[Commissioned by  2chaotic Short and sweet this time around!]

Mizuki’s Poptoy
By Balloondra

“We’re almost there!” Mizuki exclaimed in a sing-song voice, her rubber handpaw firmly clamped on the arm of a tail-wagging raccoon. The five-tailed balloonie vixen had found him giving her more than a few sideways glances at a restaurant, gazing long at her translucent tails, his ears perking at every squeak she made… She invited (well, she didn’t really give him a choice) him to her home, and the meek ‘coon seemed too awestruck by the living balloon to protest.

So she led them out of the shopping plaza on the route home, all the while curling her tails around him, caressing him with soft, squishy latex. She was satisfied to see her companion so blushy at the rubber that surrounded him… he’d be perfect for what she had in mind.

And so they were on the final path, a simple, smooth concrete road to Mizuki’s home in a clearing surrounded by forest. As it came into view, the raccoon spoke up. “You have a nice home, Miss,” he said.

“Thank you! And you can call me Mizuki.” She pushed a hollow, squishy finger into his nose, making him blush once again. She yanked him a little farther, pulling him across her grassy backyard to roughly its center, discounting the pool just ahead.

“I’m—” the raccoon began, but Mizuki put a hand over his muzzle.

“Shh,” she interrupted, smiling sultrily. “I know who you are!” Behind her, she curled her tails around an invisible sphere just right, summoning a large, blue glass ball loaded with magic in their empty center.

The ‘coon didn’t notice as he pulled away from her hand. “You… you do?”

“Mhmm! You…” She passed her ball from her tails to a handpaw, then shoved it into his chest. He instinctively caught it with both arms, and it flared with magical light. “Well, you’re my balloon!”

“Your balloon?” He blinked and looked back to Mizuki, confused. Then he yelped in pain and dropped the ball— it had stung him with its magic. Wincing, he looked at his arms. Then his eyes widened to see the sheen of soft latex where fur once was— a patch of rubber that was spreading out like a rash from where he had made contact with the ball. “Wh-what did you do?” he whimpered.

Mizuki only giggled. “Well, let’s think! I called you my balloon, pushed a magic ball into your hands, and lo and behold, you’re turning to rubber! What do you think that means?”

“I-I’m becoming a balloon?!” he exclaimed, just as latex climbed up his neck to convert his head.

“Mhmm,” Mizuki patted his newly squeaky head. “And not just any balloon… actually, why don’t you just find out?”

The raccoon couldn’t really do anything more than watch and wait, so that’s what he did. Rubber continued to consume him from ears to paws and tail, ending in a puffy balloon of a tail coming out his backside, complete with a tied up balloon nozzle at its tip.

And then… it was hard to tell at first, with his own shivery squeaks filling his ears, but there was definitely a hissing beneath it all— a hissing that, as his middle began to feel tight, became quite audible. He looked down, somehow still surprised despite all that had happened in the last hour. He was inflating!

His middle pushed out— front, back, and sides— apparently scheming to round the ‘coon out with its growth. And round out he did. He grew at an accelerating pace, the hissing of gas magically filling him up growing louder by the moment. His limbs began to swell up as well, forcing him into a starfish pose as his torso was reduced to a simple rubbery sphere. Yet he continued to inflate: cone-shaped limbs were stretched into non-existence, leaving behind puffy paws atop slight nubs. His growth had pressed up into his muzzle, forcing him to turn his head up to keep from being trapped by the swelling rubber. Only his tail properly remained, blown up to a ridiculous size and waving in the breeze.

And then, at last, the inflation stopped. The new balloon, still facing Mizuki, became confused when her look of glee turned to one of disappointment. “I… thought for sure I designed that spell right…”

After a moment’s hesitation, the raccoon dared to ask, “What happened.”

“Shush, you; balloons don’t talk.” She poked his now-rubber nose again, then walked around behind him, humming to herself. “Aha!” she suddenly exclaimed.

The raccoon couldn’t see, but Mizuki jumped up and grabbed something he could hardly feel off his back. “There was a leaf on you! No wonder you were still ground-bound!”

Sure enough, the overinflated ’coon balloon began to lift ever so slowly off the ground. “W-wait!” he exclaimed, helplessly wiggling what little he could. “I don’t want to float away! I’ll pop!”

“And why should I care?” Mizuki was lounging against a pool chair on the grass, watching the raccoon ascend. “You’re just a balloon! A plaything for me; a plaything I want to watch float into the sky!”

He wanted to deny it, but… it seemed she was right, He was a big, round, helpless globe, full of helium and made of latex. He was “just a balloon” now… And just like a balloon left untethered, he was floating away.

“Don’t worry; you’ll reform afterwards!” Mizuki called as he floated above her roof. “But you’ll always inflate automatically ‘til you’re just a tiiiiiiny bit too light!”

“H-how long does the spell last?” he called back.

“I forgot! Maybe forever! Bye bye, my big, puffy poptoy!” Her voice faded away shortly after.

The raccoon blushed as he ascended past the treeline, the thought of permanently being too light to fall stuck on his mind. He floated higher and higher by the minute, feeling himself creak as the change in air pressure forced his body to swell more and more…

He brushed past clouds on his way up. The feeling would have made him shiver if he wasn’t too tight to move. He could feel his taut skin straining to hold himself together, already twice the size he had inflated to due to Mizuki. His whole body, little more than a grey, transparent balloon with a tail, strained as the air pressure continued to plummet around him. His body stopped growing, stretched to its very limit! He shut his eyes tight… and accepted the inevitable.

KABOOM!

———

A minute later, the raccoon— now just a pile of latex confetti— fluttered obediently into Mizuki’s backyard and began to pull himself together. She grinned. She could watch her new balloon burst over and over for ages…