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Sitting on her bathroom towel with her foot propped up on top of a backpack wasn't how Thorn had wanted to spend her day at the beach. If she'd gotten her way she wouldn't even be at the beach, but Sam liked swimming despite being a cat, and Cora was impervious to heat, so the two of them had talked her into coming along. It had taken less than an hour to get hurt again. It was just like she'd tried to tell them: hyenas weren't made for beaches.

"You probably just stepped on a rock," Sam said, standing up and brushing the sand from her knees. "No biggie. Me and Cora can go grab some first aid stuff from the lifeguard stand."

Thorn shot Sam an annoyed glare. "I didn't step on a fucking rock, there was something in the water and it scratched me. What if it's that...SkinScratch thing?"

Cora had been hanging back and letting Sam do her thing, but now she piped up. "Catscratch Fever? I dunno, I didn't see any eight-foot-tall monsters swimming around. I bet it was a poisonous fish and your foot's going to fall off and die."

Thorn said, "I'm serious."

"So am I," said Cora. "Like fifty people die of their foot falling off every year."

Trying to win an argument when Cora was being this sarcastic was like trying to win an argument on the internet, so Sam cut them both off and told Thorn, "Well, whatever it was, just keep it clean till we get back."

She and Cora set off down the beach toward the nearest lifeguard station, leaving Thorn to sulk and mutter to herself. Bending her knee and pulling her foot in close, she peered at the thin streak of red than ran diagonally across the arch of her foot. She fished Sam's water bottle out of her backpack and took a few big gulps before splashing some of it over her foot. A twinge of pain made her wrinkle her snout and curse under her breath. "Shit, that stings..."

Thorn flopped back onto her towel with a scowl on her snout. She reached back and ran her claws through her short, dark mane, trying to comb out some of the sand stuck in there from her panicked rush to get out of the water. Beaches had too much god damn sand, if you asked her. They had too much of everything. Too much sand, too much sun, too much salt, too much noise, too many people, and too many things with sharp claws or spines or stingers lurking beneath the water. If she wanted to swim she'd go to a pool. Hell, Cora's parents had an in-ground pool, but that was 'too bougie', as if it would somehow--

Agh, fuck. Her foot had started itching right around her cut, dragging her attention away from her train of thought. She wiggled her toes. She planted her foot on top of the towel and rubbed it back and forth. Neither worked. With a growl of frustration, she sat up, dragged her foot back into her lap, and gingerly scratched along either side of the purplish gash.

Wait. Just a minute ago it had been red. Thorn leaned in closer and spread her fur away from the cut for a better look. On closer examination, it wasn't purple. It was blue. A crisp, bright blue that reminded her of rubber or gummy candy. Before her eyes, the blue stuff inside of her gradually bulged outward, like a water balloon squashed up against a gap too small to fit through. Strange gurgling quivers ran along her lower leg, just below the surface of her skin. Her lip curled into a look that was half confused and half grossed out. She clutched her foot with both hands and pushed her thumbs against the bulging blue, trying to cram it back into place underneath her skin. But she couldn't get a good grip on it; her finger-pads kept squeaking across its slick surface like polished rubber.

"Hey, guys! My foot's going all fucked up," she barked, lifting her head in the direction they'd gone She could just make out the tiger and the jackal among the other beachgoers, but they were too far away to hear her

Thorn fought the panicky feeling bubbling up in her belly again by trying to think of first aid tips. 'Put pressure on it'? She snatched up Cora's towel from next to her and wrapped it around her foot like a bandage. Or was this a tourniquet? Fuck if she knew. She bit down on one corner of the towel and tugged on the other one, using her prodigious bite strength to apply as much pressure as she could. But just as the stuff started to squeeze back in--

Gllrp glrrp GLOOSH!

It surged out of the gash with enough force to rip the towel from Thorn's teeth and fling it several feet away. Her shoulders hit the ground hard enough to knock the air from her chest. Gasping for breath and wide-eyed, she stared at the glossy blue foot sticking out from her ankle, more than twice the size of her own foot. Translucent webbing ran between its toes and each toe sported a bright candy-purple claw. She kicked her leg several times as if she was trying to take off a shoe but the new foot stayed firmly attached to her leg.

All the while, the gurgling sensation kept moving beneath her skin. It crawled up along her calf and thigh, followed a moment later by a sensation of swelling, straining, wobbling mass. Thorn clamped her hands tightly around her leg just below her hips and dug her claws in. Part of the reason for her death-grip was to stop the burbling bloat from traveling any further, but she also needed something, anything at all, to keep her from giving into the urge to scratch at her leg.

As it stretched taut, a blue tint emerged from beneath her skin, visible even through her dark gray fur. She leaned forward, squeezed tighter, sunk her claws in deeper, curled her lips, and screwed up her snout into a snarl. The more her claws dug in, the more slick, glossy blue bulged out of the gaping holes that trailed behind her fingers like a knife through cellophane. With every gurgle and glorp more bulging blue mass squeezed through the widening gaps. The itch only grew more maddening the tighter her skin stretched around her leg. Her hands balled into fists until her nails dug into her palms.

