Omega Zeta Kappa 23: ρ

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Fair warning: It's another long one!

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York didn't get why he always struck out.

He thought he was reasonably attractive—his body shape was average, not muscular but not fat either; his face was..presumably handsome enough, with him generally making an effort to have good hygeine, shave, and so on. He thought he had a..pretty okay personality. His friends liked him well enough, at least—and not all of them were male. He thought he had the right approach: Compliment, make a light offer to go out somewhere, insist a little bit if she just seemed shy or was clearly just being coy. He didn't go for stupid pick-up lines, manipulation, or anything else he classified as 'jerk behavior'...

Maybe he was just bad at reading people. That was what he thought after that giant, busty girl with the pink eyes told him off. He'd been under the impression that her redhead friend appreciated his compliments and only needed a little more of a push to accept his invitation. He'd also sort of been banking on that maybe someone in OZK knew what it was like to be so useless at asking girls out, and might at least grant him one pity date. Even just getting some feedback or advice on what he was doing so wrong, from a former-fellow-guy, might have helped.

Thinking back on that moment, as he walked to the school's cafeteria for a dinner alone (admittedly a much less expensive one than he would've treated that red-haired cutie to), he realized a couple of things. For one, with how mad she seemed, he was pretty lucky the big, busty one hadn't punched his lights out. She wasn't just curvy, but had some guns too. For another...maybe he hadn't had a chance with that redhead in the first place, for entirely different reasons from usual. If that hunch was right, it meant it was just his bad luck this time, picking the wrong target.

Going around the cafeteria with his tray, the scent of fish struck him as particularly attractive. So he went with that for his entree, and, as usual, assembled some sides to go with it. For dessert, he thought he was feeling ice cream, so he waited until after he was done with the rest so it wouldn't melt. From there, he went on with his evening, and eventually went to sleep, fully expecting that afternoon encounter to blur in with the rest of his typical failures.

Thursday morning, York struck a hand out from his bed to shut up the alarm and then turned over, groaned, and sat up. He reached a hand up, having felt the resistance of hair against the motion of his head when turning over, and found a mop of messy brown hair coming a few inches down along his cheeks, and just about as long in the back. "Yeesh..." He ran a hand through that hair, thinking that he knew he was coming due for a cut, but he hadn't thought it had been neglected for that long.

He got up and took a shower like usual, then went to shave. However, running a hand across his cheeks, it seemed like he didn't really need one yet. This was also slightly odd—it was usually every other day, like clockwork—but he simply blessed his luck; today's first class was kind of early, and washing his hair had taken longer than usual. It balanced out, right? Finally, while he was getting dressed, he thought his shirt must have stretched in the wash a little; he had to yank it back a little to keep the collar from hanging down too far in the front.

While he registered each of these three things as a little bit odd, they were all pretty much isolated events in his mind. It never even would've occurred to him that they could be related. Why would they be? He went on to a quick breakfast (cereal in milk) and then class with all three events pretty much forgotten.

Class was immediately followed by a lab. York was working on a project with one of his friends, who remarked on his hair. "Oh, yeah—I've kinda let it go," he said, putting a hand up to brush some out of the way of his eyes. The stray thought floated through his mind that his friend seemed a little taller than usual—maybe a slight post-puberty growth spurt or something. His hand found the hair coming down to almost shoulder-level, at which he again, just briefly, mentally paused. He thought it hadn't been that long when he first woke up, but on the other hand—he'd been half-asleep then. He figured he was just misremembering. "I'll get it this weekend," he concluded after a pause short enough that his friend didn't register a hesitation. From there, they got to work.

During the lab, York occasionally pulled his shirt up or back to keep it from hanging down in the front. It seemed to be doing that more than during his first morning class, and he wondered why he hadn't just changed shirts in the first place. There were a few others that were clean, after all! He also found himself absently running a hand through his hair once or twice; when he did it near the end of the lab time, his fingers touched an ear, and the top of the ear seemed to taper to almost a sharp point...but he dropped his hand to do something more important with it before even fully registering that he'd felt that, and then immediately dismissed it as his imagination.

On the way to lunch, York fought with his hair to get some earbuds in, and hummed along with a tune from his phone. He found the higher notes easier to hit than usual, but stumbled over some of the deeper ones, instinctively clearing his throat when he did. He was thirsty by the time he got into the cafeteria, and had an odd craving for milk, so he went and got some. Only after he'd sat down did he realize that he'd chosen fish as an entree again, the same as last night. Well—he thought—it was just good brain food, right?

Another of his friends showed up halfway through the meal. "Yoo, York! I hardly recognize ya! Rockin' the wild-hair look these days?"
"Huh? Oh, no, I've just—" he started, and briefly cleared his throat. The hesitation had been because he'd put a hand up to his hair when he started speaking, and been slightly surprised to find the end of some locks in the back reaching past his shoulders. But he cleared his throat because his voice came out kind of strangely high, more on the tenor side than he could remember sounding since puberty. "Uh, let it go, lately." His effort to make his voice sound normal again instead had him sounding slightly hoarse. "I'm gonna get it cut, uh, later.."
"You feeling okay? Not coming down with a cold or nothin?"
"Uh, no, I feel great!" York half-lied, his voice returning to the higher pitch again. He certainly didn't feel sick or anything, but he was starting to worry that something was wrong. Looking across at his friend, he seemed noticeably taller than usual. "Never better."
"Okay, okay. You do you, man." If his friend noticed his voice sounding different, he didn't comment on it. York slowly realized throughout the rest of their conversation that his shirt felt kind of baggy on him—not like the collar had been stretched as he'd first thought, but like it was designed for someone who was all-around..bigger.

