FSE

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It’s always interesting, seeing what a person does when they’re confronted with the impossible. I think it gives you a good measure of the sort of person that they are.

Most people brush it off. What they just saw could not have happened, ergo, it did not happen. Easy peasy lemon squeezy. Time to get on with your life!

Some people are already a bit out of touch with reality, and so their definition of ‘impossible’ stretches a bit wider, and they’re prepared to take what they saw at face value. This can go a number of ways. Sometimes they write books. Sometimes they start cults. It’s kind of fifty fifty, honestly. They tend not to have a huge impact, in the long run. People don’t take them seriously.

A small number of people simply crack. They’re not prepared for their world to be different, and their minds can’t take the strain. More the pity for them.

But some people - the really interesting ones, in my book - split the difference in a delightful way. You have people who consider themselves rational and pragmatic to their core, and yet, deep down inside, want the impossible to happen to them. Oh, they don’t truly believe that it could happen, but some part of them, a little kernel within them, yearns for it. Oh, how they yearn. These people could go through their lives perfectly happy and content, getting a business gig, landing a corporate job, doing the whole white picket fence deal, popping out 2.5 kids, seeming to be the picture of living the dream, and yet something is missing. Something that they’ve never had the word for, but whose absence is a tiny hole in their soul, aching to be filled.

What happens, then, if you find one of these people, and give them the opportunity to fill that hole?

The answer is: I don’t know. I never know. And let me tell you, when you’re in a position as unique as mine, uncertainty is a rare treasure. The thrill of discovering what comes next… let me tell you, no pleasure of the flesh can possibly compare.

Consider, then, a person. Let’s say – hypothetically – an accountant. An average person with an average life, doing the best they can. And you give this person not only the thing that they’re missing in their life, but also – pay attention, this part is important – the ability to gain this thing without fear of consequences.

Deep within this humble accountant’s soul, there are desires. Desires that nothing in the world can quite measure up to. Desires for something impossible.

So let us consider this person, and ask them one simple question.

What if you could make it happen?

~*~

The first thing that Lauren tried to do was continue on like nothing was wrong. It was Monday morning, the start of a fresh work week, and she had lots to do. So she came in early and buried herself in her work. Working with numbers was grounding. They were predictable. Orderly. Three didn’t spontaneously mutate into four when you least expected it. And so she covered herself with numbers, wrapping them around herself like a weighted blanket. And this worked fine for most of the day, until she went on her lunch break. She ordinarily brought lunch from home, but she had been in such a hurry to get out the door that she’d forgotten, so she ordered out from a local sandwich shop.

The young woman who delivered her sandwich was a little slip of a thing with a somewhat messy dye job, obviously a home effort rather than a professional thing. Her hair was a rather garish shade of bubblegum pink, uneven in places, and her roots were still showing. Inasmuch as she was any judge of people, Lauren thought that she looked a bit self-conscious about it.

Lauren wasn’t the sort of person to make snap judgments on people trying new things. She wished she was brave enough to tell her that pink wasn’t her color, though. It completely clashed with her skin tone. A nice cool color, like a green or a blue, would have suited her much better.

When she turned back to give the woman her tip, her hair was suddenly a much more neat forest green, and a bit longer too, at that. And maybe it was Lauren’s imagination, but the girl suddenly seemed to be holding her head a bit higher, smiling a little wider.

Lauren looked around the break room. It was the middle of her lunch hour, and she wasn’t alone there. Several of her fellow employees were milling about, talking amongst themselves. One of them had even gotten their lunch from the same shop. There was no way they couldn’t have noticed the change. She even heard someone compliment the delivery girl on her hair!

But each and every one of them acted like it hadn’t changed at all. In fact, they acted like it had always been this way.

Lauren was beyond the stage of freaking out about this. She was freaked out when she accidentally turned her roommate into a dark elf. Now all of this was just… a thing. A thing that continued to be happening.

What if you could make it happen?

The phrase kept running through her mind every time she let it idle for more than a couple of minutes. It was like a mantra. And it wasn’t going away, no matter how much she ignored it.

So the only reasonable thing to do at this point was to give the question some serious consideration.

What if she could make it happen?

What if… she could make it happen?

What if she could make it happen?

Lauren suddenly burst out laughing in the middle of the break room. That got a few strange looks, so it seemed she wasn’t completely immune to attracting attention.

“You alright over there?” said someone sitting nearby. She turned and saw Randall, one of her fellow accountants. More of an acquaintance than a friend, but nice enough, even if he looked a bit like the photograph that came with a new wallet.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” she said. “Just questioning the nature of reality.”

Randall nodded. “You should do that when you’re done with lunch. That way you’re getting paid for it.”

She smiled and turned her attention back to lunch. Alright, then. As far as Lauren was concerned, there were only two possibilities for what was happening here. Either some cosmic programmer had given her access to the console commands of reality… or she was in the middle of total psychotic breakdown and none of this was real.

The end result was the same either way.

It was then and there that she made her decision. If she could make things happen, then she was going to make them happen. So she closed her eyes for a moment and thought about something. Anything.

She opened them up again, then pulled out her phone and turned on the selfie camera. She looked herself over, looking the same as she always did, except for the pair of short, multi-pronged cervine antlers protruding from the sides of her head.

“Hey, Randall?”

“Hmm?”

“Do you notice anything different about me?”

Randall let out a groan. “Come on, Lauren. This game is bad enough when my husband plays it with me.”

“Indulge me. I won’t get mad, I promise.”

Sighing, Randall put down his sandwich and turned around, giving Lauren an inquisitive look.

“...Did you get a new haircut recently?”

Lauren smiled at him. “I did, actually. Do you like it?”

“You know what? I do. It’s a good look for you. It really accentuates your antlers.”