Don't scratch. She knew she couldn't. She didn't know how she knew. The itch was too urgent, too intense. Don't scratch. It would only make it go faster. It would go faster if she scratched. Faster, bigger, more--she had to do it. She couldn't take it. She had to scratch at it. Or rip or pull or do something, anything to relieve it. She was going to go nuts if she didn't.

Thorn cried out loud and pulled with both fists at once. her skin split like it was nothing more than a thin sheath on top of her real skin. Her smooth, glossy, rubbery blue skin. No longer packed into such a small space, her thigh and calf ballooned outward into cartoonishly chiseled muscles. She smacked the side of her leg with both hands, trailing her nails up and down along the set of purple stripes slashed across the side of her thigh.

"Hhhuh-holy shit," Thorn gasped.

People were staring. She didn't have to look up to tell; the noise around her had fallen into a lull. Her chest heaved. Her head spun. The fresh air felt cool and refreshing against her squishy blue rubber skin, especially compared to the hot, stifling, impossibly itchy squeeze of her fur.

Now that her hands were no longer staving off the spread of the bulging, burgeoning stuff inside of her, it rushed to fill every space it could. Abdominals rippled up her stomach and popped into place one by one. The sleeves of the old band tee shirt she'd thrown on over her swimsuit split at the seams. Her cheeks puffed up, her hands felt like they were stuck inside gloves two sizes too tight, and every movement came with heavy, pendulous sloshing from all corners of her body.

This was bad. She had to do something, and yet it felt like her brain had been crammed full of squishy blue stuff too. Her thoughts reeled and spun around in circles until she found something she could hold onto.

Maybe if she could squeeze the stuff out of her head she'd be able to think more clearly. She placed one puffy hand on the left side of her face and pushed as hard as she could until all of the mass suddenly squeezed over to the right side. Doing the same on the right only shoved it back to the left. Oogh, this was making her dizzy. But maybe...both at once? She spread her hands to either side of her face, then smashed them both against her cheeks at once. The excess mass was squeezed forward instead; her snout creaked as it bowed outward and her lower lip popped out prominently plump and round.

Fuck, that hadn't worked the way she'd hoped. Thorn staggered to her feet, fighting both her swaying, wobbling body and the urge to keep squeezing and scratching and ripping and bulging and growing and freeing herself. Was this the Scratchy Cat thing? The way she felt all hot and flushed was kinda like a fever...

"I just...jushh gotta..." she slurred as she took a few lop-sided lumbering steps in the direction Sam and Cora had gone. The more tapered tip of her bigger snout dipped down toward the ground. It was so far away, and the way her left foot was big and blue while the right was small and furry, it felt like wearing a heavy boot on one foot while going barefoot on the other.

This wasn't going to work. She'd never catch up to her friends limping like this. If she wanted to get help before she went completely rubbery and blue-ified, she'd have to--

Rrrip. GLOOSH.

This time it wasn't even Thorn's fault. The sheer pressure of so much stuff crammed into such a tight space had just split straight through her right leg. The extra mass pulling her skin tight around her neck turned her groan of relief into something deeper and more rumbly. New muscles clenched, pulling the purple stripes taut across her strapping thighs Her webbed claws curled, digging small furrows into the sand.

"Fffuck tha'sh good," she said, still struggling with her unfamiliar mouth and swollen snout. "Whew. Ohh-kay. Gotta focush. Gotta get help."

Thorn could lumber down the beach without limping now, and her foot didn't hurt where she cut it any more. That was good, right? She could just focus on reaching Sam and Cora now. Just had to keep walking. Keep walking, and don't think about her slick rubbery thighs squeaking together with every step. Or how tightly the crotch of her swimsuit had to stretch to fit over her bulging mound. Or how good it would feel to get all the itchy, boring, too-tight fur off of her body. Or how easy it would be to grab the fur and start ripping and peeling and tearing and scratching...

Uh oh. She was pretty sure she had the Scratchy thing now, and her head felt so full and heavy she couldn't remember what you weren't supposed to do with it. The steady rise and fall of her chest split her shirt open a little more with each breath. She gnawed at the back of her bloating and increasingly purple lip and scowled in concentration. Her hands had balled into fists again; the purple claws now jutting from her fingertips slowly ripped new holes in her palms for her changing hands to bulge out of.

People stared as she lumbered by. Shocked beachgoing couples, stunned bros playing frisbee up where the sand was dry, slack-jawed joggers slowing to a stop, tourists, sunbathers, people out walking their dogs, all of them were staring at her. Her eyes batted blearily. The swimsuit she was wearing dug in tighter against her chest and shoulder and crotch. It made her hotter and itchier, and that made the pounding ache in her head even worse. 'What are you looking at?' she wanted to snarl, or maybe 'Why aren't you helping?'

She couldn't hold herself back mentally and physically at the same time. Either she needed to rip herself free from her skin or unclench her jaw and freely vent her frustration. The harder she fought the urge to do either, the harder it became to resist doing both.

