"Well, this is when Curt's email says he'd come home early," Skyla said.
“I think I see him,” Rachel said, turning her gaze from the window. “Anyone who’s going out better grab their stuff.”
Cassidy grabbed a belt with pouches that she kept her wallet and keys in, while Skyla got her purse. The door opened as Curt came in, setting his folders down near the entrance.
“Hey guys. Who’s ready for some music?”
“I know I am,” Cassidy said with a grin. "Pity Marcelene couldn't have planned this better, most of the girls are too busy and I bet would like to see her band, even if it's with a buncha frat brats."
“Yeah.” Curt nodded. “The timing wasn’t great. But, at the same time, the beach house likely isn’t that big. Probably best that there aren’t too many going, or we’d have some forced to sit outside.”
"Room for one more?" Vickey asked wearing a sun hat (but still in her fur), "If I have a day off, I might as well spend the rest with you Master!"
"... Alright, that's fine." Curt said, it was odd this mail vixen had been just a random test of the ray gun, if Curt had thought about it more at the start, he should have started with Anna, but she was his responsibility now in a way, if he was really her 'Master', then he could at least do his best to see she was happy in return when he could.
"Thanks Master!" Vickey hugged him and kissed him.
Skyla to her credit, DIDN'T think any nasty thoughts towards Vickey.
Curt gave her a hug back, a little surprised at the kiss. “You coming too, Skyla?”
“Well, you did kinda forcefully give me the day off. Like Vicky said, might as well use it.”
“Great, I’ve got enough room in the car for all of you, and Danielle will meet us there. Let’s get going!"
"Oh.... goodie," Skyla said flatly and lowly as possible.
Curt then stopped and looked embarrassed, he whispered. "Where's the toy?"
"With Anna," Skyla answered. "Came back after a day on her own with her friends. She said they're really aware of how lucky they are to serve you."
Curt wasn't stupid, he knew what that meant, but why Anna would do that to her friends from school?... Well, he knew exactly why. The exact same reason he'd done it to Anna in the first place.
+++
"Anna, Rachel said you were in- What are you doing?!"
"Helping Janet cook for tonight..." Anna said. Janet had conveniently gone to the little snake's room.
"Oh! Okay!" Curt had to calm himself down, before her transformation, Anna had turned the kitchen into a smoking disaster every time she was allowed to cook anything despite her best efforts.
"Skyla said you had what I loaned her?" Curt said.
"Yes," Anna said, giving Curt the ray gun. "Of course the day I volunteer to help is when Marceline has a concert."
"Welcome to being an adult," Curt said. Anna's face soured a bit.
Ashley and Misty came in with more ingredients from the pantry and spotted Curt. "Master!" They said together and quickly came to Curt and knelt before him. "We are honored to serve you!"
"Please don't kneel like that," Curt pleaded. Curt was bedazzled, the black cat was one thing but the bird woman had him amazed. And it dawned who they were. "Ashley? Misty?"
"That's us!" They echoed.
"Thank you for this new life Master," Misty said.
"Thank you for healing us Master."
"Anna was the one who thought to-" Curt stopped, he knew this wasn't an argument he could win. "If you know how things work around here," he said being vague. "Then you should know this is going to come with extra responsibilities."
"Bring it on," Misty said determined.
"If this the world Anna and Misty are living in, then it's the one I want to too!"
"Master! Is everything alright?" Skyla called.
"Be there in a moment!" Curt said quickly. "Misty, Ashley, welcome to the family! If I didn't have somewhere to be, I'd say more! Anna, you did a good job!"
"Thank you Big Brother!" Anna bowed. Curt ran back to the front of the house with the ray gun now in his pocket, leaving the girls once again under Janet's command.
+++
"So how does it feel to be personal-everything to Master's personal-everything Rachel?" Morgan asked having arrived soon after Master left.
"Some things never change," The wolf girl maid sighed, holding an arm full of last minute plans.
+++
The beach house was CERTAINLY in need of some cleaning, Skyla noted, as they stepped into the house. A bunch of trash littered the corners of the large room. Cassidy and Vickey also felt their fur stand on end at the sight of the pig sty, their innate nature as maids making the place feel nearly unlivable.
Rows of folding chairs had been arranged in front of the small platform where Marceline and her band-mates had set up. Skyla could tell Marceline had been hard at work since there was a diameter of the beach house looking actually livable from where she stood.
“Master!” Marceline cheered, stepping away from the drum set. “You’re here a little early, huh?”
“Yep. Managed to clear up my work pretty quick today. I thought it might be nice to see the band behind the scenes for a bit.”
