The "Best" RPG Ever-116

 First / Previous / Next / Latest

---

As the two members of the Troupe of Strangers strode away from the door, Reiaza said, "What ever is the matter with you, Belwin? Surely that must've been your 'kitten' in there."
"I'm quite certain it was," he agreed. "Must've been briefly awakened when she made a little cut to draw the venom out."
"Well then—" she turned around to face him, still walking at the same pace in the same direction (now backwards) "—why did you not ask her out for dinner? I've certainly never known you to be shy."

"All the same, one must have a good sense of timing," he said. "She was clearly overwhelmed by your glorious charm, which I know I pale in comparison to. I'd much rather approach on my own at some later time, perhaps once I'm back to my full health and stamina again. Besides all of that, I tell the truth to say I'm low on funds at the moment, and it would hardly be proper to ask a lady to pay for herself."

"Hah! You'll let me pay for you, all the same," she said, whirling to face the direction she was walking once again. "If you didn't come expecting full room and board, I'll eat my hat."
"A worker deserves his wages," the avian retorted. "And I know you're not short on cash; you never are."
"True enough," she said. "Come along now, I've found some reasonable accommodations for us to take up. A long-standing establishment by the name of the Broken Dragon Tavern and Hotel..."

---

Not long after the sun set, the caravan pulled around for a stop once more, this time for everyone to take supper and rest for the night. The prince declared that they would leave early the next morning, when it was light again and somewhat safer to travel. Clera lit a large fire in the center of the camp, and Katherine went straight to work setting up a stove and some various other implements, then using them to prepare a meal for everyone.

Zack waved to get Rayna's attention, pulling her off to an unoccupied outer edge of the camp. "Hey, what's up?"
"Look. You can, see enchantments and stuff, right?"
"Mm-hmn?" He was speaking quietly enough that none of the humans they were escorting could hear, so she followed suit.
"So you can tell if one is, out of juice or something?"
"I guess?" she said, tilting her head a bit. "I'm not sure enchantments are supposed to be limited-time generally, unless it's something you need to 'draw out' and 'put back in' like Nora's elemental crystal things."

While she said this, the knight carefully pulled a hand down through the collar of his armor and back out again, producing a necklace with a charm on it in the shape of a 'female' symbol. "So, what do you see with this?"

"Uh..." The fox-girl's eyes glowed very faintly. "Just looks like an ordinary, low-grade enchantment to me. Nothing out of the ordinary, I guess; definitely nothing wrong with it."
Zack nodded, quickly tucking the necklace back inside. "..Thanks."
"I can't help but ask, you know...why do you have something that looks like that? What's it supposed to do?"

He sighed, not wanting to answer but feeling like he owed some explanation—and like she might talk a little too much about it if her curiosity wasn't satisfied. "Look, you know about the incubus, right? Mira's..third demon?"

"Yeah..?"
"How it screwed with my head and actually managed to force me into heat." His face reddened some at this last part, and he folded his ears back in visible anger at the memory of it.
"I..heard that first part, but..not the second. That's pretty, uh..bad."
"The healer gave me that charm to fix the problem," he said. "It's usually used to..help with abstinence."
"So it uh..'calms down' a girl's natural..attraction to guys, then?" she inferred, and Zack nodded. "Well—why do you think it, might not be working, then?"

Zack crossed his arms and refused to answer the question. "..Wait, it wouldn't be his royal highness, would it? You have been acting a little weird around him."
"I have not," he insisted. "He's just...irritating."
"I mean, he is charming," she said, "really high charisma. Maybe it's just enough to be over that charm's uh, 'capacity'?"

"You're not even listening to me."

"That's 'cause I know you're not telling the truth," Rayna said. "Whether you're lying to me or to you doesn't make much of a difference."

The wolf-girl didn't say anything for a long moment, just looking pointedly away—toward the outside of the camp—with both ears folded back and a deep frown. "Look, nobody's gonna make fun of you for being attracted to someone," she pressed.
"I'm not," a quiet but intense, deep and almost threatening growl said.

Zack let out some air and turned back to face her again. "..Sorry. Look, thanks for, checking it for me."
"..No problem." It was obvious she wasn't going to achieve much here, especially if he wanted that badly not to think about it. "Hope, uh, things get better for you, then."
"Just need to do the job. Two or three more days." She nodded, and headed back toward the center of the camp.

---

"Logic gates!" Aria swept her arms out at the kitchen table, where several of her favorite solutions so far were strewn around randomly. "NAND, to be specific. We're in business, baby. Practically every element I can think of got represented here." She pointed at one after another excitedly: "This one works with light, this one's supposed to work with fire but I don't wanna try it indoors, this one's electricity—always a classic—this uses plants, but you need to put a brand new seed in every time, so, not very practical for my purposes.."

"So..you commissioned people to make gigantic versions of the tiniest, simplest possible computer part?" Mira said.

"That's right! This is phase one of: Make video games possible on this world. Plus uh, computers in general and stuff. Those phases go:" (she counted off on a hand) "Order big prototypes, order smaller versions of my favorites that can connect to each other, get incrementally smaller, build circuits, get somebody to make a screen—"
"When do we get to the 'question marks, profit' part?" the witch interrupted.
"About twenty or thirty steps later, I guess? Oh, check this one out," she said, picking up some sort of square-shaped mechanical device made of wood. "Someone basically figured out how to make a mechanical, gravity-powered NAND gate mostly out of wood, and the only enchantment is that it goes back to its original state when you shake it, like an etch-a-sketch...I think. There might be some more subtle force-redirection stuff going on here."

"Do they all work as logic gates?" Nora asked.
"All the ones I tested did! The input and output leave something to be desired for most of them, of course, but that's what you get. Like.." She picked up the light-based one, pressing her fingers both on one side, making a bright blue light shine out of the opposite end. "Zero is a blue light, one is a red light, and this doesn't output anything if you don't activate at least one side. Totally useless as-is, but when I come back and say I want to chain one to another, they're bound to start figuring it out."

"This one's pretty," Rose said, picking up a fist-sized, thin box of metal with grooves etched through it; a pair of flower stems twisted and turned from one end to the other, with a big, white-colored flower poking out of the opposite end.
"Yeah, and—you know what, I'm pretty sure they implemented that with two 'nots' and an 'or', which means you could probably expand the basic idea to bigger circuits. But it came with these two bags of seeds for '1' and '0' input, you've gotta tear the whole plant out and start all over for every 'computation', so—not greeat as an actual computing solution."
"Can I have the seeds?"
"Sure, why not? Keep the box if you wanna, too."

Lupa wandered around while they talked, looking interested but confused by it all. She picked up the one that used light after Aria set it down, poking one side, the other, and both in turn and watching the color of the light change. "Don't get it," she said after a bit, mainly to Nora. "What's 'computer'?"

"Well..generally, something that computes. For example, if you wanted to add some large numbers together and not have to do it by hand. But, back on Earth—where we're from—they can be used for many different things," she said. "It's based on connecting a lot of tiny pieces that work like that, or similarly, together."

The wolf-girl tilted her head hard, definitely not understanding this, and tried taking the mechanical gate Aria had shown off a moment ago and putting its 'output' on one of the 'inputs' of the light gate. She succeeded in getting a red light to come out of the latter by 'running' the former. "Together, no different from just one?"
"You need more than two of them to do anything meaningful," Aria said. "It's really way easier to show off the potential with some diagrams than all of these clunky things."