Once his friend got started talking about something, York just listened, eating the rest of his meal. Somehow the noise of the cafeteria crowd seemed louder to him, and yet—paradoxically—at the same time, it was easier to listen to his friend. He thought he could feel his ears...wiggling themselves a little bit, oddly enough. A slight panic was starting to settle into his mind as he tried to reconcile together all of the weird things he'd noticed, but he didn't want to make a scene or worry anyone. And...he wanted to finish his meal. The fish was good, and the milk he found especially, strangely delicious.

"Um, I've gotta get to class," York fully-lied as soon as he was done eating; he actually had a fairly long break this afternoon. He took the glass of milk and chugged the last of it.

"Alright," his friend said, not questioning this either. "See you later!"
"Yeah, you too.."

York slid across the booth and onto his feet, picking up his tray to take with him. Now that he was really paying attention, even more weird things came to light. Not only was his shirt baggy, but his pants felt a little bit looser than they should be...and their leggings were long enough to cover half of his shoes. They wouldn't have to be much longer to risk tripping him! And when he stood up, he felt the weight of hair on his shoulders, the sides of his chest, and nearly to his midsection in the back. That was even longer than when he'd sat down to eat...wasn't it?!

He tried to hurry to put the tray away and get outside, but that's when he noticed that his shoes were loose too! This required him to sort of carefully shuffle around, but he hurried as much as he could anyway. The cafeteria seemed even louder now, and now that he was really looking, it was like everyone around him was taller than usual! No, it wasn't even just people; the furniture of the cafeteria itself, the decorations on the walls—all seemed noticeably higher up than it should be. All of this was bringing him dangerously close to an actual panic. Once he did get out, he took several long, deep breaths, and tried to take serious stock of things.

He looked down. There was a slightly awkwardly-fitting, loose t-shirt, the hem trailing partway down his hips. There were pants that seemed kind of baggy too, with their leggings folded up slightly against the top of his now loose-fitting shoes. And, of course, there was hair; looking down had made some of it fall in front of his face. He reached a hand up to brush it out of the way, and ran the hand through some more of the hair—both because he found this act strangely calming, and also to try to assess its actual length now. However, that hand didn't get farther than the side of his head because it ran into something much more concerning than longer hair.

"Aah! Wha..?" York couldn't get his voice to sound even remotely normal now; was its pitch even higher than before? But more importantly, the thing that had startled him was his hand finding something noticeably bigger than his ear should be, and softer to the touch—and his ear had been strangely sensitive to the hand! "What the..!?" He put up both hands now, one on each ear, and traced his fingers across the length of them. They were both big like that, and covered in something soft and fuzzy, like peach fuzz—which, in turn, seemed to make them awfully sensitive, enough that touching them with his hands like this made him shiver slightly.

"I...n-no way..!" York immediately dropped his hands and started running, making a break for his dorm room. He nearly tripped over his own shoes a couple of times, but managed to power through it without falling over.

Obviously, York wasn't ignorant of the actual existence of transformation magic. Never mind that the world had been taken out from the veil for a while now; the entire sitaution with OZK was all about transforming people! But he certainly had never seen it happening for himself, much less..experienced any of it! The steady, slightly panicky realization that something was happening to him, and that it was most likely some kind of magical transformation, felt impossible and unreal. He thought he had to be dreaming a particularly long and vivid dream, which he'd wake up from as soon as things got a few steps weirder. But the way he panted heavily, feeling sweat come down across him, as he reached the door to the dorm and hurried inside, dragging himself up the stairs as quick as he could manage, the soreness of his body from such a sudden burst of effort—that felt entirely too real to deny.

He didn't really put together why his first instinct was to get to his dorm room until he'd already thrown the door shut and locked it behind him. It was just..that he knew whatever was happening to him probably wasn't over. He was pretty sure that transformations were hard or dangerous to interrupt or something, but there were people..or organizations...or whatever that could reverse them. So, that meant all he really had to do was ride it out! Right? And he definitely wanted that to be in private.

"Hffh...okay, okay..what's..?" he mumbled to himself, listening to a soft, high tenor tone come out of his throat. He stumbled over to the bathroom to look in the mirror. "What's with the ears..?"

He cursed himself for not looking in a mirror earlier. The changes were pretty obvious now that he was directly looking at them! His hair was a bunch of messy, deep brown locks falling maybe halfway down his torso in the back, besides framing his face. His face looked decidedly softer and rounder than before, its skin not just at "don't-need-to-shave-yet" levels, but more like "too-young-for-a-razor" smooth. And his eyes! They'd always been a deep blue color, but they were noticeably brighter, and kind of a tealish shade besides.