“Heh, nice to have a big shot guest,” the blonde, long-haired guitarist said. "Just be careful that the frat boys don't start asking you for handouts."
“Well, we’ve got security just in case they get too rowdy… Randy, was it?”
“Yep.” The guitarist nodded.
“And… Jerry and Kara, right?” Curt asked, glancing toward the vocalist and bassist, respectively.
“Uh huh.” Jerry said. “Though I’m thinking about getting a stage name. ‘Jerry’ just doesn’t fit the band’s image, you know? You gotta stand out in this biz.” He chuckled. “Having a four armed drummer helps, though.” Marceline smiled.
Skyla was on the look-out for Danielle, making sure she'd be polite with her when she saw her. She told herself, 'It's what Master wants, don't bellyache about it.'
On the drum set was the name 'Deaf Goldfish'... The band had been seniors in high school when they had settled on that name, and it had been the only one they could find that wasn't trademarked.
Curt looked at the band and... Why should he change them? They were happy with the lives they had now from what he could see. It wasn't like Marceline's whole band were into furries and transformation after all!
There was also an option with the ray gun he'd been meaning to test for a long while now, though he knew Skyla would never approve. But given his particular reasons for transforming Mark, he felt it was proper.
"Marceline, can we talk in private for a moment?"
"Sure Curt," the adorable spider woman said. "But I can only spare a minute."
Maybe Curt should have waited for another day, but he wanted to face this now. "That'll do then. Cassidy, stay out here please."
"I gotcha," Cassidy said simply.
The pair went inside a small room, that had inflatable life size dolls of women on the couch. But Curt nor Marceline were truly in any position to judge.
"So Curt, what did ya wanna ask?"
"Just wanted to test out another feature on the ray gun," Curt said, adjusting the ray gun's setting to 'modify' and zapped Marceline, a red arc light of lightning hitting her.
The cutest spider taur in history blinked her four eyes, and moments later said, "Dangit Master! I get to experience living-reincarnation at last, and I can't remember my mental changes when they happened. What a jip." Marceline crossed her arms and pouted.
"That's... that's what you're upset about?"
She tilted her head. "What? You thought I'd be upset by this?" She gestured at her body. "Not really. Pretty sure the mental changes took care of that Master, and you did let me experience what I've only ever been able to read about before. I got to experience a real living reincarnation! So did you switch out my memories to see if you could changes those already changed?"
"You're taking that the ray gun is real very calmly."
"Well, it would ruin things if I began shouting and hollering just before show time..." Marceline grinned, and began shaking looking ready to fall apart in excitement. "This is greeeeat! Oh, and I guess this kinda helps women's rights too I guess..."
"What?"
"Well... old me and new me both love rock and roll, and both ended up with the same tastes and hobbies, if that's how it works, then people in this reality will be more accepting of ladies in different jobs, I think. This set of memories wouldn't know."
"This set?"
"That's the thing... It's not that 'where am I?' crap, thank God, but while I remember everything from when you zapped me, I love our chat after that by the way... I know that I know I remembered my new life, but now anything I remember in this incarnation feels vague... In fact, it's like my old incarnation is now a dream too. Confusing huh?"
"Yes."
"Curt, can you do me a favor? ... Our band has been dying for a gimmick to stand out, I've helped, but I think you can help more."
"You WANT me to zap your band mates?"
"Most of them. Except Randy, he has a girlfriend. Jerry and Kara have said they'd do anything for the band, time to put their money where their mouth is... or maybe it's my mental changes to be your loyal servant that urge me to encourage you to make more of our kind."
That sounded like Mark/Marceline alright.
"So you want me to turn them into maids like you?"
"Oh not like me, us all being spiders would be BORING! I mean creatures that most people don't think of when they think of furries... Oh, and Master? One more thing? Please put me back as 'unaware of changes' after you zap Jerry and Kara during our show? Orrrr, you could just give me the ray gun master, and I can zap the audience instead!"
Curt was very sure that was just a bluff, but Marceline knew that he knew he couldn't be sure, and while Marceline didn't know it, Curt didn't think he could handle two Skylas.
“Hey, Marceline, more of our audience showed up!” Randy called from the next room. “Better get out here!”
“Be right there!” The spider woman called. “I’ll be looking forward to seeing the results!” She whispered, before heading back to the makeshift stage the band had set up. Curt followed her out of the room, moving over to the seats his friends had set aside, noticing Danielle had shown up, and taken a seat with them. He also noticed Skyla… He’d been friends with her long enough to know when she was trying to hide being upset, and being changed into a female fox hadn’t helped her hide the signs much better. Remembering Susan’s comment the night before, Curt could guess what was bugging her. He silently wished he knew some way to help the situation without upsetting her or Danielle, but things were about to get far too noisy to have much of a meaningful conversation. Especially with more of the frat boys coming in. He took a seat by the small collection of animal-women, between Skyla and Danielle.