Satisfied that he’d passed the test, Randall went back to his lunch. And Lauren went about the rest of her day in a very thoughtful mood.

On her way home that day, she stopped for coffee, and the barista complimented her on her antlers.

“Thanks,” said Lauren, as she accepted her drink. “Yours are cute, too.”

“Aww, thanks so much!” she replied, tapping them with a finger. Hers were a bit taller and pointier than Lauren’s, more akin to a reindeer. “I thought the ribbons might have been a bit twee, honestly, but what’s the point in growing them out if you’re not going to get creative?”

Lauren’s heart was racing when she walked out of the shop, and her face was flushed bright red. Did she really do that? Just… casually, like it was nothing at all? leaned up against the side of the coffee shop, panting and trying to steady herself, while she fished around her mind for the cosmic undo button.

She put a hand on the side of her head. No antlers to be found. She looked back through the window, where the barista was now serving another customer, nothing on her head except hair.

What the hell was she thinking? Could she really just mess with people like that? Mess with reality like that? It was bizarre, and it was unnatural, and it was weirdly hot.

Lauren didn’t talk with Tya much when she got home, telling her roommate that she wasn’t feeling well. She immediately shut herself into her bedroom and threw herself into a marathon gaming session. She needed to recenter herself, and this always helped.

It didn’t help as much as it usually did. Her mind inevitably wandered to her other favorite thing to do in order to relieve stress, but she was afraid to try it. Who knew what sort of havoc she would wreak when her inhibitions were lowered by Horny Brain?

“Fuck,” she murmured, as she collapsed into her pillow. “I don’t need this right now. And I’ve still got work in the morning. Why oh why did I use all my vacation time. I’d give a kidney for the week off–”

Before she even finished the thought, her phone started to vibrate. She stared at it, unamused.

“...Don’t tell me.”

Hesitantly, she picked it up and opened up her message app. The first thing she saw was a text from her boss, letting her know that the office was being fumigated, so the whole department could go ahead and take the rest of the week off.

Lauren stared down at her phone. She suspected that she could potentially undo what had just been done with but a thought.

Lauren did not do that. She put her phone down and went right to sleep, exhausted from thinking too much, and as she drifted off, a certain phrase echoed faintly in the back of her mind.

~*~

By what was surely nothing more than sheer coincidence, Tya had some time off as well, and had left a note on the fridge declaring that she was going on a road trip with some of her work friends. Meaning that Lauren had the whole apartment to herself, no obligations for the rest of the week, and possibly-infinite power.

The first thing she did, after she went through her morning routine, was stare at herself in the bathroom mirror. Periodically, she would close her eyes, and when she opened them again, they were a different color. She started with blue. As a kid, she’d always wanted pretty blue eyes rather than her boring brown ones. And there they were, a sparkly crystal blue straight out of anime.

She exhausted realistic colors pretty quickly. As she tried out rich blood red, shining silver, and pitch black, she realized that she was thinking small.

She watched as, right before her eyes, her hair grew out, longer and longer until it reached down past her hips, and faded to a pale white-blonde. Then she snapped her fingers, and her vision unfocused for half a second as it returned to normal.

“Okay,” she said to her reflection. “I can do instant changes and procedural ones. Good start, good start. What now?”

The answer to that question was that she didn’t know. When your options include everything, how do you choose anything? She was paralyzed. What she needed more than anything else right now was a friend. But who could she possibly talk to about this? Who wouldn’t just lose their mind on the spot, or think she had gone insane?

And then it hit her, and she knew then exactly who she could talk to. It was a shame that she was probably still asleep at this hour…

Her phone vibrated across the counter.

“Really? Again?”

She closed her eyes and counted to ten, then picked up her phone and looked at it. There was a little ping on her chat app. Not the one that she used to keep in touch with co-workers, or even the one for friends and acquaintances. No, this was the chat app that she used to keep in touch with other sorts of friends.

Once Lauren had confronted the unfortunate reality that she would never fuck any sort of monster (or alien or demon or whatever), she found solace in all manners of similarly-minded communities. Stories and comics and videos were all well and good, but nothing scratched that itch quite like a good erotic roleplay session.

She didn’t have as much time as she would have liked to devote to such pursuits these days, not like when she was in college. While her friends were having all night study sessions, she would be curled up in her bed, one hand on her keyboard and the other in her pants, while some described the way that she was turning into a dragon in graphic detail. There was nothing else like it.

Between her job and her societal obligations - plus the whole “not being 20 anymore” thing - she very rarely had the time to devote to such a pursuit. She was not the sort of person who could hammer out a good RP session in under an hour. She needed time to develop a narrative. But that just meant she cherished the times she did have for such things all the more, and there was one person in particular who could always be counted on to bring the goods.

And it was a message from her that she could see flashing on her screen right now.

Scarlet: hey babe! was just thinking about you! you around?

Despite the circumstances, Lauren was happy to see her friend’s little icon, currently depicting a red-skinned devil girl in the style of a 50s pinup. Scarlet was more than just an RP buddy. She was a dear friend, a trusted confidant, and also a really, really good RP buddy. Over the years in which they’d known each-other, the two of them had produced enough smutty RP logs to fill several novels, and said logs were one of the most valued treasures in Lauren’s spank bank. Finding fetish friends who were into the same extremes as Lauren was rare enough, but Scarlet could match her energy every step of the way, and sometimes even exceed it.

But there was one thing that she had to check. About a year or so ago, her friend had started a new job teaching English classes in Japan, and as far as Lauren knew, she was still there.

Meph: Isn’t it way past your bedtime in your neck of the woods? It’s like 1 AM there now, right?

Scarlet: psh. time is an illusion. also, I couldnt sleep because I was thinkin bout my bestie!!!!!

