Alone in the living room of an old but well-maintained Victorian-style mansion, an anthropomorphic fox sighed and put his drawing pad down beside himself and glanced up at the clock, illuminated only by the wall-embedded lights. He looked outside for a moment, hoping to see the stars, but only saw the typical late winter overcast. His wife, Ning, would be coming home soon, having dealt with something or other in a parallel universe. He also knew that she had “something we’d both love” to turn him into, but he decided to put the joke on her and turn himself into something - specifically, he’d turn himself into her. As soon as the clock struck nine, his whiskers twitched as if he’d received a very small jolt of electricity, just enough to be noticed. Ning’s way of letting him know that she was in transit between universes. He stood up, and headed upstairs to the bathroom, specifically to use the mirror. He got there, took a deep breath, and stared into his own eyes through the mirror.

“I’m way ahead of you, my love,” Chester said as they began to glow. A shudder ran down his spine as he grew in height by a good sixteen centimeters, followed by his ears shrinking and moving from a rounded triangular form to a more rounded, feline shape. His muzzle broadened and shortened as his nose almost doubled in size, and his eyes changed in color, from being completely hazel with vertical oval pupils to white with actual irises that took on an icy blue coloration. The strands of fur on his scalp and the back of his head lost all of their pigmentation, and quickly lengthened into proper hair, stopping in a thick curtain that almost touched his waist. He shuddered slightly as two mounds of flesh swelled into being on his chest, followed by his shoulders losing some of their breadth, but none of the musculature. As his Adam’s apple disappeared, raising the pitch of his voice somewhat, his forearms became slightly thinner, and his claws thinned and retreated into his fingertips, becoming retractable. Next, his waist became thinner, and in response, his hips and rear swelled, followed by his thighs - or rather, her thighs, as something between her legs disappeared. Her shins thinned out, and then the padding on his hands and feetpaws changed from vulpine to feline. Next, her tail thinned out, becoming much less fluffy and losing the white stripe running over the top of it, tail tip changing from white to black. Finally, her fur changed. The orange darkened and became slightly redder, the black stripes running from the outer corners of her ears to the upper lip disappearing entirely as the black stripes characteristic of a Bengal tiger appeared all over her, leaving her body as an exact physical copy of Ning’s.

Just in time for the real Ning to return and announce her presence by simply knocking on the door. She was quite surprised and amused to see a copy of herself answer the door. “Oh, hello, Catherine,” she said, using her spouse’s female name.

“Welcome back, Ning,” Catherine said, pulling her into a tight hug. “Thought I’d transform myself before you could.”

“Even if this is already what I had planned?”
Catherine let go and stepped back to let his wife in. She always preferred to enter her home the way most people do, through the door, even though she could teleport. “Really?”

“Well, of course. We both know that you love being twinned.” She stopped moving into the house after a few paces. “However,” she bore that familiar grin on her face as she turned around. “I have some more things in mind.”

“What’s your little plot this time?”

“The plan is we just hang out with our friends. Maybe have a little transformation fight in a day or two.”

“Deal.” Catherine and Ning pulled each other in for a kiss.

* * * * * *

The following day, the two tigresses embarked down the hill from Ning’s mansion as she recounted the tale of how she discovered the ruins it had once been, and how she restored it using her then-newfound powers, even if, Catherine noticed, she avoided saying just how long ago that was. Once in town, the first place the two checked was the local gym, where Lehua worked as a lifeguard. They arrived just a few seconds before they saw him emerge from the front door, gym bag in hand. He saw them in the parking lot - not like they were blending in with anything - sighed, waved, and changed direction to go and greet them. “Hey, you two,” he said once he was close enough to not need to project his voice. “Which one of you is the original Ning?”

“I am,” the tigress on the left said. “And we have some plans for today.”

“What, like,” Lehua looked between them. “Turning the rest of us into outfits again?”

“Now that you’ve brought that up,” Catherine said, putting a finger under her chin and pondering. “Actually, no. Let’s go with something simpler. But first, let’s get somewhere where we won’t bring the whole city’s attention on us,” that last sentence indicating that Catherine’s own personality was indeed still intact, since she always actively tried to avoid large amounts of public attention.

“Well, sure,” Lehua said with a shrug. “Can I bring all my stuff home first, though?” he asked, lifting up the bag he was carrying.

“I can send it home for you,” Ning stated. “I’ll just do my portal thing.” Beside her, Catherine sent a message to a group text that included them, Karina the wolf, Aileas the arctic fox, and Immanuel the skunk, if they were on board with Ning’s “transformation fight” idea.

“Ah, right,” Lehua held out the bag, and Ning stepped forward to crouch towards the ground. With one claw extended, she cut a hole in space itself, through which Lehua could see the floor of his own living room. He dropped the bag, all three of them hearing it land with a soft thump, and Ning collapsed the portal. “Now, where to?”

Ning put a hand on her wife’s shoulder and another on Lehua’s, and they were suddenly all standing in a place they all frequented: the waterfront park. “Nice and quiet,” Catherine remarked as she looked around to confirm where they were. “This is always a nice place to be, isn’t it?” Her phone buzzed.