“Hi Master!” Danielle said, giving him a quick smooch and putting an arm around him. “Didn’t think our next date would be this soon.” She giggled.
“It’s a special occasion,” Curt said, “but it’s fun when things work out like that, huh?”
“By the way, Master…” Skyla whispered on his right side. “I was just thinking, about how a lot of stories in our particular writing group involved perverted guys getting a karmic taste of life on the other side… Would be nice to see it play out in real life, wouldn’t it?”
“Eh, karma can be satisfying,” Curt whispered back as the lights were dimmed, and a tapping could be heard on the drums, “But I don’t know anyone here well enough to say they deserve it, even if I did feel like playing judge. That said, keep your eye on the stage, you might see something interesting.”
Skyla grinned mischievously, as the song kicked into high gear, the guitar wailing and Randy singing. A part of her felt thrilled not only at getting to watch another transformation, but to know that Master was enjoying himself, too. The music wasn't bad either! Skyla unconsciously began waving her tails in time with the beat.
Curt quietly raised his gun. With the dimmed lights, and the smell of beer coming off the audience around him he doubted too many people would notice, but he didn’t want to stand out, regardless, especially when it might look like he was aiming a weapon.
Curt made his adjustments to the settings as he took aim at Jerry. Awareness was set back off, and busty/adorable and nude/maid uniform were set to “target’s favorite.” This next one was a very risky idea, but if it worked, it would certainly meet the requirement for an uncommon species choice. And if it didn’t… Well, hopefully he could quickly set it to something more suited to this environment before the vocalist ran out of breath.
A green bolt danced over the audience’s head, and struck Jerry. Immediately, his skin began to look a pale, gray color, and his hair started to recede all over. His arms began to get thinner, and… well, more flexible would be an understatement. They almost looked like rubber hoses, bending at whatever angle he liked. And while it was hard to see from the audience, dozens of small, rounded ‘cups’ formed on his palms and fingers.
His clothing vanished, revealing a smooth, near-featureless torso. Jerry continued to sing as if nothing was happening, though his voice started to become noticeably higher as ‘his’ hips widened, and a hefty pair of mounds grew from her chest. Her legs, meanwhile, began to thin, just as her arms had, with dozens of little suction cups running along their back side. Her feet started to shrink away, seemingly absorbed into the end of her changing legs (though, at the point, Skyla felt the word “tentacle” was probably a better description). Before this could affect her balance, however, a second pair of tentacles grew behind the first, supporting her without breaking her stride.
As if to even out the number of limbs, a second pair of thin, gray arms wriggled out beneath the first, hands covered in suction cups growing out finger by finger. They looked every bit as flexible as the first pair. Curt had to wonder if she still had a skeleton under there now. (Same for Marceline, too, now that he thought about it… But he was getting side-tracked!) The gray color soon spread up the singing squid’s neck, and covered her head.
Her teeth rapidly fused together and sharpened at the front, as her jaw stretched out, forming a short beak. Her nose shrank back and vanished, sealing closed. In their place, a pair of small openings appeared on the top of her beak. (A bit more like a bird than a squid, Curt noted, but as long as she seemed to be breathing normally, he was fine with minor inaccuracies.) Her ears, oddly, did not shrink, and instead stretched into triangular, fin-like shapes. Her eyes turned yellow, the pupils growing slightly wider. Meanwhile the top of her head seemed to swell upward, to nearly twice the previous size of her head, before flopping backwards, waving behind her like hair. To further that appearance, two final tentacles grew from the sides of her head like ponytails, ending in rounded, suction-cup-covered tips.
Marceline grinned as she watched, trying her best to keep an eye on the action without losing her beat. But she nearly dropped her drumsticks when her friend suddenly shifted to a vibrant red color, shifting lighter and darker to match the pitch of the notes she was singing. The other bandmates kept playing, having “already” seen this trick dozens of times, but the audience could be heard to let out several cheers and “woahs” at the sight, Including Vicky and Danielle.
“Man, I heard about how Cherry-Sea knew how to stand out from the crowd, but I never got a chance to see her do her color-change thing at the roll call,” Danielle whispered to Curt.
“Yeah, it’s pretty cool,” Curt whispered back, figuring ‘Cherry-Sea’ must have been the Jerry’s new name, now.
“A squid, huh?” Skyla whispered, “Now there’s something that opens up some interesting possibilities.” Curt had seen enough of Skyla’s tastes to know where this was going.