Meph: …uh-huh. Hey, do you mind if we video chat? I’ve got a lot on my mind and don’t know if I feel up to typing it out.

Scarlet: course. lemme just put my face on.

Meph: Still keeping it in an old pickle jar?

Scarlet: it is a JAM jar, thank you very much >:3

Lauren made her way back to her bed as Scarlet did what she needed to, and five minutes later, the chat app began to ring. Part of Lauren wished she could get a better look at her than the tiny screen would allow for. Right now, she really needed to feel like she was talking to a person.

When she pushed the button to answer the call, the phone buzzed for a moment, so intense that Lauren dropped it onto the bed, and she watched as a window materialized in thin air in front of her, projected from the phone like it was something straight out of a trashy sci-fi serial. And there, lounging in her own bed, was Scarlet.

She was close to Lauren’s age, though a bit fuller-figured and curvier, with light skin and - of course - red hair, and she was dressed in a loose-fitting t-shirt depicting a sprinting anime girl with a piece of toast in her mouth.

“Really good to see you, Meph,” she said, giving Lauren a wave. “Did you upgrade your phone or something? It’s normally kind of choppy on my piece of crap, but you’re coming in super clear!

“Something like that, yeah,” said Lauren. “It’s good to see you, too.”

Scarlet pulled her phone a little bit closer to her face. “Something’s on your mind,” she said. “I can tell. Your forehead’s wrinkling in that adorable little way it does when you’re thinking too hard about something.”

Lauren sighed. “It’s… hard to explain. Like, really, really hard. I don’t even know where to begin. I’m going to sound crazy.”

Scarlet rolled her eyes. “Girl, two weeks ago I co-wrote a story about a girl growing bigger than a building and having a kaiju fight with a giant robot that shot dick lasers. Don’t talk to me about crazy.”

“So when you say dick lasers, do you mean lasers that came out of its dick, or lasers that gave things dicks?”

“Both! But let’s not go beside the point. Talk to me.”

Lauren rolled over and tried to gather her thoughts.

“It’s funny you should mention that. I was wondering. If you could do the sorts of things we fantasize about in real life, would you?”

“Well, duh. Who wouldn’t?”

Lauren shook her head. “It’s easy to say that, but I want you to really think about it. Think about all of the implications of things like that happening, and ask yourself, with all of that in mind… would you really do it?”

Scarlet looked like she wanted to say something else, but instead, she went silent for a moment and thought about it.

“I still think I probably would,” said Scarlet. “I work very hard, and if I want to unwind by transforming into a massive sex demon with two heads, four dicks, and thirty-seven tits, then that’s nobody’s business but mine.”

Lauren tried very, very hard not to think of sex demons as she went on. “Yeah, but what if there were consequences? Or even… what if there weren’t? What if you could just do whatever you wanted and nobody could stop you?”

Scarlet let out a yawn. “I dunno. It’s late and I’ve had a long day of trying to teach middle schoolers about cognates when they’d rather be drawing ninjas. But it’s my fantasy, y’know? And in my fantasies, everyone always had a good time.”

Lauren smiled. That was one thing that set Scarlet apart from a lot of people in the circles the two of them ran in; like Lauren, she always wanted the people being subjected to wild transformations to be enjoying them.

But somehow, it didn’t quite put her mind at ease. Lauren closed her eyes and sighed. It was hard, having this conversation with a screen, even if it was a super advanced possibly-magic one. She really wished that Scarlet was actually here.

When Lauren opened her eyes again, the magic window was gone, and before Lauren could fully process it, there was a knock on the door, and she sat bolt upright.

“You have got to be shitting me,” said Lauren, as she stood up and sprinted for the door. And sure enough, when she opened it, there was Scarlet, still dressed in her sleeping clothes, dragging a little suitcase behind her.

“Surprise!” she said, shooting Lauren a finger gun. “Guess who got some time off of work while the school is being fumigated?”

Really? Lauren thought to herself. Again? Get some better material, powers that be.

“Good to see you, too,” said Lauren, and it was. This was, in fact, the first time they were meeting face to face, and under better circumstances, it would have been a joyous occasion. But Lauren just felt strange about it. “So… how was your flight?”

Scarlet blinked a few times, staring into the middle distance, a disoriented look crossing her face. But it passed quickly. “You know, I think I must have slept through most of it. Which suits me just fine! You got any snacks? I’m famished.”

Lauren couldn’t take it anymore. She put her hands on Scarlet’s shoulders and looked her friend dead in the eyes. “Scarlet. Listen to me. You were in Japan less than a minute ago. You are here now. That is a thing that just happened.”

Scarlet blinked again, looking at Lauren in puzzlement, like they weren’t speaking the same language. “That’s not… I mean, but you’re… and I’m… and you… but we just… buh…”

Then she looked around Lauren’s apartment, her eyes wide. “What the fuck? What the fuck? Meph, I’m really glad to see you, but what the FUCK?”

“...You should come in. Would you like me to put some coffee on?”

~*~

Ten minutes later, Lauren and Scarlet were sitting across from each-other at Lauren’s kitchen table. She was staring into her coffee mug and hadn’t taken a sip yet.

“Okay, so, let me get this straight, Meph–”

“I’d prefer Lauren face to face, if that’s okay.”

Scarlet smiled and nodded. “It’s kind of funny how I’ve gone this long without learning your real name. Scarlet’s fine for me. Anyway, so you’re telling me that you woke up one morning with… powers?”

Lauren groaned and laid her face down on the table. “It sounds so fucking stupid when you say it like that, but yeah. I can change things. And whenever I change things, people act as though it’s always been that way. Nobody realizes that anything is different. You didn’t either until I made you.”

“Holy crap. What do I even say to something like that? How does it feel?”