The shifter produced a bunch of pieces of paper with various logic-gate diagrams already drawn on them, shoving and/or lifting some of the prototype gates out of the way to spread them out over the table. "Why do you have that just sitting in your inventory?" Mira asked.
"Explained it to Loren before. Here, so—!" The wolf-girl watched over her shoulder, listening to the enthusiastic explanation with a somewhat blank face that said she still probably didn't get what Aria was talking about at all. But she still seemed content enough to listen, anyway.

---

Zack tried to take the watch while everyone else ate supper, but a couple of the soldiers insisted that the 'lady knight who saved our skin' eat before they did. So he sat a fair distance from the fire, on the opposite side from the prince. The expression on his face was neutral, but his ears were folded back and there was almost a chill in the air around him.

Rayna mentally poked the psion about this. Sorry, I think I said something wrong and put him in a bad mood or something?
He's been a little like this all day. Peregrine obviously knew how to read beastfolk expressions, and occasionally glanced the knight's way with a look of concern, like he was wondering how to apologize for an argument or insult which had never even taken place.

"Hey, Peregrine?" Katherine said, drawing his attention away. "How's the food?"
"Ah, yes—it's absolutely divine," he said, smiling warmly; some of the soldiers seconded this with a 'hear, hear' or such. "I confess that food preparation was not a subject of any of my education, and it's been up to Jehora and Isarac to do mere survival cooking for us all 'till now."

"Thanks~," she said, grinning brightly. "Out of curiosity—I've travelled a bit, but haven't been near Kyzerath in particular. What's its king—your father like, actually?"

"My father is..I admit I have never been particularly close to him," he said first. "It is simply the way with large noble families, and especially with kings and queens. But nonetheless, I have seen him at court many times, and admire him immensely. He is eminently shrewd, able to play other people like instruments. And he must be—as the political situation around is somewhat precarious.

"Our fair kingdom shares borders with several contries, two of which would otherwise be perpetually at each other's throats. My father's skill as a diplomat alone has kept both our allies—forcing both into a truce, keeping each from pressuring him into joining their side, entirely for the protection of Kyzerath and its people. In the process, I believe he also saves both of those countries from disaster as well.

"On one side, there is the Republic of Nir. Some..rather arrogant nobles call it a 'peasant rebellion which has lasted four generations so far'. They came to be when an older kingdom's nobles turned corrupt, and indeed, the lower classes turned on them. Their entire noble class—those who were not wise enough to flee quickly—were slaughtered at the time. I admire their form of government very much: Every citizen, as I understand it, has a say in each decision. But every citizen is also a soldier, required to participate in Nir's standing military for a period of their adult life. That is the way it must be, for otherwise any of the larger countries around them would swallow them up quickly. Many have tried, but all have failed so far.

"Nir is, fortunately, not interested in conquest, but will stop at nothing to defend their own borders. No tactic is too brutal or horrific for them to use. They are merciful to those who surrender, and will even freely offer citizenship to defectors and low-ranking members of defeated armies, but.." he shook his head. "The fates of those who continued to fight, I'd rather not imagine. As Kyzerath's ally, they have only ever asked us to continue trading with them when another country attacks them—not for supply, not for our army to help. And even though their existence has been challenged many times, it has been said that any army attempting to take Nir will share the fate of a nobleman's clothes if he insists on walking through a thicket of briar: torn off piece by piece until there is nothing left.

"On the other hand, there is the ancient elven land of Llyfwayen. They are a terribly backwards country, but home to a number of ruins of older civilizations, in which they have found—as I understand it—many weapons taken from those ruins capable of leveling entire cities instantaneously from a great distance off. They, too, are content within their somewhat vast borders, but would be certain to lash out and annihilate any country which actually went to war with them."

The prince shook his head once again. "I confess I have only seen their nobles, but they were...truly repulsive people. Llyfwayen's law considers only elves to be citizens, and only otherwise acknowledges the personhood of humans. Their nobles...speak openly of beastfolk they keep as 'pets'. And despite the fact that Nir has one of the most diverse populaces outside of the frontier itself, they will only send beastfolk as delegates, in an apparent bid to challenge Llyfwayen's racist beliefs."

"What about shapeshifters?" Lynn asked.

"I suspect there are some living in Llyfwayen, and if so they undoubtedly pose as humans or, more likely elves," he replied. "I wouldn't be surprised if their ruling body considers willingly imitating an elf 'good enough' and willingly lets them be if they do so."

She nodded, then asked another question: "Not that I'd ever want it to happen, but—why not just ally yourselves with Llyfwayen, then? If you don't stand in the way of their wiping Nir off the map, it sounds like they'd pretty much leave you alone."
"That may be true," the prince said, "but it is a short-sighted solution. They may destroy every city Nir has; they may scorch the very earth of the entire territory of that country; but there would be survivors. Nir has a small frontier town, a neighbor to Kyzerath's, which they send some of their most capable fighters to defend; Llyfwayen has no presence in the frontier whatsoever, and even if Kyzerath were their ally, frontier towns rely on each other for survival far too much to care about their host countries' wars. And Nir has sympathy from, and family among, the citizens of several neighboring countries—including Kyzerath itself. That multitude would seek revenge, tearing us apart from the inside and then eventually doing much the same to Llyfwayen. Of course, their nobles are much too short-sighted to understand that, and my father must make do with convincing them Nir is a mere annoyance not worth the more immediate trouble of destroying.

"Likewise, Nir has never actually seen Llyfwayen's great weapons in action, and doubts their very existence—or at least that they still function as perhaps they once did some time ago. They believe that trying to forcibly impose their will on other countries would be hypocritical, but still do all they can to encourage change toward a more equitable way of life for their allies' people. My father has had to take their diplomats aside time and again to impress on them the advanced age and total inflexibility of the elvish nobles they are dealing with."

"I suppose he handles domestic issues just as well, then?" Rayna said.

"Indeed," Peregrine nodded. "The court of nobles makes most of the decisions, but he speaks often before them, and their votes rarely go against his advice. Not, I think, because they fear him—but because that advice is always wise. Or at least, he is able to present his own opinion in a manner which everyone sees as wise, even if the way he explains that opinion must differ from his actual beliefs in the process of being tailored to win them over. His popularity with our citizens is lukewarm, but I believe he keeps it exactly at that level intentionally, so that the nobles who hold no respect for the lower classes will still trust him."

"Please excuse me if this is overstepping," Lynn said, "but you don't seem like someone who really draws a distinction between noble and not—at least not in how you treat people."

"I would be perfectly happy myself in a world without the separation between nobility and others," Peregrine said, nodding. "As far as merit or personhood goes, I have observed that there truly is no distinction. But I accept the existence of this system as a reality, and one which grants me and any others fortunate enough to be born noble a certain degree of power. Whatever power one has must be used to aid others—and the more power one is given, the greater the responsibility it comes with."

Lynn thought to Rayna: 'That's the catchphrase of old Uncle Ben...'.

The fox-girl had to stifle a laugh, making a slight snorting noise which still got everyone's attention. She quickly turned it into a brief, fake coughing fit. "Excuse me, some drink went the wrong way."