While staring at his altered eyes in the mirror, they caught a slight motion in their periphery and automatically turned upward. Now York could very clearly see what had become of his ears, as maybe half of each one poked entirely past his hair. They were big, sort of triangular in shape, with the soft fuzz he'd felt before having developed into long brown hairs, including some lighter-colored fuzz coming out from the inner ears. He reached up with both hands to touch them again, still not fully able to reconcile that those things were real, were a part of his own body!

"They're like..." York shivered slightly at the feeling of his own hands on the ears. "They're like cat ears..." he realized quietly. His recent cravings for fish, ice cream, and milk suddenly took on a different meaning. "So I'm, like...am I turning into a cat?"

A little more of the panic from before fluttered through York's mind—it was going to be a lot harder to get someone to help him turn back if he was literally an animal! But—turning into a cat should've involved his hair getting shorter, and his beard fuzzier—not to mention the hair all across his body growing more, too. A lot of things didn't match up with that idea. Besides, at the rate he'd been changing so far...well, if he really started turning entirely into a cat, he'd have plenty of time to exit his dorm room and freak people out in the halls, maybe get them to call magical 9-1-1 or whatever...

He took another deep breath. Not a full cat, surely—he had to believe—but 'cat' was definitely a part of what he'd been cursed to turn into. He turned his gaze downward to the rest of him—the loose shirt, baggy pants. He'd certainly been shrinking...but the very fact that his clothes were so loose made it a lot harder to see what was going on under them. So he shrugged, lightly kicking off his shoes (which wouldn't have been possible yesterday) and undoing the pants to let them fall off. Then he lifted the shirt up enough to get a better view of his torso.

"Hmmmh..." York felt a slight blush settle on his face. He hardly recognized the slim shape of his body, or the smooth skin it was covered in—just like that of his face. It all just seemed so...soft. "S-so, then...I'm..."

York was pretty sure what was going on now, but didn't want to say it aloud. He let go of the shirt and shuffled back into the bedroom proper to sit down on his bed, taking in and letting out another deep breath. "But why, though...? I mean, who even..or, how'd they..?" he mumbled to himself. He didn't think he'd had anything funny to drink, or even run into anyone particularly magical, much less offended a Kitsune or something...

"Aah—what..?" York's thoughts were interrupted by a strange feeling in his lower back, a kind of sharp tingling like a limb waking up from being asleep. "What is..?" he started, twisting around to look, and discovered a tuft of dark brown fuzz coming from the base of his spine, visibly in the process of pushing out longer. "Th-that's...a-a tail..!?" he mumbled. It was utterly bizarre to feel a sort-of-limb that he'd never had before 'waking up' and 'stretching' itself, let alone the sensation of its soft, sensitive fur brushing across the bed behind him.

It flicked itself back and forth as it grew longer and longer, the rhtymic motion strangely mesermerising. He eventually reached out a hand to touch it, the surreality of the situation forcing him to again confirm that what he was seeing was real, and felt a startled "M-mrowh!" come out of his mouth in response to the touch. It was like a part of his spine that had a million nerve endings all its own!

"I-I...just meowed..?!" he said quietly to himself, placing the hand on the base of the tail and running it all the way down its length, the tail curling itself upward to stay with the motion of his hand. "M-mmnngh..." His face was feeling warm again. Why did that..feel so nice? He let go, and immediately it went back to rhythmically swishing back and forth.

York turned his face forward, sighing. "S-so..part cat, huh. And..." He rubbed the tops of his legs together, feeling something. "Wonder how much longer..."

After a minute or two, he started to feel a little impatient. Now that he knew what was going on, what was the point of it being so slow? It was anxiety-inducing, waiting for his body to change even more, but it was somehow boring at the same time! He got up, trying to ignore his tail moving itself around to help him balance, and went over to his desk and computer.

He wasn't sure what he wanted to do at first, as he sat down and was grateful for the first time that the chair's back had a narrow stalk between the seat and back that a tail could fit to one side of. He just wanted to do something rather than nothing. But then he thought: As bizarre as his situation was, it couldn't possibly be unique. Someone else had to have had something like this happen, right?

A quick search for "why am I transforming?" brought up a litany of useless results. A lot of them were expressly labeled as stories—fiction altogether. Some of them were...probably trolls, and still others were possibly-serious questions people had posted, with only trolls and/or the ignorant responding. Digging past that, York still had trouble finding anything useful. He definitely wasn't a "changeling", whatever that was; he certainly hoped he didn't have "shape disorder"...this was like looking up an innocuous ache on a medical website!

Sitting there, paying attention to little else besides the screen and himself, York occasionally noticed brief, slight..sensations. He realized that they might have been present all along, but they were weak enough that he'd never even registered them as unusual while going about his day. It was..a slight push on his shoulders, or a squeeze on his arms or his legs. He looked down to examine himself after feeling some of these hit him, and found his frame even slimmer than before, his shoulders narrower or his belly thinner. Sitting in a single position like his chair made it easy to trace the slight, but decidedly present, sinking of his perspective, too. A couple of times he even felt a slight squeezing on his hands or his feet, and it was hard to miss the former becoming smaller, with more slender, delicate fingers, as his eyes darted down from the screen to adjust their placement for typing.