“It feels weird,” said Lauren, throwing up her hands. “And I’m kind of scared, to be perfectly honest! Why me? If I can do anything, what’s to stop me from just taking over the world?”

Scarlet looked Lauren over and shrugged. “Do you want to take over the world?”

“What? I mean, no, not particularly–”

“Do you want to be a god?”

“No, but what does that–”

“Do you want a massive harem of sex slaves enthralled to your each and every desire?”

“Scarlet, what the fuck are you talking about?”

“Bear with me for a moment, huh?” said Scarlet, holding up a finger. “Look, we’ve both been in the weird fetish community for years. And while neither of us would ever dream of kinkshaming, you’d agree that there’s a lot of creeps in this community, yeah?”

Lauren hesitated for a moment. “I mean, do we have any room to talk?”

“Yes, we absolutely do,” said Scarlet, giving Lauren a wry look. “I’ve met people who would do the sex thrall thing in a heartbeat. But none of them have crazy transformation powers. You do. You, who believes in everyone having fun and feeling good, even in your darkest and most depraved fantasies.”

Lauren felt herself blush. All of that was true, and this wasn’t the first time that she and Scarlet went through this conversation. But it felt different, doing it face to face. “What are you saying here?”

“I’m saying that maybe this is why you. Because you would never force anybody to do anything. You’re just giving them some new ways to have fun. That jogger you hooked up with, she was already flirting with you before you put the TF whammy on her, right?”

Her blush deepening, Lauren nodded.

“There you go, then,” said Scarlet, making a ‘ta-da’ gesture. “And speaking of whammies, how ‘bout a demonstration?”

“...What?”

Scarlet leaned forward across the table. “I didn’t get pulled to the other side of the world just to have coffee talk! Come on! Hit me with your best shot! Transform me! Let me have it!”

Lauren blinked a few times. She probably shouldn’t have been surprised by the request, but it was taking her a moment to process it.

“...Into what?”

“I don’t know! Anything! Surprise me!”

Lauren’s mind had gone completely blank. When your options were everything, it was hard to choose anything. So she closed her eyes, waved her hands, and went with the first thing that came to her mind.

There was a cartoony poof sound, and Scarlet was surrounded by a puff of pink smoke.

When it cleared, Scarlet was… exactly the same as she had been. Except, of course, for the feline ears and matching tail, whisker-like facial markings, and expanded bust.

She put a hand onto her new ears, then onto her chest. And she glared daggers at Lauren.

“Seriously?” she said, gesturing at herself. “A catgirl? What sort of vanilla-ass bitch do you take me for, nya?”

She covered her mouth as she let out the inadvertent tic, and Lauren couldn’t help herself. The absurdity of the whole situation hit her all at once, and she broke down laughing.

“Hey! This isn’t funny, nya!”

Lauren’s sides were aching now. She took several deep breaths to calm herself down before looking back up at Scarlet. And, for the first time since she’d woken up to find an elf making her breakfast, she felt herself really and truly

“I’m sorry. Let me make it up to you.”

She didn’t close her eyes this time. She looked at Scarlet with intent. She visualized the results that she wanted.

And she made it happen.

“Why are you staring at me like that?” said Scarlet, tugging at her collar. “And why… is it so warm in here all of a sudden? Did you turn up the heat?”

Lauren just smirked as Scarlet’s skin began to flush, bringing her closer to her namesake. She began to glisten with perspiration, as well.

“Whoof. Sorry, can I just… get a bit more comfortable? I feel kind of stiff…”

Modesty forgotten, she threw off her shirt and stood up, leaving her dressed in just her panties and an old sports bra.

“Just need to… stretch out a little,” she murmured, raising her arms. And as she stretched, she kept stretching. She yawned hugely, and her mouth opened wider than should be possible, and Lauren watched in awe as her canines lengthed. Scarlet leaned down across the table and arched her back, and all over her body, hair began to rapidly grow, covering her limbs like kudzu, spreading across her whole body, and that yawn turned into a yowl.

When Scarlet stood up again, she had gained a foot of height, a coat of short red fur all over her body, and a pair of luminous feline eyes.

Scarlet stared at Lauren’s smiling face, then started to pat herself down. Wordlessly, Lauren gestured to a nearby closet, which had a full-length mirror set into the door. Scarlet walked over to it, and nearly topped over as she saw herself.

She patted her face a few times, as if not quite believing that this was real. She flexed her arms. She turned around.

And she looked back at Lauren and smirked.

“...Not a bad start.”

“I didn’t want to go too crazy on you for my first real effort,” said Lauren. “Did it hurt?”

“A little bit, but like, in a good way. Like a nice workout hurts.” She turned from side to side again, admiring herself. “Based off of Consort of the Werecougar, I imagine?”

“It’s a classic!”

“It was written horribly, but man did it push all of the right buttons.”

The two of them had a good laugh over their shared history of questionable smut.

“Alright, any chance of a reset button on this one? I think I want to start with a clean slate here.”

Lauren snapped her fingers. Scarlet’s feline nose began to wiggle, and then, as she let out a huge sneeze, another colorful cloud surrounded her, and when it cleared, she was back to normal.

“Was all of that strictly necessary?”

“No, but it was cute.”

“Attagirl.”

The two of them shared another laugh over this.

“Alright then!” said Scarlet, clapping her hands together. “This was a nice little warm-up. What do you say you stop holding back and see what you can really do?”

And to Lauren’s surprise, she wanted nothing more than to do just that. “I say, what do you want to do first?”

“I want to go for a walk.”

“...What?”

~*~

It was a beautiful afternoon. Bright and sunny, a bit on the warm side, but with a nice breeze. It was the perfect day for a walk in the park.

But for two women in particular, it would be more than just a nice day for a walk.