“Except that one time we got caught in the hail,” Lehua remarked. “So, what am I turning into this time?”

“Just the female version of yourself,” Ning answered. “I’ve never seen it, so, why not?”

“Well, sure,” Lehua said, looking between the tigresses. “A day or two on the other side wouldn’t hurt.” Catherine’s phone buzzed a second time.

“Great!” Ning put a hand on his shoulder, and he shuddered. His own transformation started with his shoulders slimming down, followed by his arms, then his hands. He held his hands out so he could look at how dainty they had become, and Ning’s spell spread to his neck, and he coughed as his Adam’s’ apple dissolved, sending his voice several octaves higher. With his voice feminized, the spell then shifted its focus downwards, to his torso, onto which a pair of breasts quickly swelled into being, followed by a bra forming over them. His waist caved in, causing him to cough lightly, and his hips and rear pushed out seemingly in response. Something in between his - or rather her - legs disappeared as her thighs enlarged, after which her lower legs and then her feetpaws slimmed.

“Is it over?” she asked, looking over herself.

Catherine responded, “Looks like it’s over. So, want to keep going by Lehua, or…?”

“Jewel. Remember, we settled on Jewel when this happens.”

“Ah, right. It’s been a while. So, honey, what now?” Catherine looked to her wife.
Ning snapped her fingers. “I just remembered, Catherine, weren’t you going to make cheesecake this weekend?”

“Oh, right! I don’t think we have the ingredients for it. Want to go get them?”

“I can!”

“And what about me?” Jewel asked, looking between them. “Do you want me to stick with either of you?”

“You could stay with me,” Catherine answered. “There’s plenty of room at my house.” She pulled her phone out to check the group messages and sighed, ears folded.

“What happened?”

“None of the others are available tomorrow for various reasons. Oh, well, we can always do it later.”

* * * * * *

It wasn’t too difficult to find the ingredients on the list Catherine had provided. Ning was in the store for no more than ten minutes before she had everything listed in the basket. And, for the first time in a while, she was in a public space without transforming anyone, even though the temptation to turn someone’s hair or fur a bizarre color was always on her mind. Everything was going rather well - until she went to actually purchase what was in the basket. She went into the shortest queue for the registers, thinking that it had only just opened, and then she saw why there was almost no one there. A single male human with a shopping cart on the verge of overflowing, berating the cashier, who was a ferret anthro, over coupons.

“What do you mean, expired!? Just scan them in!”

Putting his hands up and in front of his chest defensively, the cashier sputtered “expired means I can’t use them, so scanning them in would-”

The customer slammed his hands down on the counter. “Just scan them in already!”

“Maybe there’s a reason he won’t scan them for you,” Ning interjected, glaring at him.

“Mind your own business, lady!” he snapped at her, only glancing in her direction. “And you, boy, you’d better get the manager here right now! I demand to see him!”

“See the manager?” Ning murmured. “Just see them?” The gears in her head started turning as the cashier picked up the phone behind him. She spoke up. “So, you want to see the manager? I could help you with that.”

The man became even more irate and stomped over to her. “Listen here, lady, you-” an accusatory finger pointed at Ning resulted in her grabbing his wrist.

“So, what now?” Ning said mockingly.

As the phone clicked back into its receiver, the cashier stated, “the manager is busy right now.” If the man wasn’t already throwing a tantrum, he was now - and Ning was having none of it. He continued to scream about the manager, until Ning squeezed his wrist then let go, and his body flattened. A canvas formed behind it to which he became fixed as his body transformed into paint, which then turned into the portrait of a doe anthro in the store’s uniform.

And then the manager finally arrived, only to become severely confused until the tigress gave her a smirk, and handed her new portrait to her, saying, “she’ll be released after a couple of weeks. Until then, put her in front of a mirror. She wanted nothing more than to see the manager, as I’m sure you heard.”

The doe nodded as she took the portrait. “Hello, Ning,” she said.

Ning finally recognized her. “Jane, right?” she nodded. “Good to see you again. How’s the new form?”

“It’s wonderful. I really must thank you for it some other time. I’ll go put me in front of the mirror in the office to see me.” She winked at her. “I’m sorry you had to deal with that, Franklin,” she said to the cashier. “Just push that cart away, I’ll get someone to put everything back as soon as I can.” He quietly nodded before pushing the recently-transformed person’s cart out of the way for Ning. “Have a good day, Ning.”

She nodded before pushing her own cart forward. “You, too.”

* * * * * *

“It’s a bit tight in places,” Catherine said, looking at herself in the mirror. Their arctic fox friend Aileas had made new dresses for the two of them to try out. They were matching designs, with Ning’s base color being a deep green while Catherine’s was a medium blue. They were designed to highlight the tigress’s forms. Might as well enjoy it, since Catherine decided that morning that she’d stay in that form for a few days. “That aside, I do like it.”

“The cheesecake is coming along nicely, too.”

“Can I go look?”

“Of course, honey. But first,” Ning grabbed her wife by the waist, pulled her in, and playfully gnawed on her ear.