"Cm'ooon..." he whined, and then instinctively cleared his throat. This had come out in an even higher pitch than before; it wasn't even tenor now, but approaching a full-on soprano. "O-oh, right.." he mumbled in that same high, soft voice, remembering that a voice change was yet another aspect of his change. Maybe he should've been humming to himself the past few minutes to track it...but then, he actually wasn't sure he wanted to be aware of every single detail of what was changing!

Finally, some four refinements of his terms and three pages down in the search results, York thought he'd found something remotely useful. It was a forum for people who at least claimed to be witches, warlocks, and mages (although he wasn't really sure those were different things?), and a guest had posted saying he'd suddenly grown cat ears and didn't know why. The responses seemed fairly genuine, less like ignorant trolling and more like questions to gather information. In a funny way, the conversation tone reminded him of that of a better tech support website helping a user diagnose an unusual computer problem.

Had he met anyone strange? Not that he knew of. Touched anything that glowed? Definitely not. Worn unfamiliar clothes, even just an accessory? Nope. Had someone he thought looked pretty normal, nonetheless, said something strange to him? Or, even if not strange, at least specifically mentioning the idea of him being a cat, or something about his ears, or...?

At this point, before coming to the original poster's response, York abruptly stopped reading. Someone saying something about being a cat? About being a...kitten!? A pretty one, at that?

The huge, busy pink-eyed girl's words rang in his head: How would you like to get turned into a 'pretty little kitten' and have dudes harrassing you nonstop!?

Now that he really, seriously thought about it, pink eyes were kind of unusual. It was just that all of OZK were weird, and plenty of them had wound up with unusual traits but no magic powers—or at least none that anybody knew about! But if he'd really annoyed that girl by hitting on the redhead, and she'd been perfectly capable of knocking his lights out for it, and she hadn't...maybe it was because she just had a different kind of revenge in mind?

"Aagh...no way. No. Way." York splayed out his arms to his sides and leaned way back. "Of all the stupid, rotten, terrible luck!" Then he sat up again and—he wasn't sure why, but he reached his hands up. "I teed off a witch!?" In an instinctive expression of exasperation, those hands yanked at his ears sideways—not enough to seriously hurt them, but enough to pull them outward. "So now, just for that, I get to turn into a catg—a..."

"A ca..."

He'd stopped himself from saying 'catgirl', still not really wanting to think too hard about the second syllable. He'd started trying to come up with another term to use, maybe 'cat-person' or something, but stopped because he felt kind of weird. And then the weirdness had gotten stronger when he'd started to speak again, more specifically settling on something situated between his legs. A faint tingling that quickly grew stronger and stronger, making his face start to feel warm...

"O-oh boy..hhhokay..." York breathed deeply, but let the air out suddenly, feeling his heartbeat pick up. The tingling was strangely...stimulating to the thing it had settled on, even as it progressed into a slight...slipping sensation. "H-here it comes...I, I'm gonna...mmngh..." The slipping grew stronger. It was an inward tug, and with all of the tingling, York could very clearly feel that it was making that thing down there smaller...and smaller...

"I-I'm..mmnh, mm~mmnh.." The soft, high, cute voice coming out didn't help York feel very masculine. Nor did his long hair, soft skin, slender frame. "M-mrr~rrh.." His manhood slipped inward a little more still. A body like his was now..well, it'd be really awkward to be a guy looking like that anyway, wouldn't it? People might not even believe he was male if they heard that voice. "Mnnh, aah—aah—aa~aah...!" The slipping progressed into a few sharp tugs, exciting York even more even as the thing growing excited became yet tinier. If anything—maybe a change of sex was a favor by this point. Never mind how nice it felt...!

"Aa~aaAA~AAAAaah...!" A high, cute, breathy cry came out as York's prediction came the rest of the way true. The tugging climaxed with the feeling of his manhood melting away, rapidly converting into that of the opposite sex. She became a catgirl, and then was assaulted by a deeply pleasant, fuzzy sensation down between her legs that felt bizarrely like the logical conclusion to all of the..excitement that had come along with the tingling, slipping, and tugging away of her former manhood.

She let out a helpless, girly "Aa~aahhnnn...!" and then "Mmh—MMH—MM~Mmrrr~rrrh..!" as she squirmed in her seat, feeling a gentle, oddly pleasant outward pressing from her hips and thighs as they grow thicker and wider, her bottom pressing itself out rounder against her chair. Her ears, meanwhile, had lowered down enough to point out from the sides of her head, and her tail was whipping around like crazy behind her, heedless of its base tapping repeatedly against the stalk of the chair.

"Oo-ooh..ah, aa~AA~Aaah..!" No sooner did her lower body finish growing than York felt a race of tingles all across her chest, followed by the bizarre feeling of her nipples growing wider and taller. This was immediately followed by a push from beneath them, swelling up a pair of girlish, prepubescent bumps. But those didn't stay like that for very long either; the catgirl let out a helpless "M-mee~wwh..!" as the feeling of the bumps growing out into a pair of small breasts, especially their rather sensitive skin running across the material of her shirt from the motion of that growth, drew more nice, fuzzy feelings down between her legs.