---

A short while after sunset, Mira returned to the guardhouse. Ezra was walking up from the training yard toward the front, having apparently just finished doing some drills with the guards. "They haven't arrived yet," she stated.
The witch titled her head slightly. "'They'?"
"Hyacinth went with him. Wanted to get a grasp of the theory and offer any help she could on streamlining the spells and his way of teaching them."

"Ah," she nodded, briefly wondering if Katherine was going to have a rival soon. But Hyacinth seemed to be all-business, and was understandably spooked after two separate incidents that seemed to suggest chaotic magic itself was against her.

"Anyone else in your party who can learn these spells should know them," the captain stated. "Even if they are not very accomplished spellcasters."

"I can give teaching it a shot, although I just barely grasp the theory of 'normal' spells myself. By which, uh, I mean...non-demonic ones."

"If you find a way to accomplish the same result or better using demonic power, do it."

"...Sure." It felt like Ezra knew something Mira didn't, but obviously she wasn't about to say what it was. That was no reason to ignore her advice, though—if anything, it was all the more reason to follow it.

Before long, they walked up. "I think I have something passable now," Jacob said. "It still isn't what I'd call 'beginner friendly', but Hyacinth was able to learn it after a few tries."
"Not that I can tell it's working," she said. "You trust his word on this?"
"Well, he is the expert, after all," the witch chimed in.

Ezra proved able to learn both the purging spell and the transferring spell with no difficulty whatsoever. The former took Mira a few tries, and she had only a dismally weak, inconsistent version of the latter by the time they gave up. Jacob scribbled some notes on what she was doing wrong and drew a diagram of the right way to push the energy around, and Mira promised to study it until either she got it working or her eyes fell out. Then, she went back home to make everyone supper.

While she cooked, she thought: The basic theory behind the spells was that a person's magic couldn't normally interact with chaotic magic, but it could push the ambient magic around, and for some reason that could sort of touch chaotic magic a tiny bit. It was like using one's own magic as a glove to operate a crane machine holding another glove which was then able to make contact with the thing one actually wished to move. Dispersing chaotic magic was much easier because it didn't require any particular direction, just 'out'; transferring it somewhere else seemingly required absolute mastery of this technique to the point of fine control, and Mira just wasn't good enough with 'normal' magic to accomplish this.

Ezra's suggestion to empower the spells with demonic magic came back to her again. That was something she had experience controlling. Even if it required adding on another 'layer' between herself and the chaotic magic, maybe she could get it to work a bit better that way...

Omega Zeta Kappa 16: ζ

 First / Previous / Next / Latest

---

He'd put it off long enough, and the clock was ticking down. Going by what had happened to the others, it seemed like it could hit zero at any time. And before it did, he needed to do this, or else be (and feel like) a total hypocrite.

And so, Jeff called his parents an hour or two after lunch. "Hello, dear!" His mom picked up and put it on speakerphone right away. "Honey, it's Jeff."
"Hey, son. What's up?"
"Uhh..look, I dunno how to, prepare you for this so uh..."

He went straight into an explanation of what had happened: Rich's insane proposition, the council pressuring him (sort of) into agreeing despite his reservations, and finally, the real bombshell...that he'd already taken the potion. When he got to this part was perhaps when he regretted having done so the most. They listened patiently through his explanation, apparently silently agreeing to withhold any questions until the end.

"Uh, soo, yeah. That's, a thing." Both of them were quiet for several seconds.

Then his mother spoke up: "Ooh, honey, I'm so proud of you! Finally being adventurous and trying something wild. That's what college life is for, after all!"
"It's how the two of us met," his father added helpfully.
"So uh, you're not..?"
"Oh, not at all! The world's very different from the one we grew up in," his mother said. "Anyway, if it's so easy for you to be a girl, then it's not all that hard to change back if you're not happy with it, isn't that right?"
"Uh..yeah.

"It's just um, I'm worried about my scholarship too.."
"Son," his dad chimed in. "Football's been changing lately, starting from some well-known players getting turned into ladies and going on playing anyway. There's demon and oni and werewolves who were born female joining the pro leagues. This coming season, there's a big stink about whether a dragon should be allowed in or not. But for now, anything goes in college ball! Long as you can still run and throw the ball just as well, I don't think they'll really have anything to say about it."
"Uh, what if I can't, though? Like, it might make me really tiny and weak or something.."

"Well, there's plenty of other sports a girl can get into," his mother said. "Don't you worry about the scholarship, either. We're always here to support you as well as we can, and—there's always loans, if all else fails."

"Yeah, I guess that's true.." He really didn't want to go into that kind of debt, but maybe being 'friends' with someone like Rich could help land him a job to pay it off quick anyway.

"Listen dear, being a woman can be absolutely wonderful," his mom continued. "I'm glad you'll get to experience it, even if it's only for a little while. And it's a biiig plus if you can honestly say to any girl you date later on that you know just what it's like, too. Oh, but if you do decide to change back, you'd better visit home at least once before then! I've always wondered what it'd be like to have a little girl to spoil, after all."
"Uhh, sure, I will. And, I guess I could send you some pictures once it, uh, happens?"

"I'd sure appreciate it," his mother said, "I'm sure you'll turn out beautiful, dear!" This was obviously supposed to be encouraging, but that definitely wasn't something Jeff was hoping for.

"Call again soon, son," his dad said. "Let us know how things are going."
"Sure, um..I will."
"Bye~ee, love you!"
"Love you too."

Once the call was hung up from the other end, Jeff set the phone down and let out some air in a soft "Fffh." That..was not at all how he'd anticipated that conversation going. True, he hadn't really expected them to get particularly mad or anything, maybe just disappointed that he hadn't talked to them about such an important, life-changing decision before drinking the potion—which was something he was still sort of scolding himself about. But complete, unabashed encouragement of a frankly bizarre and possibly reckless act was definitely not what he'd been expecting.

He got up and looked in the mirror of his bathroom, at the handsome, male body he'd worked to keep fit for years on end—which he wasn't going to have for very much longer. "..'Adventurous', huh." Jeff didn't feel adventuruous, or 'wild', or whatever. He just felt like he'd been pressured into something by other people with stronger personalities than his, and was regretting that decision before its consequences had even really started. He couldn't understand how Rich and the rest of the council felt, how Kaden felt—how anyone else felt who'd very willingly taken the potion had simply accepted things as they came. Maybe he was just too much of a coward, too averse to any kind of change at all away from what he considered stable and safe, to see whatever it was that they saw in this absurd 'adventure'.

Omega Zeta Kappa's high council was determined by a system of succession: Whenever a member was either graduating or retiring from the council willingly prior to graduation, he would hand-pick his successor. Replacing a member who left some other way, or changing out the council as a whole due to the general disapproval of the fraternity's members, had a set of convoluted rules which evidently hadn't needed to come into play once yet. When Jeff had been unexpectedly selected as one graduating member's successor, and had tried several times to reject the position—citing his inability to lead people, uncertainty about staying with the fraternity at all at the time, and general unwillingness for things to change, that graduating senior had told him something.
He'd said: "Change in general, of some kind, is inevitable; that's why Zotha is so powerful, y'know? Soo, like, if things are gonna change anyway, you might as well make the changes you want instead of just sitting back and letting all the ones you don't want happen." This advice was weird, vague, somewhat unhelpful and yet somehow overly convoluted at the same time, but it stuck with him anyway.