“Will you relax, Lauren? You’re sweating like a demon in church.”

“I can’t believe you really want me to do this,” said Lauren, leaning in close to her. “We are in public! None of these people suspect a thing!”

Even though it was the middle of the week, the public park was still fairly busy, full of people milling about, enjoying the weather. There were joggers, artists, a few business people taking their lunch break, a musician or two, and many more folks simply lounging about and enjoying the weather. It was, in short, a picture-perfect day.

And Scarlet wanted to make it a very different sort of picture.

“Look around you,” said Scarlet, her arm over Lauren’s shoulders. “How many people out there repress their desires? How much happier would they be if they could just cut loose without fear of being judged? Remember how liberating it was, the first time you really let yourself enjoy the weird things you liked? You’re not so different from all of these people. They have hidden desires, too. Most of them are just too afraid to let them out. So give them a chance.”

Lauren could feel her heart pounding. She wasn’t sure how much stock she was putting in what Scarlet was saying, but in some ways, it almost didn’t matter. Because the truth was, some part of her wanted to do this. It had been wanting to do it for days. Like a pressure building up inside of her, waiting for release.

And all she had to do was make it happen.

It was subtle, but there was a change in Lauren. She held herself a little bit taller, with a little bit more confidence. A switch had been flipped. The only question was… where to begin?

She cast her gaze around, and it fell upon a middle-aged woman in a light sweater, sitting on a bench and feeding the pigeons. She looked at the woman, sizing her up.

And Lauren smirked as she gave a little wave, and there was a change in the wind.

The woman looked confused for a moment, scratching her head. She pulled her hand away as something came loose. Holding it up, Lauren could see that it was a feather.

“Well, don’t that just beat all,” the woman said. She got up just in time to hold out her arms, as they began to lengthen, and the sleeves of her sweater ripped apart as her arms morphed into a pair of beautiful wings with gray feathers. With a sigh, wriggled out of the sweater, and when it came away, her hair had morphed into a feathered crest, and she sported an iridescent ruff around her neck. She began to kick her legs, and her sensible shoes flew off to reveal a pair of avian talons.

And the woman smiled, looking much more comfortable. She spread out her wings as the pigeons flocked around her, perching on her head and shoulders.

“Kind of cute, I guess,” said Scarlet, framing the woman with her fingers. “But it’s still kind of–”

“I’m not done.”

The woman suddenly stood straight up, letting out a surprised coo as she felt back down onto the bench. She shifted her position a bit, perching on the edge of her seat and groaning. Lauren and Scarlet watched as a bulge started to form in the crotch of her slacks, pushing outward until the seams split apart and a speckled egg, about the size of a football, was gently deposited onto the ground.

“That’s what I’m talking about,” said Scarlet, her smile widening. “I see that gleam in your eye. You’re just getting started, aren’t you?”

Lauren didn’t respond as she eyed her next target. There was a young man jogging along the path, wearing nothing but a pair of athletic shorts. He’d been at it for awhile, judging from the way he was sweating. He paused at the edge of the fountain to catch his breath, looking up at the sun as he wiped his brow. After a moment’s consideration, he slipped his shoes off and dove into the fountain, disappearing from view.

A few seconds later, he emerged once again, different from when he’d come down. His skin had changed to a rubbery orange with mottled patches across his shoulders, and a mane of shaggy blonde hair had turned into a series of short, coiled tendrils running down his shoulders. As he luxuriated in the fountain’s spray, he stretched out his limbs. All of them, including the mass of writhing tentacles that his legs had morphed into. Likewise, his arms had reshaped themselves into a quarter of much longer appendages.

Lauren and Scarlet watched as another jogger, a woman with South Asian features, paused in front of the fountain. The two engaged in a brief conversation that Lauren couldn’t hear, but it seemed to be going well. The woman laughed and nodded, and the newly-transformed man wrapped a tentacle around her waist and pulled her close, kissing her hard on the mouth. As the two made out, the woman began to shift as well, shedding her clothes as her skin began to turn silver and scaly. She shed her clothes as her limbs began to elongate, tossed out her hair as long frills grew alongside her head. She held him close with long, spindly fingers as he ran his tentacles all over her scaled body, and as the two parted, she grinned at him with a mouth full of sharp teeth.

But the two of them were just getting started. Tentacles lashed out and wrapped themselves around each of her limbs, lifting her up into the fountain as if she weighed nothing at all, and the man began to sprout more tentacles, ones of a decidedly more phallic nature. The woman gave another, much more enthusiastic nod, opening her mouth and spreading her legs as the new appendages found purchase, one slipping between her legs and one plunging into her mouth.

The people walking by hardly noticed. No, that wasn’t true. Lauren realized quickly that they were noticing, they simply didn’t mind. A nearby couple had stopped to watch, playfully groping each-other as they enjoyed the show. Another jogger gave the woman a high five as he darted past. But for the most part, people just acknowledged them and went on with their business, as if this was just something that happened at this park.

“Oh yeah, that’s the stuff,” said Scarlet, excitedly fidgeting in place. “Cripes on a cracker, I can’t believe this is really happening!”

Lauren could hardly believe it either. If she was going crazy and this was all just a product of her deviant mind, then she didn’t want to come back to reality.

If Scarlet wanted unbelievable, she would show them unbelievable.

Her glace fell upon a woman leaning against a tree, pointing a pocket fan at herself in a vain attempt to beat the heat. Not far from her, there was a vendor’s cart for some manner of cold treat, manned by an ambiguously-presenting person with purple-dyed buzz cut. Lauren smiled to herself.

The hot woman looked around, her eyes lighting up as she noticed the vendor and sprinting over. After some brief negotiation, the vendor reached down into their cart and pulled out what looked like an antique seltzer bottle, the kind that people Lauren’s age only recognized from cartoons, filled with something light blue and fizzy.