"Aa~aAA~Aaah..mm~mrrr~rrh..." Girly and feline sounds continued to pour from her lips as she felt her chest push out again and again, the small breasts slowly but surely developing into a bigger and bigger pair of globes. It felt like an eternity of her bust getting bigger and bigger, and yet when it did end it almost felt like it was over too soon. York felt one final, especially strong push as her bosom grew to an impressive size for her diminutive height, and let out a relieved "Aa~aahnnn..." as this seemed to resolve the nice feelings between her legs in an especially satisfying way, too.

"H-hff..ffh..m-mro~owh.." York slowly opened her eyes (when had she closed them, exactly?) and looked down to assess the damage. She was..small, fairly curvy, kind of busty. She was definitely a girl, unmistakeably so, from top to bottom. She had turned into—a pretty little kitten. The thing that crossed her mind first was a worry, that perhaps it was a part of her curse...the fact that she, kind of, liked this new look?

"U-um..my shirt..?" York tugged at it uncertainly; it had definitely been bigger before. It was still a little too long on her, but it wasn't slipping off of her shoulders or showing off most of her neckline like before. Somehow, perhaps mercifully, that last bit of change seemed to have spread to her clothes too. Well—actually, just her shirt. Now that she was looking, the boxers were the same size as ever.

She took a slow, deep breath, in and out. So—the curse, or at least the transformation component, had run its course now, right? She stood up, letting the boxers be as they slipped down to the floor, and went back to the bathroom to get a good look at herself. Was she going to be stuck like this...? No, no; there were people who could fix this kind of thing! Even more than that, OZK could get in a lot of trouble for transforming someone against his will...right?

The girl in the mirror was beautiful; York couldn't think of another word for it. Okay, she could—she was also adorable, cute, pretty, and a lot of other similar words, too. She still sported quite a blush from the...things she'd felt during and immediately after the change of sex, too.

Thinking about it, the big, busty girl hadn't sounded like she was reciting a curse at all. She'd just been..stating a hypothetical, to try and make York understand her friend's position better. Sure, she'd been upset...but not cursing someone upset. Maybe...somehow, perahps...had the whole thing been an accident? Or, even if not, maybe OZK's leaders could at least strongarm her into dispelling that curse, right?

"It..couldn't hurt to ask, right?" she asked the catgirl in the mirror.

"I could apologize, show her what happened..and ask her to turn me back. R-right? Yeah.."

York went back out and recovered her boxers, pulling them up past her hips and holding on to them. None of her over-pants would fit, so...this would just have to do. A quick glance between her shoes and her presently-bare feet established that she'd be better off barefoot, too. Well—with all those girls at OZK, maybe one of them had some spare clothes that would fit her or something. No, wait—she was supposed to be asking the pink-eyed witch to turn her back! Right?

She shuffled out the door and down the stairs, then walked as briskly as she dared out toward the fraternity-turned-sorority's dorm. It wasn't even a sure thing that the person she was after was there, but—she had a pretty unique look, right? The OZK girls probably all knew each other pretty well regardless. She could just...ask for directions, or whatever.

Eventually, York arrived. She walked up the stairs to the front door and hesitated for a moment in front of it, feeling kind of nervous. She raised the hand that wasn't busy holding onto her boxers, wondering if she was supposed to knock or just open the door. This became a non-decision as the door suddenly swung open in front of her.

She shared a brief, accidental glance with the person who'd just opened the door: A tall, busty, buff woman with brilliant red hair, elf-like pointy ears, bright green eyes, big horns coming out from the sides of her head, big bat-like wings from her back, and a long, slim black tail, too. She was looking down at York, and York was looking up at her; she was maybe a little shorter than that pink-eyed witch, but it was hard to tell with just how tall everyone looked right now. York half-opened her mouth to try to say something, but for perhaps the first time in her life couldn't find her words at all when faced with a beautiful woman. Eventually she just barely squeezed out: "Um—"

"'Scuze me," the redhead interrupted, and brushed past, continuing on behind her.

York turned half-around, watching her leave—that tail, slimmer and longer than her own, swishing around in the air the whole time. She'd never really...met a demon before, but...with the way her face was burning and her heat fluttering after just one shared glance...!

The rational part of her mind poked her at this point, reminding her that this was probably the wrong time to be thinking about something like that! "O-oh!" She turned around, catching the door already two-thirds of the way to closing itself, and slipped inside. Well, surely that hadn't been her only chance to introduce herself! Someone like that had to be a recently-transformed member of the sorority, right?

Now that she was inside, she looked around—to the left and the right—trying to decide where to go. She settled on just going for the nearest open door, and shyly slipped inside, looking around again. It was some kind of lounge, with lots of comfy furniture scattered around. There were several gorgeous girls in here, but...not either of the ones she was after. One of them waved. "Yo, can we help ya?" she asked in a friendly tone of voice

"Um—I-I'm, looking for someone in OZK? Uh.."
"There's plenty of people matching that description here," another of them chimed in sarcastically.

"I d-don't know her name, but uh...super tall, really long brown—like, light brown, hair? Pink, eeeyyyess..?" she tried.

"You're looking for Nikki," yet a third sorority member said—a fox-girl lying across a couch who didn't even look up from her phone as she spoke. "Second floor. Turn left out of the stairwell. Third door on the right."
"Um—okay. Thanks," she said, quickly exiting before any of them looked closely enough to notice her awkward state of dress. Then again, some of them weren't much more covered than she was...