In this case, it felt like he'd already done the latter—that potion taking effect was apparently inevitable for him, now; it would turn him into a girl whether he liked it or not. But—thinking about it, Jeff knew that what he really didn't like about that prospect was the things he tended to think of girls as being when compared to guys: Smaller, weaker, not necessarily less capable but typically less physically strong and tough and so on. If Jeff was going to be a girl, he didn't want to get shrunk into a tiny, 'cute' one like Mylar and Tielo had.

After Kaden told him he'd lost a race to Layton of all people, the obvious person to ask about that was Erwin. He'd tracked her down right after lunch, and she'd told him about how she'd encouraged Layton to basically 'imagine himself' bigger and stronger while taking the potion and it seemed to have worked perfectly. Jeff couldn't be sure if that was just a coincidence, but he held out some hope, at least, that he could keep his body strong and tall when it changed instead of...the opposite, in a similar way.

By the time he'd had supper, it felt like the house was full of girls of a number of shapes and sizes—but all of them were, decidedly, pretty attractive. Jeff thought that maybe all of these people had wanted to be cute girls at some level, which both explained why they'd taken the potion so soon as the day it was announced and—if what Erwin had said was right—had maybe even 'willed' themselves cute. Well..it wasn't as if Jeff wanted to wind up ugly, especially if he was going to be stuck with however he wound up looking for a little while. Whenever the change started to come, he thought, he'd maybe have to concentrate on that as a second consideration, after the 'stay tall and strong' part.

Everyone also seemed to have these...kind of extreme reactions to the change; Rich's 'performance' that morning was apparently a result of the utmost in self-control. Jeff found himself begging the change not to happen while he was out in anything vaguely resembling public, for as much as he was starting to get fed up with how long it was taking. It was like his own body's refusal to change was a result of it wanting to stress him out! Tielo had suggested that relaxing helped it happen sooner, but Jeff felt thoroughly unable to relax. It was so frustrating—he wanted to go somewhere else, where he wouldn't have to stare the inevitable change right in the face so much, but he just felt trapped in the house until the change came so he wouldn't have to be embarrassed in public.

At least he knew it had a final time limit—by 24 hours after he'd taken the potion, on Sunday at the same point mid-morning when that fateful meeting had occurred, it would have to have happened. In light of that, and because stressing out practically all day had been an exhausting exercise in and of itself, Jeff decided to just try and go to sleep not more than an hour after sunset—which was ridiculously early for him (or just about anyone else), especially right in the middle of the weekend. But he knew, at least if he could sleep, that it would basically skip over a bunch of the hours left to wait until that final time limit was up. And who knew? If there was something weird with him that made him 'immune' to the potion or whatever, Rich would probably just let him stick around on the technicality that he'd taken it as agreed but nothing had happened. He didn't really expect to be so lucky, but a hopeful thought like that helped Jeff in his efforts to eventally get to sleep.

Jeff found himself in the gym, vigorously pumping his legs on an exercise bike. He didn't remember how he got there, and there was a strange sort of indistinctness to the place—it seemed to be deserted apart from him, and the windows only seemed to show a flat white light coming through with no discernible 'outside' to speak of. He slowed the movement of his legs to a crawl as he slowly noticed all these strange details, and then finally stopped and stood up, looking around and finding that everything felt weird in addition to looking weird. It was just..he wasn't sweating or sore, even though he'd seemingly just been exercising pretty hard for a long while.

He wandered around the gym for a moment, finding the surroundings to be increasingly surreal the more he really scrutinized at them. Sure—there were weights and various normal exercise machines, but there were also weird mishmash combinations of exercise machine parts that didn't seem to have any pracitcal way for a human to even use them at all. There was no sense of organization to things, either; no two of the same machine were near each other, and where groups of machines formed semi-neat rows or columns almost looked totally accidental.

There were no doors, but one wall was made up of nothing but mirrors stretching all the way up to the ceiling, and about the third or fourth time he glanced that way, something odd got his attention. Jeff walked up to the wall, and realized steadily that the odd thing was the fact that his reflection looked..very weird. His hair was a very bright gray instead of blond; his eyes were yellow instead of brown. The guy in the mirror also looked..definitely bigger and more muscular than Jeff knew himself to actually be; he was wearing a black tank top, jacket, gloves and gym shorts, and the whole outfit was too small on him, showing a huge, broad, muscular body with abs and pecs and biceps and so on. Not that Jeff wasn't usually sorta buff, but..this was excessive, he thought.

For the first time since...coming here?...Jeff could actually, tactilely feel something. A faint tingling raced across his body, making him shiver slightly, and when it persisted on his scalp it seemed to cause his hair to start growing longer. It fell out loose and wild, winding and curling so that random bits went poking out every which way, as it gained bangs past his eyebrows, tresses down to the shoulders on the sides and well beyond that behind him, its ends ultimately settling against the back of his upper waist. He raised a hand slowly and brushed the new hair around instinctively, finding it much easier than it looked like it should have been to get the bangs to cooperate and stay out of his eyes despite their length and unkempt looks. With his vision cleared, he noticed his face in the mirror: It seemed smoother than before, with no trace of hair growing out of it, and he could see its shape gently softening, sharp, chiseled edges rounding away to a decidedly more effeminate look.

Female..the thought of that seemed to echo out of Jeff's mind and and ripple through his body, making him shudder violently. Suddenly he found the entire gym moving upward around him. In the mirror, and on his body, he could see and feel the tight clothes loosening as he suddenly shrank no less than a foot of height in a matter of seconds, his shoulders narrowing, frame slimming away all of that strange new broadness it had had before. And his muscles softened too, a sensation not unlike his whole body relaxing which visibly reduced their size and hardness. But all of this soon began to overcorrect—shrinking him below his usual height and width into a slender, girlish frame, muscles fading away completely to become soft and weak—just the same as his now soft, round, cute face.

Jeff's eyes widened, and he mouthed "N-no.." He actually tried to say it, but his voice didn't seem to be working. This was the point where the shrinking came to a sudden halt, and Jeff felt another wave of tingling hit his ears. He began to reach a hand up experimentally toward them, but before it could even get there he saw a long, whitish-gray triangle of fluffy fur suddenly fwip out well past his hair on the left side—a huge, animal-like ear. This had come with the sensation of that ear stretching suddenly, the same way he might've stretched an arm, and almost as soon as it had happened, his right ear followed suit, growing with exactly the same sensation and visible motion.

"Wha—?" he said (again, mouthed silently), very confused by this development, but was interrupted by another, very similar sensation from his lower back—about the base of his spine—and the sight of a long line of fur in the same color curling out from behind him in the mirror. He heard a low "Rrfh!" which both sounded just like his voice, and wasn't coming from his mouth, and then opened his actual mouth in a confused "Aaaah" which actually did make a sound, catching sight in the mirror of some of his teeth lengthening and sharpening into clearly-defined fangs. While this happened, his ears began to twitch and move around through the air, and the new tail involuntarily swished back and forth, tingling sharply as its fur steadily grew thicker and fluffier. He could feel all that fur, its motion through the air, too, making it seem very clear that the newly-grown ears and tail were quite real.