The hot woman leaned over to read the label on the bottle, then gave the vendor a thumbs up. The vendor smiled and gave the bottle a good shake, then put a finger on the nozzle and proceeded to spray the woman up and down. The bottle emitted a thick, bubbling foam that clung to the woman’s skin, building up upon themselves until she was encased in a foamy cocoon, not an inch of her visible. The bubbles popped and fizzled for about thirty seconds, before bursting apart in a colorful spray. When they completely cleared, the woman’s body was now comprised entirely of translucent blue slime in a mostly-humanoid shape. Steam rising off of her, as if she was colder than the air around her. She examined her transparent hands, smiling brightly as she appreciated her newly gelatinous form.

Another passerby, looking just as hot as the woman had, approached her with an inquiring look. The woman nodded, and Lauren watched as she expanded outward, her body growing bigger and thicker, then picking up the newcomer and pulling them against her chest. The newcomer sank into her body as it closed over her, and they were left curled up and suspended there, like a piece of fruit in a gelatin mold, looking as content as could be.

The cool slime woman walked off - well, slid off, as she didn’t really have legs anymore - as several more people approached, waving at her and wanting a turn as well. And as all of this was happening, a queue had begun to form in front of the vendor. The man at the front of the line was scratching his chin as he tried to choose between the red or the green bottle that he was being offered, and after a moment’s consideration, the vendor proceeded to hose him down with both.

“Holy crap, Lauren, you’re a genius,” said Scarlet. All around them, people of various shapes were enjoying their day at the park. Some were engaged in acts of public debauchery in full view. The octopus man and his selachian friend were still going at it, and had attracted a small audience. Others were simply enjoying the perks of their new shape. The pigeon harpy had made herself a comfortable nest at the top of a tree, still feeding her little feathered friends.

It was like something out of Lauren’s most magnificent dreams. And it was all happening because of her. She desired it, and reality molded around her to make it so.

“I’m going to sear this into my memory forever,” Scarlet went on, oblivious to the thoughtful look on her friend’s face. “This is the best day ever.”

“The day’s not over yet,” said Lauren, turning to face her. “Did you think I’d forgotten about you?”

Scarlet put a hand over her chest. “Oooh boy. What are you thinking? Do you need some ideas? I’ve got suggestions! I’ve got all sorts of suggestions! I was just kind of thinking that… huh… it’s really kind of warm today, isn’t it? Did I forget to moisturize this morning? My skin feels kind of… tight.”

Lauren simply smiled as she took a seat upon a nearby rock, watching as her friend doubled over, panting like she’d just done a sprint, her breath quick and shallow.

“Oof. Kind of… crampy, too. Like, inside. I feel so stiff, like I just need to… to…”

Scarlet suddenly winced, rolling her shoulders to work out the kinks. She let out a gasp as her back muscles started to spasm, and she looked over her shoulder just in time.

She heard it before she saw it. Most people are fortunate to not know the sound of muscle and bone changing shape. It was a low, staccato popping, and it was getting louder. Shortly, it was accompanied by the sound of fabric ripping and Scarlet hunched over, gasping as thick, bony spines began to sprout from her back.

Only now did she turn to look at Lauren, her expression a perfect cocktail of apprehension and excitement.

“Lauren? What’s… oof… happening to me? My body feels… wrong.”

“Don’t worry,” said Lauren, crossing her legs and smiling. “I’m sure it will start to feel right soon.”

Scarlet started to laugh. It was a wild, uncontrolled, hysterical laugh at first, but it quickly turned into a choking gasp. She put a hand to her throat as a long, sinuous tongue, easily three feet long, lolled out of her mouth. Unable to speak, she let out a confused sound, but Lauren had nothing to say.

She started to groan once again as her body began to roil once again. She winced in pain and knelt down, gripping her shin as her leg cramped up. Lauren watched as her high-top sneakers suddenly burst apart in a spray of fabric and rubber as her feet doubled in size, growing into enormous saurian claws, and it only kept going from there as her jeans split apart at the seams, falling to the ground as her legs thickened and lengthened, dark and leathery scales forming over her skin.

Scarlet could no longer keep her footing. She fell down onto her hands and knees, letting out a soundless cry as her spine cracked and extended, her body lengthening as it began to grotesquely deform. From one end of her torso, a long, thick tail began to sprout; from the other, her neck began to lengthen. What was left of her clothes fell away in tatters as her body continued to warp and twist. Her gasping turned into a roar as her face began to contort, its whole shape changing as a nose and mouth turned into a snout. And as all this was happening, her body continued to grow and swell, muscles growing onto muscles, her whole body quivering with the strain as it continued to engorge, in naked defiance of the square/cube law. She threw back her reptilian head and let out an earth-shaking bellow.

Everyone in the park, even those who were currently mid-coitus, stopped what they were doing to look. But none of them mattered to Lauren; right now, she only had eyes for Scarlet, and the beautiful monstrosity that she was becoming.

Her modest five-foot-four frame had exploded outward into nearly twelve feet of scales and spikes, and that wasn’t counting the tail. Lauren had taken some inspiration from a little-known story that Scarlet had once told her was her favorite. It was called The Serpentine Virus, written by an anonymous author, about a space explorer who was bitten by a lizard on an alien world and returned to Earth to eventually transform into a huge reptilian monster and subjugate it as god-queen. A bit cliche, perhaps, but it had gotten Scarlet through many a lonely night.

And now she was living it. She looked down at Lauren with baleful red eyes, her reptilian jaws grinning hugely and hungrily.

“You know what you want to do now,” said Lauren, running a hand over one beautifully scaly leg. “This is only the first half of the story.”