As the busty squid woman reached the climax of the song, her skin exploded into a firework-like display of yellow, orange, and red, before instantly switching to a uniform white as the final word ended, and the band went silent. The audience clapped as the band quickly got themselves ready for the next song.
As the song started up, Curt took aim again, this time Aiming at the bassist, Kara. The woman’s body became much thinner, while her shirt and pants turned black, and weaved together into a dress. Though the dress meant it couldn’t be seen, her skin began to turn a pale green, starting in her chest and spreading from there. Her body widened slightly below the waist, as a second pair of legs began to grow out under her dress. They were the same pale green color, and looked rail-thin. At the end of these new legs, a brown “foot” (if such a simple appendage could be called that) just as thin as the legs grew out. In place of toes, small gripping claws grew on either side.
Her original legs meanwhile, thinned down and turned green, her shoes vanishing as her feet, likewise, became longer and thinner, the toes shifting to small claws as they were moved to the sides. As had been the case for many maids before her, a hole formed in the back of Kara’s dress, allowing a longer, but more bulbous extension of her torso to grow freely. It stretched back behind her, curving upward slightly, but not showing any signs of flexibility like the tails the hole was usually made for. Instead, the distinctly mantis-like abdomen grew a pair of thin, translucent wings, and a thicker, green cover for them.
Her arms grew subtly longer as they turned a pale green. Her hands stayed largely the same, color aside But at each wrist, a claw-like growth formed, folding back along her arms, forming the distinct grip of a praying mantis. Her head changed next, her eyes seeming to shrink at first, before then appearing to grow far, far larger, extending out of her head a good distance. Her newly formed compound eyes each appeared to have large, cute pupils. Her head was re-molded, taking a triangular shape, pushing her eyes out to the sides as her nose shrank away, and her mouth stretched forward. A pair of antennae formed on her head, drooping forward in an adorable way. Finally, a white apron materialized in front of her dress, and a lace headband was formed atop her head.
Everyone kept on playing or listening as if it were nothing special at all for a humanoid spider, mantis, and squid to be onstage. Marceline grinned, and winked one of her smaller eyes at Curt, and mouthed a “thank you” at him. Curt smiled and nodded, adjusting the “modify” setting again, before aiming at the spider woman. He did feel a little sorry that her favorite type of transformation inherently made one unable to remember and appreciate it, but what could he do?
A red bolt streak stuck Marceline, and her conversation with Curt, and her memories of her past, human life, started to feel distant, and unreal, like a dream. A very vivid dream, but just a dream, nonetheless. She could picture, with perfect clarity, a world where her, and all of her bandmates had been human, and in some cases, male. A world where all of them were merely friends or acquaintances of Curt, rather than loyal maids. And she could picture their transformations in body and mind down to the last detail. Yet, despite their realism, she realized they were nothing more than silly dreams and fantasies. Still, they had felt real, enough to give the spider woman a strange sense of satisfaction. She kept on drumming away as she lost herself in her thoughts, without losing her rhythm.
Curt put the gun back in his pocket as the second song drew to a close, accepting this was what Marcelene WANTED, and he'd chosen to oblige her, even if he worried Skyla might be rubbing off a LITTLE on him.
“Hey,” Skyla whispered, “what about the guitarist?”
“He’s got a girlfriend.”
“Aw… Oh well.” Curt was surprised to hear Skyla put up so little fuss. “Wouldn’t want to break up a couple…”
Curt smiled at Skyla understanding.
Then a flash of inspiration twinkled in Skyla’s eyes. "Then zap the girlfriend!"
"No."
"Oh pooh."
The rest of the concert went on smoothly, and the frat boys didn’t even get that rowdy. Once most of the audience had cleared out, Curt and the girls approached the band again.
“I just wanted to say thanks for inviting us, again,” Curt said.
“Yeah, you guys all put on a great show,” Danielle said, Vicky nodding in agreement.
“No problem at all, Master!” Cherry said.
“It’s great to have a chance to perform for you,” Kara added.
“Yeah,” Marceline said, “I feel like you help bring out the best in us, and make us stand out more.”
“I know he’s your boss, but aren’t you ladies laying it on a little thick there?” Randy said with a chuckle.
‘Finally someone said it!’ Curt thought to himself.
“I kid, I kid, I know how much he means to you,” Randy continued. “Thanks for coming, Curt. If you ever need a band for anything, be sure to think about hiring us... Well, I guess I’m the only one here NOT on your payroll, so… I guess you can just call me, and I’ll join the four-legged ladies.”
“Thanks. I’ll keep that in mind.”