Jeff squirmed in place, feeling a rush of tingling exclusively across his manhood and once again succeeding at making a sound: "Aa~aah...!" This time he heard his voice change mid-cry, its pitch shifting upward a bit, and along with it came with a sudden burst of warmth to his cheeks, his face in the mirror very clearly reddening into a blush. "Mnh, ar~rrfh...!" He couldn't resist making a strange, barking sound, his ears lowering out to the sides and his tail whipping back and forth excitedly, as he now felt his manhood tugging, slipping, shrinking inward. He..didn't want it to do that, but he felt like it couldn't be helped, so...

"Aa~aah..." Jeff's voice had stopped getting higher already, and now it was changing in a more subtle way, shifting toward a decidedly feminine tone. His blush brightened and heated up more as he felt the change of sex coming closer and closer. He couldn't stop it, so...so...

He might as well enjoy it, right?

As soon as this thought hit him, it seemed to ripple through his body, the gym, everything, like a much stronger verison of what had happened when he'd first realized his face looked a bit girly. The result was an intensifying and acceleration of the shift between his legs, drawing a low, womanly "Ooo~oooh" from his lips as he found himself giving in to this particular change. And then he barked low a couple more times, and yipped in a high-pitched, adorable manner that shouldn't have been possible for his voice, and finally let out a mid-range "Aaa~aAAaahhnn...!" as his manhood melted itself away for real, for good—and Jeff, red-faced and actually grinning into the mirror, changed from a boy into a girl.

She panted heavily, feeling the change travel quickly up through the pit of her stomach as a steady wave of girlish pleasure flowed through her. "Rr~rrfh..! Mmnn~nnh.." She barked high, and then plumbed the depths of her mature, deeply female alto voice, still squirming back and forth in place as she gave in to simply enjoying this. She could feel now a gentle push from her lower body as it began to expand out: hips, thighs, and butt, all turning plump and round and pushing her shorts out tighter and tighter. Her waist trimmed inward as this happened, and now she felt a faint sort of tightening, tensing sensation starting in the center of her belly and radiating its way out across the rest of her muscles.

"Aa~aah..mnngh...rr~RRrfh..!" Jeff's body grew strong once again, though not at all in the same way as before. She could see her slim, flat, soft belly hardening into a feminine verison of abs, could feel the strength coming to her arms and legs as her figure shifted from slender and girlish to both athletic and..very, very curvy. At this point she realized that her tank top had pulled itself up off of her stomach completely, and now its collar was widening down into a deep U that showed off more and more of her soft, smooth neckline and chest. That chest...

No sooner had the new girl's eyes settled on her chest, the idea occurring to her that it was unusually flat, than she found herself letting out a high yip as a sudden, sharp wave of tingling hit her right across it. Then—"Oo~oh..mngh.." It began to grow. "Aah, aa~aaAAAh..!" Jeff's voice went rather high, her face flushing a brilliant red once again, as she felt sensitive skin brushing across the tight top from the sudden forward push of a small pair of bumps. "Ooh, mnnfh—" The change was merciless, the small bumps immediately beginning to expand themselves faster and faster. "Aa~aAaahnn..!" Jeff helplessly cried out in more girlish pleasure, squirming in place and finding that her legs, despite their regained sterngth, felt awfully weak all of a sudden. Yet she didn't topple over, having the curious feeling that she was, perhaps, already lying down—and so had to endure the deep, intense wave of girlish pleasure right alongside the sight of her breasts expanding themselves out, stretching the top tighter and tighter, and her cute, bright red face opening its mouth to cry out, her ears low and her tail whipping around feverishly behind her all the while.

"Rrfh, aa~Aaarfh.. AwrooOOoo..!" The final burst of growth hit the new girl especially hard, and she found herself literally howling with pleasure in reply. Finally, mercifully, the growth and the extreme sensations that had come with it stopped, letting her now-enormous pair of breasts gently bounce into place, held tightly by what was now a black sports bra that failed to downplay their impressive size in the mirror despite its very best efforts.

Jeff found herself panting softly, still staring at the blushing woman in the mirror, as she slowly took the jacket off to get a slightly better look at herself. Fuzzy ears..? A tail..!? Plus fangs, and all of that barking and..stuff. She was so busy being confused by all of that at first that being a busty, curvy girl didn't fully cross her mind at first. After a moment, it did, and she prodded at the enormous chest with a finger a couple of times and actually felt it. This was...real..? But it couldn't be, right? Everything was just too..bizarre. How did she even get here, anyway? Wait...

"This is..." she said, but no sound came out. "A dream?" Still no sound.


The instant that Jeff realized it was a dream, he awoke. No—she awoke, lying face down in the bed in a way that very noticeably squished her huge new breasts against the mattress. Besides that, she could feel the tight shorts and sports bra still holding onto her curvy body; long, wild-but-soft hair across her back; and those ears and that tail still decidedly present, every inch of fur seeming rather sensitive to the movement of the covers across it.

"Mnngh.." She groaned groggily; her face still felt very warm, and the..afterglow of the girlish pleasure she'd felt during that dream was quite real, too. "Wha.." Jeff pushed herself up with her hands, looking around to either side, and saw her bright-gray hair swishing around in response to the motion, and beyond that her bedroom in the morning sunlight. "WHAT!?" She threw herself up onto her feet in a single, sudden maneuver, and then found out that was a mistake. "Waa-aah..oof!" After windmilling her arms for a moment, her generous bottom fell back onto the bed.

Jeff shook her head, thinking—Okay, what went wrong? She'd stood much up too suddenly; her legs were still...a bit weak from, things, and her tail had whipped around to try to help but she just hadn't let it. But wait—"Why do I have a tail!?" She pushed herself back onto her feet, somewhat violently but still carefully enough to succeed at standing, and after taking several experimental steps around her room she became reasonably conifident in her ability to walk around. Then she went out her door, and then over to Rich's door, pounding on it with a fist. It was definitely at least 9 or 10 AM by now, and if their illustrious leader was still asleep, then Jeff didn't particularly care if she got a rude awakening from it.

"Just a moment, please!" Rich's voice came cheerfully from inside, and Jeff stopped hitting the door, huffing air in and out and feeling her enormous breasts rise and fall in response as she slowly lowered her hand to her side. Then the red-eyed girl opened the door; she was wearing a very loose shirt which had fit her normally as a boy, which was possibly 'bed clothes'. "Yes?"
Jeff clenched her fists and leaned forward over the shorter girl: "WHY AM I A FURRY!?" The yell came out embarrassingly high in pitch, and definitely loud enough to wake up anyone else on their floor who'd still been asleep, but Jeff didn't care very much about either of those things right now.

Rich tilted her head for a moment, then untilted it and crossed her arms. "...Come now, that's not what a furry is, Jeff."

"What do you call—oow!—this, then?!" she demanded, trying to demonstratively yank an ear out at Rich with her right hand but immediately regretting it.

"An..ear?"

Jeff growled; she was going for a human grunt of frustration, but it came out sounding exactly like an angry dog, complete with her ears folding back and everything. "I'm not kidding around, Rich! Why. Do. I. Have. A tail!?"