That fox-girl's directions had been precise enough, but York now realized there was one problem with them: Where, exactly, was the stairwell? Fortunately, no sooner had she left the lounge than a door right across from the entrance was thrown open, and a skinny white-haired girl leading two more demon-girls behind her strode out the front door. "BEHOLD!" she shouted dramatically. York paused briefly, assessing the demon-girls and concluding that they were..definitely very cute to her eyes, but not nearly as much as that redhead earlier—before reminding herself what she was here for and realizing that she could see stairs through the door they'd all just come out of.

Up the stairs, turn left, third door on the right. That door was closed, so York tried knocking on it. She realized in the pause until it was opened that this building overall seemed...unusually quiet. She'd been tuning it out and focusing on certain other things during the final leg of her change, but in her own dorm she felt like she could pick up conversations three doors down and two stories away in either direction. Not so here—she instead barely picked up the last footfall or two from the other side of this door before it opened.

"What?" It was exactly who she was looking for, the busty, pink-eyed witch! Apparently named Nikki. And if she'd had an intimidating presence before, York's recent height loss only amplified that all the more. In fact, she seemed to double-take, briefly thinking there was nobody at the door at all before thinking to look down.

"Um—hi? I uh, m-my name's York and..we kinda met yesterday aand..I think you might have, uh, cursed me?"
"Cursed you? How?" This was less-optimistic news: Nikki didn't seem to be aware that she could curse someone.
"W-well uh...the thing is, wh-when we met I was uh..taller. And, not part-cat? And male. And I was kinda, hitting on your friend, and so..you said like, a thing to me before I walked away, and I'm, pretty sure that's about when uh, this started to happen?" York explained carefully, using the hand not still holding her boxers up to gesture at herself.
"I mean—yeah, I remember what you're talking about, but I'm not, like, magic or anything. Are you sure someone else didn't do it?"
"Um, n-not completely, but.."

"Nikki!" Another voice said from just behind the pink-eyed girl. Her redheaded friend was poking her head in from the side. "I think she might be right! Remember the glow?"
Nikki looked between her friend and York a couple of times. "No way. It has to be a coincidence."

"A-at the same time, though, uh...I did get turned into a catgirl," York tried.

The pink-eyed girl sighed. "Look, I still don't think it was me, but—that is kind of a pain, I get that much."
"Maybe someone on the council would know something!" her friend (roommate?) offered. "Rich knows everything, right?"
"Uh, no," Nikki said curtly. "But—some things, yeah." Turning back to York, she gestured. "Okay fine, follow me..."

With that, York followed her back to the stairwell and up another flight of stairs—Nikki's redheaded friend tagging along too for some reason. After exiting the stairwell, Nikki went and knocked on a door opposite it. "Anyone home?"
"That depends~," another girl's voice said teasingly from inside. "Who wants to know?"
Nikki sighed again, looking very annoyed. "Some catgirl showed up and says she was a dude yesterday, and claims I 'cursed her'."
"Oh, that does sound interesting! Come in~."

Apparently, the person on the other side of the door—who was currently leaning back in a chair and resting her feet on an impressive-looking round table—was Rich. York had distantly heard of OZK's enigmatic leader, and almost felt obligated to be intimidated by her reputation alone. But physically, she seemed thoroughly unassuming—especially compared to the tall, buff, busty girl currently standing across the table from her.

With that, Nikki gave a fairly abrupt summary of the facts, with York filling in the detail of just what she'd said to—at the time, him—to apparently curse him. She ended it with: "So, I thought you might know something about how to turn her back."

Rich paused briefly after the explanation before saying: "My goodness, Nikki. I always thought you were one of our quietest members, among the least likely to cause any sort of trouble. But first you bring in your friend Perri there, and now this? You're going to turn into a real trouble magnet at this rate!" She paused a moment to let that thought sink in before snorting and giggling uncontrollably (some of it more befitting the word 'cackling'), and then finally calmed herself down to say: "I couldn't be more proud of you!" Nikki seemed to respond to all of this with what might be best described as a long, angry facepalm.

"Anyway, let's see.." Rich leaned forward, placing her elbows on the table and still grinning from ear to ear since that giggling fit. "There's an easy enough way to tell which one of you is correct. I'm no mage or witch myself, but I was taught some beginner-level spells, including a couple that can detect magic. Come a little closer, won't you, York?"

"Uh, okay..?" The catgirl came up to the opposite edge of the table, starting to feel some of that intimidation Rich had initially seemed to lack. It was just...something about her aura or her attitude.

She nodded and mumbled something that sounded like gibberish to York, lifting one of her arms off the table to wave her hand in the catgirl's direction. "Innnteresting..." she said slowly and dramatically, grinning wide.
"Would you just spit it out already?" Nikki demanded.

"I did feel some traces of magic off of York here; it's quite plausible she was recently transformed. No surprises there, really. But they were a pale shadow compared to what I felt coming off of you," she said, using the same hand she'd waved to lightly and ever-so-briefly point Nikki's way. "It was all the same 'flavor' besides—a distinct note of pink—which is pretty compelling evidence. I think you just might be a witch after all."

"Okay, fine, so I'm a witch or whatever. Now can you fix her?"

