The near-silence in the aisle was broken by the sound of cans clattering as they landed in the basket of a shopping cart. An anthropomorphic red fox, Catherine, was stocking up on food, like she did every two months. She checked her list, and pushed the cart onwards, then made a wide U-turn into the next aisle, where the cereal was. Purely by coincidence, Kaze, a tabby, was already there, but facing away from her. “Hey, Kaze,” she called.

He turned to face her. “Oh, hey, uh,” then he noticed the face stripes that almost resembled helmet straps. “Hey, Chester.”

She shook her head. “Call me Catherine while I’m in this form,” she corrected him, gesturing to her feminine build. “What’s up?”

Kaze just shrugged. “Just stocking up. Looks like you are, too.”

“Of course. Ning’s hosting a potluck in five days’ time, if you’re interested. The food probably won’t be spiked with anything transformative, but since Immanuel will be there, whatever he brings almost surely will be.”

“Well, I don’t have anything for then, so I suppose I could come.”

Catherine nodded once. “I’ll let her know. Later, Kaze.”

“Bye, Catherine,” he replied as she walked past him, homing in on something.

“These should do,” she said, grabbing four different boxes and dropping them in the cart. Moving through the other aisles in a lawnmower pattern (what was on each shelf got rearranged every few weeks,) she quickly checked off everything else on her list, and was just turning towards the nearest self-checkout, when she felt someone grab her sleeve. She turned around. The human woman that had gotten her attention seemed to be in her mid to late-30s, had a purse that was an offensive shade of green, and her haircut said I want to speak to your manager’s manager’s manager’s manager.

“I’ve been trying to get your attention for the past ten minutes!” she said. “I need you to unlock those glass case things so my kid can get a game he wants!” She was on the verge of shouting.

“Uh, miss,” Catherine stated, putting her hands up, “I don’t work here.”

“Liar! I see you here all the time! You must work here!”

“Does this look, at all, like a uniform for this store?” Catherine gestured to what she was wearing; green-sleeved white T-shirt that showed a little bit of cleavage, and jean shorts.

“Well, obviously you’re out of uniform and just pretending to shop here to avoid helping customers!” With that, the human grabbed Catherine’s forearm, but Catherine just gave her opposing hand a flick of the wrist, and the lady was suddenly standing several meters away. Realizing that she’d been teleported, she just glared daggers at Catherine, but as soon as Catherine turned away and joined the self-checkout queue, the lady turned towards the back of the store and stormed away. Self-checkout went without a hitch, but she heard that woman screaming about “a rude employee” that “had to be fired right now.” Catherine left the store, hoping she’d evaded detection. “Hey, you!” Catherine heard that lady’s voice call behind her. She ignored it, continuing down towards the street, to where she could teleport back to her home, without anybody getting caught by the spatial distortion wave. “I’m walking to you!” But she continued to ignore the voice. Then the lady grabbed Catherine’s shoulder and pulled her, very aggressively, forcing her to turn around. “You can take that costume off now, my kids want to try it.”

Catherine tilted her head. “Costume? I’m not wearing one. I actually am-”

“Just take it off and hand it over! My kids deserve it more than you!”

“Lady, this isn’t-”

“GIMMIE!” roared one of the lady’s two sons, no older than ten, lunging towards her. He grabbed at her shirt started tugging it, and Catherine pushed him away. He immediately fell to the ground, screaming in a full-blown tantrum.

“Look what you did!” the lady screeched. “Now you have to hand that costume over to me as compensation!”

“Lady.” Catherine stood her ground, though she was barely audible over the child’s wailing, now made worse as the younger brother joined in on the screaming. “This is not a costume. You started this, you brought your kids into this, this is your doing. Now leave me alone.” Before the human could respond, Catherine flicked her wrist again, and all three of them were whisked away, then she herself promptly vanished.



* * * * * *



Catherine was quietly humming to herself as she worked on her current restoration project, which was an F4F-3 that had been left in a scrapyard since the 1950’s. The frame was somehow mostly intact, but she doubted it would ever be airworthy again. Still, she always did enjoy tasks that involved getting dirty. Sitting around the garage (which was really just an abandoned parking lot that she put an improvised roof over) were several other aircraft and tanks from that era, all in various states of repair, with some fully restored and functional, including an M4A1 and a T-34/85. But then she picked up a rather familiar scent. Oh, no. How did that fiend find me? “What do you want? I’m busy,” she said, searching for the wrench that she needed, not turning to face that human.

“Give my kids your costume, or else!” She pulled something out from a pocket, and whatever it was, it started humming.

Catherine turned around to see that the human was holding a transformation ray, but she couldn’t see the emitter on it. “Uh, miss, for one, you’re trespassing, and two, you’re holding that back-”

“Shut up! Hand over that costume NOW!”

“For the final time,” Catherine said, gesturing to her form, “this isn’t a costume. I actually am-”

“SHUT UP!” The lady pulled the trigger, and immediately, the ray discharged. At her. There was a bright flash, and the woman gasped, then froze in place. All of her clothes fused to her skin as her body hollowed out, a fake husky tail sprouted form behind her, and her head reshaped into the head of a husky fursuit, while her hands became fursuit gloves. Then, what was her shirt and pants turned into a fake flight suit, and her purse turned into a red aviation helmet with large holes for the ears at the top. All of it fell to the floor, right in front of the former person’s stupefied brats.

And Catherine didn’t notice that the ray was still intact until it hit the concrete floor, hard enough to cause it to malfunction and fire again – and both children were caught in the blast. Immediately, they started to shrink as gray fur covered their bodies and absorbed their hair, and Catherine saw both of them sprout long, bushy tails. They both started to cry out in pain as their skeletons and organs rearranged, and Catherine could see their heads reshape into those of squirrels; their ears moved to the tops of their heads and rounded out, while their noses and mouths pulled into short, broad muzzles, with tiny black noses. They were swallowed by their shirts.

“Well, lady,” Catherine said, looking down at what used to be the woman’s head, “you could’ve just walked away from this, but now you are a costume that you wanted so badly for your little brats.” She looked slightly up, and saw the squirrels scurrying away. “And they’ve probably lost their minds,” she added. Then she checked the transformation ray. And found that it had been set to permanent. “Oh, well,” Catherine stated. “I’m sure some little kid will just love you.”