"The potion can have some unpredictable effects on different people," she said calmly. "But I can confidently say that if you hated the idea of having fur, then it wouldn't have given it to you."

"Well, not necessarily," another voice chimed in, getting both of their attention. Tielo had come out of her room, leaving the door ajar for a taller, blue-haired fox-girl to lean her head out and look on, blank-faced, at the scene. Jeff's ears had also picked up the sound of other doors opening, and the other members of the council were in the process of stepping out into the hall. "Like, if you awakened as something that's naturally a bit fuzzy."

The wolf-girl turned on the short Kitsune. "This is not 'a bit' fuzzy!" She pulled back her lip with a finger. "Look, I literally have fangs! I feel like barking at something! I feel like a freak!" At this point she could actually feel tears coming down over her cheeks, and sniffed hard, trying to make that stop. She knew she was embarrassing herself in front of everyone at this point, and desperately wanted to prevent her stupid girl body from doing even more of that for her.

"Hey, hey, whoa," Mylar stepped a bit closer, folding her ears down a bit. "D'you think I'm a freak, Jeff? Or Tielo?"
"N-no! That's not what I meant! Gaah!"

"Oh, so—just you, then?"

"Look, you guys were always part animal, and never like, 'default human', so you have no idea what it's like to just suddenly not be!" she protested.

"Jeff..." Erwin chimed in softly, looking on with concern from just outside her own door. "Are you okay?"

"No!" Despite her best efforts, the wolf-girl was practically bawling at this point. "D'you think I'm stupid?! If I 'awakened' or whatever, this might be irreversible, right!?"

"Jeff, that was only hypothetical, okay?" Tielo said with a worried tone of voice; even she was attempting to console her at this point. "Plenty of guys turned into animal-girls in a totally reversible way yesterday." The wolf-girl just whined pathetically in reply, at this point not feeling capable of verbally doing much more.

"Is it really all that bad being part canine?" Rich challenged, coming around to partway in front of her again.
Jeff's anger/frustration was rekindled enough to spit out, "I don't see you sprouting cat ears or whatever!"

"I might try it out someday," she shrugged. "Really, is there not anything remotely 'wolf-like' that you wanted of your altered form?"

She sniffed and breathed in hard a few times, making a real effort to calm down and talk half-rationally. It felt horrible making all four of them worry about her like this (not to mention maybe freaking out whoever that was in Tielo's room). "I wanted to be tall and strong, yeah, but I didn't wanna literally be a wolf!"

"Is that part really that bad, though?" Mylar asked. "I mean—it's not like you've tried it out yet."
"What's there to try!? I can tell after two seconds that I feel really weird, not just physically from my ears moving and this thing coming out from my back—" she gestured emphatically at her tail, or at least tried to—it was probably the empty space it had just been occupying by the time her finger was actually pointing, "—but mentally too! Like chasing something or eating meat or having someone pet me would make me feel better! And I can't stop making weird, dog noises!"

"That's what they call 'instincts'," Mylar said. "I got a rush of that when I first changed yesterday, too. It should calm down a lot after a while, espeically if you can calm down. Anyway, maybe one of those things would make you feel better." At this point Jeff realized the short Neko had been steadily closing the distance to now be just outside of her personal space, and was actually looking up at her with a slight blush.
The wolf-girl whined again, and sniffed, out of arguments at this point and unsure what to make of Mylar's expression.
"Hey, c'mon, you just woke up, right? And did you even eat supper last night?"
"Yes! I-I just went to bed early."
"Well, I bet you're still starving! And that top looks pretty tight," she said, pointing. "Maybe you wanna put on something else?"
Jeff felt her face flush as she realized just how much of her torso and legs were exposed for all to see. "I-if I'm going downstairs, yeah." There wasn't much she could think of to do about the latter, but any of her 'boy-size' t-shirts would at least hide her belly.

The wolf-girl gave up at this point, deciding Mylar's plan of eating something was preferable to continuing to scream at everyone and maybe make them feel even worse than she already had. She shrugged and turned to leave, when Rich put a hand gently on one of her arms. "Jeff." She turned, and the other girl's red eyes were staring right into her own, like they were piercing her soul—but with an unusual sense of kindness behind them instead of the usual intimidating intensity. "If you truly despise the results of the potion by the end of the day, I will work tirelessly to find a way to undo them."

"Ffffh," the wolf-girl exhaled slowly. "Thanks. Sorry."
"Please, you're hardly the first person to throw a tantrum right after transforming," she said. "It's natural to have an extreme reaction to an extreme stimulus, after all."

She realized once she got back to her bedroom that taking off the sports bra would mean having those enormous globes bouncing around freely under the shirt, which was..an intensely embarrassing thought. How'd the girls whose 'new clothes' hadn't come with any support at all manage? It really didn't feel like it was restricting her all that much anyway, and she could just...get a normal one that fit her properly a little later, so Jeff just threw on a shirt over it, quickly rinsed her face off from all the tears and wiped it with a sleeve, and called that good enough.

By the time she came out, it was just Mylar waiting in the hallway, and she numbly let the short catgirl lead her to the stairwell and down the stairs. She felt ridiculous—having just seen that she was the tallest, most mature-looking girl of the council (aside from maybe Erwin being even bustier), and yet acting like a petulant child in front of all of them. The Neko didn't seem to be angry at her or anything, though; actually she looked way too happy to see Jeff's door open and its occupant step out again. Her ears were up and her slim tail was whipping all around excitedly, which was..mabye?...what happy cat's tail would do. Jeff didn't really get it, but..at least she wasn't upset about that whole 'freak' thing earlier.

"Here, siddown," Mylar said, pulling back a chair. "I'll get us both something."
"'Kay." The wolf-girl had to take a couple of attempts to sit in the chair, before realizing that her tail could go through the hole between the back and seat. "Uh...thanks."

"No problem!"

Since there was nobody else in the dining room, Jeff took a moment to try and comprehend some of the other details to her strange new body. She put a hand under the shirt to run along her belly, and felt solid, strong abs there; prodding her biceps, though they looked a bit on the slender side, she found them equally rock-hard. She was actually...really strong it seemed, for a girl if not just in general. She also teased around her hair a little in a hand, finding it strangely soft despite its terribly unkempt looks. And..she did press her palm into her chest just once, finding it somewhat firm and still rather sensitive, making her face warm up a little for a second or two. Mylar didn't come out of the kitchen before that had faded off, thankfully.

The Neko took the seat next to Jeff after setting their plates down, and they both ate in silence for a bit. It seemed she really was hungry, with how fast she found herself eating. And despite how strange the fangs felt in her mouth, they didn't seem to make it any harder to eat or anything—not to mention that she'd clearly had no difficulty speaking. About midway through the meal, the wolf-girl felt something soft and warm touch her tail a couple of inches in from its tip, and yipped, looking around and behind her quickly to find seemingly nothing there that could've been responsible.

"Uh—sorry," Mylar said, faintly blushing and seeming to deliberately keep her tail pulled to the side away from Jeff for the moment, curling it partway around one of her chair's legs. "Accident."
"Oh, it's okay I guess..but, gah, that felt weird. Like someone straight up poking my spine or something."
"Tails do tend to be a little sensitive sometimes," she said, nodding.