Rich sat up. "I don't see why I should. If you cursed her, then you can un-curse her too. Just use some of that overabundant magic of yours to turn her back."
"I have literally no idea how to do that."
"Well, how did you cast a spell the first time?"

"I, don't, know."

"Um," the redhead—who York guessed was Perri—waved shyly for attention. "What if all you have to do is say something with, like, enough feeling behind it? Like, when you cursed her the first time you were super mad and kinda meant what you were saying, right?"

"I wasn't that mad," Nikki insisted, crossing her arms.

"Still, um..worth a try?"
"You do want this situation behind you, don't you?" Rich said with a slightly teasing tone of voice.
"Rrgh, fine."

"You," she said, pointing at York suddenly enough to make her jump back slightly. "Turn back already!"

There was a pregnant pause, but not much else. The catgirl mumbled uncertainly, "Um..."

"Maybe that worked," Nikki suggested. "It was slow the first time, right?"
"But there wasn't a glow this time!" Perri said insistently.

"I'm not convinced there was a glow the first time, either," she shot back.

"Still," Rich pressed. "Another try at it couldn't hurt, could it?"

"Okay, okay. Uh—turn back into a dude!" she said, gesturing. Nothing seemed to happen. "Change back? Untransform! Something!"

"Still no glow..." Perri remarked, tapping her index fingers against each other.

"Grrrh..." Nikki fumed, her hands clenched into shaking fists. "Why won't you just transform already!?"

After all of those attempts, York certainly didn't expect this frustrated question not so much directed at her personally as her body, or perhaps the universe itself, to suddenly have an effect. But it did; there wasn't merely a pink glow like Perri was saying, but a sudden flash of pink light! The catgirl jumped as she seemed to feel it hitting her, a warmth landing in her core and rapidly spreading out across her body.

"W-waa~aah...!" The warmth gave way to a stretching, pushing sensation as her perspective rose rapidly upward. A vague sort of tensing came to her muscles as she grew, toning them firmer and more solid. However—and perhaps this wasn't much of a surprise from such a vague 'spell'—she certainly wasn't turning back into a dude. In fact, she could feel her bust pushing itself out even bigger, and her hips spreading even wider, pulling her boxers just tight enough to not fall off when she accidentally let go of them out of surprise. All of this growth seemed to yank the shirt up farther and farther until she could feel its hem holding close just below her chest—her entire midriff now exposed and feeling open air. Her boxers, however, elected right at the end of her body's change to suddenly shrink, losing their leggings altogether as they pulled abruptly taut between her legs, converting into a tiny pair of panties with barely string holding them around her hips.

"U-uhm..."

All of a sudden, York was nearly the height she'd been at a boy—missing only a couple of inches, perhaps. She was also still very much a catgirl, a considerably bustier and curvier one with some toned limbs and visible abs.

While perhaps this was a sign of progress, Nikki certainly wasn't pleased. "Why did that work!?"

"Maybe you just have to be really frustrated or upset before your magic works?" Perri guessed while York was busy looking down and patting her belly. She'd never had abs before, even as a boy...

"That's ridiculous! I was just as frustrated the third and fourth time it didn't work!"

Trying not to be distracted by herself too much, the catgirl looked up again. "Uh..m-maybe.." Even though she was bigger in a lot of ways, York's voice was as high and soft as ever.

"What?" Nikki seemed to visibly restrain herself from snapping this question at her.

"Maybe it has to be a question?"
"What has to be a question?"
"Th-the spell, I mean. Like—when you changed me the first time, you cursed me by saying 'how would you like to..'. And this time, it was ' why won't you..'"

"You seriously think my magic works by Jeopardy rules," Nikki deadpanned.

"It's, uh, j-just a thought."

"I think it's a perfectly solid theory," Rich pitched in. She'd been grinning just as much as ever throughout this whole exchange. "It's also remarkably easy to test."

Nikki gave an exasperated sigh again. "Okay, fine. Why don't you, York, turn back into a man?" she said with a slight gesture in the catgirl's direction. Immediately a trail of pink light spread from the tips of her fingers out to York, and she felt a similar warmth to before.

"Aa~ah..mmnngh...!" At once, the catgirl could feel a pressure against her chest. The large bust she'd gained a moment ago began to shrink. "Mm~mn, nn~nn, mmrr~rroo~ooowwh...!" A combination of pressure and stretching feelings ran throughout her body as her voice audibly deepened. Her face burned with another blush as she felt her shirt fall back down over her torso, the panties puff back out into some boxers. Her curves smoothed away—her breasts last of all—and then, finally, a certain thing pushed back out from between York's legs. "M-mro~wh!" came out in his original voice as York became fully male once again...a male with very long hair, cat ears, and a tail, not to mention just as fit as he'd been as a girl a moment ago—but a male nonetheless.

"U-uh.." he stammered slightly, still blushing pretty hard. It was difficult to ignore the fact that he was surrounded by pretty girls right now, especially with the way a change of sex seemed to...stimulate certain parts of him. It was probably a hormone-rush thing, he guessed. "S-so that worked..."

"So it did. Great," Nikki said, still very much annoyed by all of this.
"It is great!" Perri insisted, coming up to hug her from the side all of a sudden. "Now that we know how it works, you can do all kinds of stuff with your magic! You could turn both of us back without anyone's help, right?!"
"One, that's against our agreement?" she said, gesturing Rich's way.