Scarlet’s inhuman features looked puzzled for a moment And then realization struck her, and she threw her head back and laughed.

“Come on and all, little earthlings!” she shouted, her voice harsh and guttural. “This place shall become my first nesting ground! Who will be the first brave enough to come forward and pay tribute to your new queen?”

Any sensible person would have run away screaming at this point. But this was Lauren’s fantasy come to life, and that's not how her fantasies went. Nobody here was afraid.

Somebody was the first to step up. A tan-skinned man in skater’s garb approached her and got down on one knee.

“Let this humble fool be the first in your service, my queen,” he said, his eyes shining like this was all he had ever wanted in the world. And somehow, Lauren knew on a fundamental level that it was.

Scarlet leaned down over him, her huge nostrils flaring as she inhaled, sizing him up. “Hmph. You’ll do for a start. But this weak form of yours is wholly inadequate to serve me.” With that, she opened her mouth and let that long, powerful tongue of hers lash over him. He only recoiled for a moment before leaning into the strange caress, and the effects were immediate. The skater let out a groan as his body began to shift, his clothes ripping apart as he mirrored Scarlet’s transformation in microcosm. He tore at what was left with his new claws and kicked off his ruined shoes, before standing proud before her in his newfound scaled glory. Though of course, as was appropriate, he was still human-sized.

Scarlet let out a pleased growl as she admired her creation. “Perfect. Now, step forth and pay tribute to your queen!”

As she spoke, she planted herself flat on the ground, raising her tail high into the air to reveal a pulsing slit resembling a reptilian cloaca, slick with green-tinted fluid. Her new servant inhaled deeply, and the physical effects were immediate. His own slit opened up, and a long, thick cock emerged from it. It was the sort of thing that Lauren had only ever seen in fantasy art and extremely niche sex toys; a good foot and a half long, thick as her wrist, ridged with a slightly pointed tip, twitching and ready to be used.

Not intimidated in the least by the difference in their size, the lizard-man approached his queen, grabbing onto the base of her tail for support as he slid himself into her, eliciting a wonderful cacophony of wet noises.

Scarlet’s muscles rippled as she let out another low, pleased rumble, almost a purr.

“Is that the best you’ve got, peon?” she growled. “Show your queen how much you love her!”

The peon quickened his pace, grunting as he moved his hips, his own tail swaying from side to side with every motion, and people were already gathering around for a closer look.

“Yessss!” Scarlet moaned, tearing gashes in the ground with her clawed fingers and toes as she dug in deep. “Give me your essence! Fill me with life! Seed my egg! Do it for your queen!”

Scarlet’s vent began to clench, letting out slick arousal like a sodden sponge, and the lizard man shuddered and gasped as her powerful muscles sucked the life right out of him. She drew his climactic spasms out for several minutes before finally relaxing enough to let him go, whereupon he fell back onto the ground, looking dazed but very, very satisfied.

“Yesss, good,” Scarlet hissed, flipping over and rubbing her scaly belly. “I can feel your seed quickening within me. Come forth, earthlings! Take heed and bear witness to the dawn of a new empire!”

People continued to gather around, coming in closer as Scarlet’s belly began to shift and churn. And then, slowly, it began to grow outward, inflating like a balloon right before their eyes, her scales stretching outward.

“Each and every one of you are truly blessed to behold this momentous occasion,” she said, grinning as she continued to caress her bloating belly. “Come forth and pay tribute to your queen, your empress, your god!”

“Praise to Queen Scarlet!” cried the gathering throng, all sinking down to show their devotion.

And Lauren was still seated on her rock, unnoticed by one and all, enjoying the show of a lifetime. It was just like something out of her movies, but even better because it was all real. She could feel the heat radiating from Scarlet’s body, smell the potent aroma of her arousal, feel the vibrations when her foot landed upon the earth. It was all real, and she had made it happen.

At some point, she’d wriggled out of her pants, and sat there rubbing herself raw as she watched the crowds pay tribute to their growing queen. She loved everything about this, but knew deep in her heart that she wouldn’t be content merely to observe. This was Scarlet’s moment and Lauren was happy to let her have it, but someday it would be her in this position. She imagined herself as a great and terrible alien conqueror, as a ferocious dragon protecting her brood, as a great beast taller than a building, and she knew that all of that and more was right at her fingertips, whenever she desired it. And the people who were watching were loving it, too. Those that weren’t interested were simply getting on with their business. Every person involved in this, directly or indirectly, was ecstatic.

How could she have been apprehensive about that?

Scarlet let out an exultant cry, her belly having grown to massive size and throbbing steadily, like a beating heart, and a faint green glow was emanating from beneath the surface. “It’s almost time, little minions,” she growled, getting onto all fours. “The first of my brood is… nngh… ready for you…”

She started to sputter and cough a bit as her belly began to pulsate more violently, and for a moment, Lauren wondered if something had gone wrong. And then she thought back to the story. The transformed queen didn’t lay her eggs the way one might have expected, after all.

Scarlet roared, the sound so intense that Lauren could feel the ground tremble, her head swaying from side to side. Then she started to sputter again, and Lauren could see it happening; a huge, round bulge started to travel up that long, serpentine neck. Scarlet opened her mouth as wide as it would go and retched, suddenly disgorging a torrent of thick green slime as her “water” broke, and those who couldn’t get out of the way (or perhaps had no desire to) were rapidly swept away. Scarlet’s eyes were shining as she grunted and roared, her muscles undulating the bulge moved further and further up her long throat, until finally, the roar turned into a choked gasp. She leaned down low to the ground, dug into the ground, and pushed as she forced the egg out of her throat and into her mouth, her jaw unhinging as it slid free, deposited gently onto the grassy ground.

And the onlookers began to cheer, gathering around to lay a hand on the egg.