The weird thing, though—which Jeff wasn't about to admit aloud—was that apart from it being unexpected and startling her, the feeling of the tip of Mylar's catlike tail running briefly across her own...hadn't felt half-bad.

Eventually she said, "Did I seriously admit to everyone that I wanted someone to pet me?"
"Thaat was among the stuff you said," she nodded. "Really, it's no big deal. All kinds of beastfolk get urges like that, and you were in the middle of freakin' out, too."
Jeff made a worried kind of half-groan: "Hmmnnnnh."

"Actually, I've felt the same way, since yesterday," Mylar admitted.
"You wh—which way?"
"Like I want somebody to pet me. You know, just rub my ears a little? Even though it's not as strong as it was right after, I can tell my instincts got a boost from my change, and that's a part of them."

Once Mylar was done eating, she said, "You feel a little better now?"
"I guess...but now, I'm just kinda ashamed I acted that way in front of everyone."

"Hey, you were super stressed, pretty much all day yesterday. Maybe you just needed to let it all out, cry and scream a little, you know?"

"That was way more than 'a little'..."

Jeff's ears popped upright. "Oh! Shoot, I've gotta..could I uh, ask you to take some pics for me?"
"Okay?" The Neko tilted her head quizically.
"I uh, called my parents yesterday, annd, promised my mom I'd send her a picture after I..changed," she said. "I dunno how she'll react to..this stuff," she added, poking the tip of an ear with a finger.

"I'm sure they'll be cool about it."

"That's almost worse," Jeff said, her ears folding back again. "Nobody but me freaking out about this makes me feel like I'm the crazy one. I left my phone upstairs..." She stood up to head back to the stairwell.

Mylar followed her up, and then (after a slight hesitation for some reason) through the bedroom door as she got her phone and started the camera up. Then she offered it to the catgirl. "Here. Just uh..a couple of full-body shots to pick from, okay?"
"Sure, no problem!" The Neko grinned...really, really cutely. And her tail was still going all over the place. It was a wonder it hadn't bumped into Jeff's several more times earlier, with it moving around that much.

The girl in the photos was very much the same as the one she'd seen in her mirror in the dream. This wasn't particularly surprising, but it was extremely strange for her own subconscious to apparently be able to conjure a vivid facsimile of an appearance she hadn't actually seen yet at the time—but then, it was probably just some kind of weird magic junk at work, after all. Jeff was thinking, as she went through and picked the clearest, most full-body-showing picture to send over, that on anyone else the entire package would look pretty amazing. She didn't mind animal ears on other people, and it was obvious she was gorgeous and busty and strong all at the same time—but it still weirded her out that the girl with huge fuzzy ears and a fluffy tail was her. Either way, she sent a text of warning first to let her parents know about the unexpected parts of the change, and then the photo.

Before she'd even put the phone down again, her mom replied with, Aww, you look amazing, dear! Jeff frowned, flushing slightly; it was true but she sort of didn't want it to be. The ears and tail are really cute!
"Anything bad?" Mylar asked with a slight look of concern.
"Uh, no. She said I look 'amazing'. And....cute."
"Well, you doo," the Neko pointed out. "I mean, for a girl you're absolutely ripped. I wouldn't be surprised if you're actually stronger and faster than you were as a guy, actually."
"Mnngh, you're just saying that to try to make me feel better," Jeff said, but the blush didn't go away from her face.
"I'm totally not! Here," the catgirl boldly stepped in and slid her hand through the hem of Jeff's shirt to touch her belly, gently rubbing it for a second. "It's like a diamond, dude!"

"Rrfh..h-hey!" Jeff barked first, high and cute—discovering suddenly that her belly was apprently hyper-sensitive to specifically the feeling of someone else's hand rubbing it—and quickly drew back, crossing her arms and folding her ears down. "D-don't just, touch me without asking!"

"Oh, sorry. I just, well I've wanted to know what those abs felt like since I first saw 'em," Mylar admitted, lowering her ears apologetically. She was—also—obviously blushing. "You can take revenge by touching my ears if you want," she offered.
Jeff raised her eyebrow (and the ear on that side), then gave a sort of half-glare. "You just want me to do that, don't you? When'd you turn so weird, Mylar?"
"Heheh, I guess about the time I turned into a girl. Guess you've got me there..."

Mylar was looking away; she was still grinning after the slight giggle, but something about the body language of her ears and tail—the latter slowing its motion quite a bit, while the former stayed low—made Jeff feel like the short, curvy catgirl was nearly heartbroken by the implied rejection. That was maybe an exaggeration, and maybe some of those signals were being deliberately exaggerated, but...

She growled softly, sighed, and then said: "Okay, fine, just—don't make it weird."
"Okay," Mylar said, instantly perking up again and stepping slightly closer, back into the wolf-girl's personal space. At this point Jeff was nearly against a wall, so she couldn't step back anymore; instead she reached down a hand and cautiously pet the catgirl, going from one ear over to the other and back again. The smaller girl grinned first, then started purring exactly like a kitten. Then she leaned up on her tiptoes, running her cheek across Jeff's wrist, which was something of a breaking point for her.

"You're making it weird, you're making it weird!" She drew her hand back again.
"Mnnh?" the Neko's eyes opened (having closed about midway through the purring) and blinked a couple of times. "Oh, sorry. Instincts, you know, can't help it. But that felt really nice, though, thank you~!"

She was undeniably aware of how cute that was in her high voice, how her blushing, smiling face looked, and...was probably doing all of that on purpose. Jeff felt her face continue to burn with a blush, and her traitor of a tail was doing its best to wag back and forth, impeded as it was by the wall only half its length behind her. "W-what happened to you, man?"
"We~eell, I turned into a catgirl, for one thing," Mylar said. "It's pretty weird for me too, but if it feels nice, then I wanna at least give it a try. Maybe you'll turn back tomorrow, and never go back, soo, don't you at least wanna know what it's like too?"
"I-I feel embarrassed just thinking about it. And I still—seriously, no offense but—I still feel like a freak every time I hear dog noises coming outta my mouth," she said. "Or, throat or, whatever."
"Awwh, I think they're cute, though," Mylar said.

"C-cute!?" That really did her in. Jeff wanted so badly to be upset at being called that so directly, but at the same time her entire body seemed to respond to the word like the biggest compliment ever, her ears going low and tail audibly thwapping against the wall and face feeling like an inferno. The only bit of self-control she managed was a deep frown on her lips that she knew wasn't the least bit convincing.

"Ohh all the gods and spirits, that's adorable!" Mylar shuffled an inch or two closer, leaning up at her again. "Please, pleeease lemme pet your ears?" she said, putting her hands together in an actual pleading gesture. "I promise I won't tell anyone!"
"F-fine, I guess..." Mylar started to reach her hands up right away, and Jeff interrupted her: "Just! L-let's move first, this thing's gonna be sore if it keeps hitting the wall," she said, bringing her tail around beside her and holding it up in a hand.

"Sure," the catgirl nodded, dancing a few steps back and looking very, honestly happy. It was making the wolf-girl feel like she'd just been hunted down and eventually cornered by the feline, and Mylar was just savoring the last few moments before a pounce. It felt somehow very wrong to be treated like 'prey' this way, but a significant portion of Jeff's bizarre new instincts was too busy eagerly anticipating those small, delicate hands rubbing her ears to care.