"I meant on Sunday!" the redhead said quickly, waving her arms around.

"And two, doesn't 'witch' mean specifically a female magic user?"

"Indeed," Rich said. Looking her way again, York realized she was now busy filing her nails. "One of the few disadvantages balancing out the many advantages witches and warlocks enjoy over regular mages." She almost certainly didn't need to be filing her nails right now. "But with Hollis's help, you would still be able to change yourself back all the same."

"True, I guess," Nikki shrugged.

"Uh, h-hey..?" York felt like he'd been rather forgotten by the three of them by now.
Nikki looked at him "Oh, right. I didn't actually turn you all the way back, with the ears and tail still there."
"Well, no, but! That's uh, not what I.."
She sighed. "Don't tell me: You've decided you like being part cat?"
"K-kinda, yeah..."
"And if you're still all hesitantly thinking about asking for something anyway, I bet you've decided that you actually liked being a girl better after all," she continued, her voice dripping heavily with the sarcasm of an eternal cynic.

"W-well, when you put it like that..."

"Just make up your mind so we can get this over with and you don't have to bother me anymore, then!"

"I-I mean, the dorm I'm in is..."

"There's still a lot of room in our house here," Rich offered, interrupting. "I suspect even Tielo will agree the experience of your unexpected transformation today is more than enough of a trial for admission into OZK's ranks. We could also offer you some assistance in the 'new clothing' department."

"Wow, uh. Do you even like—I mean, I thought you guys only took uh.." York looked around nervously between the group present. "Like, nerds and artists and...stuff."
"You can say 'weirdos' if you wish," Rich said. "I'm quite proud of that title myself. But we've become much more inclusive than that in recent years, for certain. It's more about our overall culture than which arbitrary category a newcomer to our ranks fits into."

He looked back and forth between the witch and the Rich. "Uh, is this like a one-time thing? I-I mean, being stuck as a girl like, forever.."
"Oh, I can't possibly imagine what that'd be like," Nikki said scathingly. "There's other people who could turn you into a dude if you get tired of having boobs. I just don't want you to bother me about it anymore."

"'Tis true," Rich chimed in again.
"O-okay then, uh, I guess I would like to..I-I mean, if you don't mind...the uh, 'version two' catgirl York would beeee, pretty sweet?"
"Yeah, yeah. Um...'how about transforming to look how you want, then?'" Nikki recited in near-monotone, seeming to want to test whether having emotion behind her words was required at all. Evidently it wasn't.

One pink glow later, York felt his manhood slipping inward again. "M-mnngh.. nn~ngh..aah, aa~ah..!" And his voice was getting higher, his body shrinking back to a slim, feminine frame. "M-mrr~rrrh..." The change of sex came on pretty quick, and then she was purring in her high, cute voice once again as her body and clothes shifted back to exactly how they'd been before Nikki's spell to turn her back into a male. That was: A fairly fit, busty catgirl.

"U-um..thanks," she mumbled Nikki's way, feeling a little embarrassed about..reacting to a change of sex twice in the presence of three other people.

"Yeah, whatever. Just leave me alone from now on," she said, turning and leaving the room with no further comment. Perri shrugged at the two still in the room before following.

It was a little strange, and definitely intimidating now, to be alone in the room with Rich. York awkwardly turned her way, worked up her courage slowly (during which the red-eyed girl just calmly stared her down with the slightest of grins), and finally stammered "S-so uh.."
"I need to convene a majority of the council on the matter of your joining us," Rich interrupted instantly. "Don't worry—it ought to be little more than a formality. Meeting who's in charge is a good move when joining any new organization, after all. Once we're through with that, perhaps I could even assign you someone to help you shop. As nearly all of our members have been through what you have by now."
"Oh!" An opportunity occured to York all of a sudden, and she couldn't help but seize it. "Um..i-is there a, uh..like a redhead who looks like some kinda demon, in OZK?"

"There are two newly-awakened demons in our ranks, one of them crimson-haired," Rich said. "Zale has rarely been apart from Wesley the past few days, especially around the dorms."
Two demons together...? "Does Zale have um, green eyes?"
"No—red, I believe."
"Th-then that's, not who I meant, I think. I, saw her on my way inside?"
"Well, that won't be one of our members as far as I'm aware," Rich said. "Unless it's someone very recently awakened—which is not impossible. But someone that distinct likely won't be too difficult for you to locate again regardless, right?"
"I-I guess not." York wanted to be hopeful, but felt her ears droop a little bit.

"Oh, please do cheer up, m'dear. I think you're going to like it here with us," Rich said, getting out her phone. "If you don't find who you're looking for among our ranks, there are plenty of ways to track her down..."

---

I've known basically the outline of this part since at least midway through part 21, and of course it was foreshadowed in 22 as well. But gradual changes usually mean writing a lot of words, plus the whole part after the change is over requiring even more to be written, so the practical work of this was always going to take me a while. If you've been paying attention, you can probably also guess some of the details of what'll be happening in the next and final part, too! Anyway, this story has been a lot of fun, and I'm looking forward to finishing it up in a (hopefully) satisfying way.

The images used for this story part was found using a stable diffusion-based image generator.