“All hail Scarlet! All hail Scarlet!”

Scarlet looked a bit stunned for a moment as she recovered from heaving up the egg, but quickly shook herself back to attention and regained her haughty composure. “That was just the first of many, little peons!” she said, lifting up her tail once again. “Who would like to seed the next of them? Perhaps it will be even bigger than this one was!”

They were practically fighting now to be next in line, begging for their queen’s embrace, and Lauren felt her senses absolutely overload with pleasure, climaxing so hard that she felt herself slide off her perch and momentarily black out.

~*~

After she’d finished with her third egg, Queen Scarlet looked thoroughly exhausted, tended to by a cadre of muscular lizard people as they fanned her off and brought her snacks.

It was then that Lauren sauntered over to where she was resting her head. Scarlet opened her eyes as she detected Lauren’s presence. Lauren stood there with a smile on her face, saying nothing.

“Begone, peons!” barked Scarlet. “I require a word in private with my, erm, advisor.”

Her impromptu harem dispersed, leaving Lauren and Scarlet with a moment of relative privacy.

Scarlet let out an enormous breath. “Holy fuckmothering balls, Lauren!” she hissed, in a tone of voice much closer to her typical speech pattern. “That was so amazing that I think I might just cry. None of them are going to remember this, right? I’m not going to see anything about a giant lizard rampage on the local news?”

“None of that, no,” said Lauren, sitting down next to her friend’s head and scratching behind her frilled ears. “Though some of them will be having very strange dreams for a while.”

Scarlet blew out a languid sigh. “I almost don’t want to go back. I want to stay like this and be a big pampered alien lizard queen forever.”

You could. You could totally do that. I could make it happen and you could live like this for as long as you want. There’s nothing stopping me.

The thought crossed Lauren’s mind, but she refrained from speaking it out loud. Instead, she just shrugged. “You’d get bored of it sooner or later.”

Scarlet snorted at that. “Yeah, you’re probably right. Gotta keep things fresh. Speaking of, I’m a bit surprised that you didn’t join in. As wild as that was, I know you’ve got some weirder fantasies deep in that little coconut of yours.”

“Don’t I know it. But I was having fun just watching. I’m glad you had fun.”

“And thank you so much for that. Seriously, though, you’d better get absolutely crazy next time! There’s going to be a next time, right?”

This time, there was no hesitation. “There is definitely going to be a next time. I’m already pondering some ideas.”

“That’s my girl! But, uh, in the meantime, can you poof me back? I’m getting kind of hungry and I do not want to try and keep up with this body’s metabolism.”

Lauren regarded the landscape of the park, now resembling an environment much better suited to an alien brood queen’s needs. Several of the lizard harem had gotten bored and begun making out with each-other. A motley assortment of transformed passersby were lounging about, enjoying their new shapes. The harpy woman was still feeding the pigeons.

“I think that’s enough for today, yeah,” said Lauren. She closed her eyes, took in a deep breath and let it out…

And when she opened them again, she was sitting on the grass with her completely human friend. People were going about their day, eating, jogging, relaxing. It was the perfect day for a walk in the park, and nobody thought it was anything but that.

Shame.

“Hey, do you like Indian food? I know a local place that does a biryani that’ll blow your tits clean off.”

“Sounds good to me!.”

~*~

Lauren flopped back down onto her bed, feeling exhausted and satisfied. Scarlet had fallen asleep on the pull-out couch as soon as they’d gotten back, and Lauren didn’t blame her. She was exhausted as well, first and foremost, she needed a shower. So she let herself have a nice long one. This wasn’t usually a luxury she allowed herself; her building’s water heater wasn’t the best, and after ten minutes or so, it was a crapshoot what temperature the water would stay at. But today, she decided that she wanted a nice, long, and most importantly hot shower, and that was exactly what she had for a whole thirty-five minutes.

She hummed contently to herself the whole time as she toweled off and brushed her teeth. It felt like she hadn’t been able to properly relax since this whole thing had started, but now she actually felt like–

Lauren paused as she looked at herself in the mirror. She wiped the condensation off and looked at herself. Her eyes were a vibrant golden color.

“Huh. Didn’t remember doing that. Oh well.”

Then she screwed her eyes shut and willed them back to normal. Then she opened them up again. Still gold. She tried to think of them changing to anything else – pink, green, rainbow, anything – but they remained unchanged.

It was a small thing, but it made Lauren strangely uneasy.

“Maybe I’m just tired,” she murmured, wrapping her towel around herself and making her way to her bed.

And to her surprise, she wasn’t alone there. It wasn’t Scarlet; she could still hear Scarlet snoring out in the living room. Sitting on her bed was…

Lauren wasn’t sure who or what it was. She was pretty sure they were a woman, or at least someone feminine, wearing something that resembled a long gown. But there was something strange about her, like Lauren couldn’t quite focus on her features. At first, she’d thought she was fair-skinned, but then the light shifted and she was dark and dusky. Her features were round and delicate, or maybe they were sharp and angular. Her hair was long and wavy, or perhaps short and curly. She was fat and thin and short and tall and petite and curvy and all of them and none of them. And her dress shimmered in patterns of every color Lauren could imagine and a few she couldn’t, perhaps even shifting into weird imaginary colors that only shrimp could see.

Trying to concentrate on any one part of her was giving Lauren vertigo, but throughout all of it, there were two things about the woman that remained fixed. One was her smile, a playful little smirk that declared to the world ‘I know something that you don’t.’

The other was her eyes. Her beautiful, intense, golden eyes.

“Good evening, Lauren,” she said, in a smooth, lilting voice layered with a little bit of every accent imaginable. “Did you have fun today? Don’t answer that, I know you did. Have a seat, would you? It’s about time that you and I had a little chat.”