Thorn planted her feet in the sand and straightened her back, swaying for a moment or two. Her lips curled as if she was about to snap at the crowd of onlookers. She took several deep, ragged breaths, as if about to spread--but then with a rubbery thwap like the snap of a rubber band, a thick blue tail burst from the back of her swimsuit and slammed into the ground behind her. "Ohhh, FUCK yeah," she growled. Several more surges of mass sloshed down her spine and out into the four-foot...six-foot...eight-foot-long shark tail kicking up sand as it thrashed behind her back. Its muscles tensed and curled, carrying the rolling and flexing all the way up its length to where it met her spine, just behind her freshly bared crotch.

Creaking and groaning echoed through her body with every inhale. A low rumble reverberated in her throat with every exhale. As she bared her fangs and looked around at the surprised beachgoers, the corners of her mouth twitched; even she wasn't sure if she was trying to scowl or grin. "You like watching, huh?" she snarled. "Here, have a fuckin' SHOW!"

Thorn couldn't stop herself. She couldn't stop herself from digging her claws into her chest, couldn't stop herself from sinking them into her fur, from pulling as she could, from ripping through two layers of fabric and one layer of fur like it was nothing. She couldn't stop herself from enjoying this. She had always been quick-tempered, stubborn, and independent. Now on top of that she was fucking pissed, horny as shit, being stared at by everyone around and and too damn HOT in this fucking SKIN--

At last it was all too much to bear. She threw her head back and roared so loud her thick, thundering voice echoed off of the high-rise beachside hotels. She ripped her shirt to shreds, split clean through her swimsuit, and tore through the skin underneath all at once. Heavy pale-blue breasts surged outward, jiggling with each gurgle and surge of mass until they dominated her chest. Her abs stretched taller with each heaving breath she took. Mountainous muscle spread across her back in audible waves, sloshing with each wave that rippled outward from her core. The purple stripes stretched across her back traced every contour of her monstrously powerful physique.

The the crowd had gone from stunned silence to a creeping sense of panic. Several groups were hurriedly packing up; some had abandoned their towels and bags entirely and were booking it for the parking lot. Was the thing that had been on the news. 'Catscratch Fever'? Not just highly contagious but permanent, irreversible--'once you let the cat out of the bag', and all.

But there hadn't been any cases in the area, right?

Thorn snarled, her voice now settled into its new rough and rumbling register for good. "Aww, what's wrong, fishies? Scared of a shark attack? Cause you SHOULD BE!" Her claws sunk into the fur clinging to the bottom of her shoulders and tore both arms free at once, then hefted them and flexed her biceps as they bloated with squishy blue muscle.

The pounding in her head only grew more intense. So much growth all at once was enough to leave her reeling. Her legs felt heavy and unwieldy again; she staggered and stumbled through the sand before falling to her hands and knees.

Fuck. This was definitely the bad thing. She was what, ten feet tall now? Eight hundred pounds of angry horny rubber shark? That made it sound good, though. So many people had seen her. She was almost sure she'd done a couple crimes already. She was so horny and so strong but she needed to stop and...

And...

Glrrp. A blue dorsal fin split from the back of her scalp, relieving some of the pounding pressure that had been bearing down around her skull.

And...what? Put her fur back on? Her cramped, itchy, stifling fur suit she'd been wedged into? No thanks. Not when there was just one bit left to get rid of.

Thorn buried her face in her hands, sunk her claws into her skin, then pulled downward and yanked her head upward at the same time. The skin split with a snap like a latex glove, freeing her long tapered snout, complemented by a piercing in the shape of a barbed fish hook through its tip, and a plump, protruding lower lip. In place of her short scruffy mane, a long strip of hair flopped down along one side of her face. She rolled her neck from one side to the other, working out the last bits of stiffness in her joints, then narrowed her eyes at the crowd of beachgoers.

Typhoon could smell the rising panic in the air, and it made her drool in more ways than one. "Now, who's gonna be Catch of the Day?" she growled.

Then she spotted a tiger and a jackal girl standing in the back of the crowd, and knew exactly who she was going after first.

---

Sam's brisk pace slowed to a stop as she caught up with Cora at the edge of a small crowd that had gathered on the beach, blocking their way back to where they'd left their towels. "What, is something going on? I don't want to leave Thorn waiting," she said, standing up on her tiptoes to try to see over the crowd. She'd heard some kind of roar as they were leaving the lifeguard station, but she'd just figured that was someone with a megaphone.

Cora turned to look at her. Sam was surprised to see her normally deeply-sarcastic friend with a look of blank shock on her face. She pointed into the crowd; Sam followed her finger to see the ten-foot-tall naked blue tiger shark hauling herself up to her feet and looming over the crowd.

Cora stumbled over her words a bit. "Uh, I think...that's..."

"That's what?" said Sam, then let out a small laugh. "I mean, that's not Thorn. Right--?"

And then both Sam and Cora were tackled to the ground by several hundred pounds of blue rubber shark-meat.

Wild-eyed and grinning at down at her friends pinned beneath her, Typhoon growled, "Hey guys! Guess what? I was fuckin' RIGHT!"