Jeff went and sat on her bed, and the catgirl did indeed pounce—right down into a close hug. Her big, soft breasts squished against the wolf-girl's own enormous pair, her cute face blushing brightly as it took up most of her vision. Jeff's tail whipped audibly across the sheets—she hadn't made the bed up or anything since jumping out of it earlier—and she found herself slowly beginning to return the hug. The parts of her that felt weird or wrong about being a girl, being part wolf, letting Mylar 'hunt' and manipulate her this way—all fought with as much will as they could not to enjoy this, but enjoy it she did anyway. The willpower those parts had steadily ebbed away as she felt soft fingers gently running down her ears, making her softly yip a few times, and then she let a low "Rr~rfh" as the petting began in earnest, quickly holding the catgirl tighter and pressing her nose right into Mylar's cheek.

Her reluctance was all gone now, and the only thing in control seemed to be the strange new instincts and a surprisingly large portion of her 'human' mind that apparently agreed with them, if only for the moment. She lifted her hands up slowly, ruffling the back of Mylar's bright purple hair, and then brought them up to the catgirl's ears, one hand per fuzzy triangle. The Neko also apparently abandoned all sense of restraint, nuzzling her cheek right back and curling her tail forward to slide across Jeff's not far from its base. The wolf-girl yipped like she had before, but didn't resist this either, pulling her tail over to one side to practically invite the slim line of warm, soft fur to go sliding and twisting all the way across it.

"Mnn~nh, rrfh, y-yip!" Her voice danced up and down throughout its expansive range as she went between pleased little murmurs, low barks and high yips; Mylar just kept on adorably purring in reply. After a bit, the part of Jeff's instinct that wanted to be the hunter and not the prey reasserted itself, and had her pull the catgirl down with her so they were both lying down, then insistently tumble them around so she was on top, her enormous breasts pushing down into the much smaller girl's.

Mylar responded to this with a high, submissive "Mrr~rroowh," which Jeff felt somehow confident was an expression of not merely accepting but enjoying this gesture. Then she went back to purring and nuzzling, one of her hands occasionally running its way through the wolf-girl's long hair, and they kept at it for what felt like a very long time.

Eventually the wolf-girl came out of it enough for her conscious mind to function again, and found herself holding on tight: Panting hard, heart racing, face and whole body warm, huge grin on her face, and the small part of her tail near the tip that didn't have catgirl-tail on it rapidly wagging back and forth. There was a faint, fuzzy sensation down between her legs: seemingly a much gentler form of the girlish pleasure she'd felt during the latter parts of the transformation, but still enough to make her let out a soft, high "Aa~aahnn~nn.." between barks.

The catgirl replied by way of a breathy "Mm~mnnh" interrupting her purring and communicating that she was feeling something fairly similar. But now both girls needed desperately to catch their breath, so they didn't dive back in, instead loosening their grips a bit and slowly but surely pulling their heads apart enough to turn out to either side instead of pushing hot air ou into each other's faces.

"Mnrrrfh..w-why do I like this?"

"Maybe you like me?" the catgirl suggested half-teasingly, half-hopefully.
"Mnnh, maybe..

"You know, uh..w-when I called them yesterday. My mom said she was like..proud of me for being 'adventurous' and 'wild'. I wonder if I..rrfh...if I wound up this way because deep down I kinda wanted that? And, maybe the magic took the idea of being 'wild' just, way too literally, so it made me a furry?"

"Magic does stuff like that sometimes," Mylar said. "I think I really like you wild like this, though."

"You don't seem very 'tame' yourself, you know."

The wolf-girl was smiling giddily, an expression also evident on the smaller girl's adorable face. She paused, then frowned a little bit, saying: "Awwh, great, now I don't hate this body at all."

"Heheh!" the Neko giggled back. "I'm pretty fond of it myself~."

"I guess I'm stuck like this for a while, then."

Mylar gently played with the wolf-girl's ears between her fingers. "Not such a bad way to be 'stuck' though, is it, Jeff?"

"Rrfh..mn~mnh..

"Y-you know, I don't really feel like much of a 'Jeff' like this. It sounds, off somehow.."
"You want me to call you something else?"
"...Jen, maybe."
"That sounds pretty cute~."
"Mnnnngh." Jen groaned, frowning, but blushed and enjoyed it at the same time.
"I've been toying with the idea of a different name myself, honestly. Something like Myra, Mary, Myla..?"
"That last one's cute," the wolf-girl said right away.
"Heheh! Okay, I'm goin' with that one, then!"

Myla placed a hand on the back of Jen's head to gently push it down toward hers, insistently initiating another round of petting that left them both just as breathless. They came out of it to catch their breaths ever so slowly, Jen finding the girlish pleasure from before had ramped up noticeably in both intensity and how much she found herself liking it. But...

"Kfhh." This time Jen pushed herself up onto her knees, although the catgirl just followed her most of the way there, sitting partway up with her arms still around the much bigger girl's waist. She also continued brushing her tail up and down Jen's, which the wolf-girl found just as pleasing as ever, but it no longer startled her at all—just kept her blush going. "Okay, we, seriously can't do this all day," she said, regaining her breath.
"Yeah, I guess not. After all, we've got some shopping to do, ri~ight?"

Jen felt her head tilt a bit.

Myla poked the wolf-girl's chest with a finger, drawing a soft yip. "I mean, that sports bra can't be that comfortable, and I don't think I saw anything in Rich's stockpile that'll fit your size, so..gonna need that, at least."
"Oh..y-yeah."

"I wanted to buy some new outfits and stuff too; I kinda put it off after mooching a few from Rich yesterday. Soo, you wanna come with?"

"S-sure. Um, but first there's prolly some people I should check on, um..talk to, and stuff..."

"Fair enough." Myla let go and gently dropped back onto her back. "I'll come with you first, then."
"'Kay."

Thankfully, her legs were mostly working by the time she'd disengaged enough to get off of the bed and try to stand, and the tail helped now that she was more used to letting it do its job. Myla just straight-up did a flip into a handstand, then bent into an arch to get her feet on the floor and pivot to standing on them with seemingly no difficulty at all, spreading her arms out theatrically as she straightened up again. "Ta-daah!"
"...You show-off."
"The saying goes, 'if you've got it, flaunt it'," she said, winking and grinning brightly.

The wolf-girl led the way out of her bedroom, thinking: Now that so many of the pros were actually showing themselves, it might be enough to get used to this. When Myla walked close beside her and kept making the tip of her tail slide against Jen's, it occurred to her that actually, maybe she already was getting used to it...which worried and excited her in about equal measure.

---

Someone posted a comment around part 9 wondering what was going on with Jeff, and I could only assure them that I hadn't forgotten him. In fact, I'd had something like this planned from the beginning, but it picked up some more details along the way: Calling his parents (after Jeff talked to Kaden), yelling about being a furry (partially a callback to Darren), and finally I changed my mind just before actually beginning to write this as to what image to use because I saw one that was a lot better than the one I'd originally planned on. Said image also inspired the whole 'dream sequence' bit, which I'm also happy with in that it distinguishes the change from Vade's considerably.