferris.
“Um..” She fidgeted for a second, still deeply flustered from the sight of her friend being turned into both a smoking hot woman and a strong, handsome man, both with adorable kitty ears, and the latter of which was still standing very close by and watching her now. “I guess..it'd be cool to be able to turn back into a guy too? Just, you know, medium height, nice build? That's not exactly how I originally looked, but..”
Zotha nodded. “That's quite all right. Just hold still a moment...oh, do you want me to change your clothes with you?”
“That uh, might be best,” the Rabbit said, realizing what she might look like as a man in what she had on just now.

Her magic—whatever it was—felt comfortable and warm going in. Being transformed into a woman had felt like being squeezed into a new shape, but what Ferris felt now was somehow similar to breathing. It felt natural, like her body was simply reshaping itself, and—for that matter—it felt immediately obvious, if ineffable, how to undo this change and return to the female shape. In a moment—after a certain push from below—the Rabbit stood there male again. He was only slightly taller than before, but considerably more fit; his clothes weren't exactly the same, but Zotha had already made it clear enough she wasn't a mind reader. Or—at least, if she was, she was currently restraining herself.

“..And I'll just set a copy of what you had on before here,” she said, an outfit just like what Ferris had been wearing a moment earlier suddenly and inexplicably in her arms, and then lying across the back of the couch. “That all good?”
“Um..” He looked up from briefly examining his second new appearance of the day. “Yeah.”

“I guess you want to keep the ears too, huh?” Shane said.
“That's uh..I'll explain...later..” he said awkwardly. This got a bit of a suspicious look from the tall catboy, but that was interrupted by the sound of a phone ringing.

“Ah—excuse me, that's mine,” Zotha said, producing a phone as much from nowhere as the card earlier. “Hello?”

A fairly deep, calm female voice was on the other end of the line; Ferris's unrestrained rabbit ears picked it up easily, and he didn't doubt Shane could hear it too. It said: “Heyyyy, soo, I think I just fought a literal demon. And, it was beating up an angel-looking guy. He doesn't look so good, so uh, hooowww quick can you get to me?”

“Be right there,” she said, hanging up. “I'll give you my card, in case you need something—or run into someone who does,” she said, pushing a card at Ferris. “Now, I'm sorry to leave in such a hurry but this seems fairly urgent. Bye!” She gave them both a short wave before vanishing in a rush of dark, shadowy-looking magic. At least teleportation provided an explanation for how neither of them had heard her coming...

“So...” Shane shuffled a foot across the ground for a second. “What was she talking about, anyway?”
Ferris sighed, and at the same time tested out the new ability to change sexes at will. It was as natural as it had seemed the first time, and even quicker. Now a girl, she went over to the couch. “I think we'd better set down for this,” she said. “It, uh, might take a while.”
“Oh. Uh, okay.” Shane came and sat next to her; he stared, blushing, for a moment, at her in the somewhat loose male-sized clothes, and then shrugged. “Mm~mmh...” In a second or two, he turned back into a curvy, buff catgirl again, and she flashed a friendly, slightly nervous smile. “I, uh, thought I'd be too distracted to listen that way.”
“Heheh..yeah, maybe I can explain better like this too,” Ferris agreed. She'd never really signed up to give this kind of explanation, but—the veil was off her roommate now like it or not, and the catgirl trusted her to explain the truth, which made her the Rabbit for the job.