Emma, Iva, Carrie and Kathy, were all holed up in Kasai’s bedroom alongside the little phoenix girl. The fireproofing spell that had been cast on the room happened to provide enough magical insulation to protect them from the random magic of the strange storm that had been building over the course of the day. But it did nothing to stop the sound of thunder.
Kasai let out a scream as a particularly loud bold rang out, clinging to Carrie in fright.
“Don’t worry, Kasai, you’re safe in here,” Carrie said.
“Yeah, no need to be scared,” Kathy added, “we’re protected.”
“It’s still scary…” Kasai chirped, her grip on the eastern dragoness not loosening.
“Yes, it can be,” Emma spoke up, “But I know you can be brave. You might not remember, but before you were reborn, you’d been through far worse storms than this! You can make it through this too.” She hugged her friend tight.
“Thank you, Emma…”
“Would you like me to read a story to you again?”
“Y-yes…”
“Okay,” Emma pulled a book off the shelf with her magic, and opened it. “Once upon a time, there lived a couple that could not have children…”
+++
Marceline and the rest of Deaf Goldfish had been practicing in an empty guest house further from the mansion when the storm hit. Not having much else to do a the time, they had chosen to stay indoors and wait it out. Then Cherry suddenly coughed, spitting up a shimmering substance onto the floor.
“Hey,” Kara spoke up, “Isn’t that stuff what the mythical maids have been hacking up lately?”
“Maybe…“ Cherry groaned. “All I know is I feel sick all of a sudden.” The squid woman doubled over, seeming to slowly grow larger, even as her large chest began to diminish, and her general face and figure started to look more childlike. More tentacles began to grow from her body, and spiked, bony protrusions grew from each limb, as well.
Marceline suddenly put two and two together. “Guys, bring her to the garage, she’s gonna need a lot of room! I think she’s turning into a kraken toddler!” Ordinarily, she’d have relished a chance to see a real life transformation, but she didn’t want to risk something worse happening to her friend.
Randy and Kara nodded and helped pick up their groaning friend. As they carried her to the garage, despite his better judgement, Randy couldn’t help but think how having a kraken as a band-mate would be SO metal.
+++
The transformed street performers that had been in the park that fateful Saturday were in one of the mansion’s common room, trying to relax. The elephant juggler and the horse stage magician were practicing their acts, while the white tigress, lioness, and monkey were resting and watching.
As the horse woman practiced her rabbit-from-the-hat trick, her eyes suddenly began to glow, and she felt a strange pressure in her forehead. She let out a sneeze, releasing the strange magical discharge the other mythic had been. Then she sneezed again, and again, each once making her shorter, and causing a spiraling horn on her head to grow longer and longer. Her tail stretched longer behind her, the long hairs receding to a simple tuft at the end, while her hooves became cloven. What’s more, she shrank rapidly, looking younger and younger, until she looked barely more than a year old.
As her companions rushed to help her, she sneezed again, suddenly teleporting to the other side of the room. When they saw her again, her out of control magic seemed to place her somewhere else just as quickly. After about a dozen such runarounds, the monkey woman finally managed to get a grip on the poor new unicorn’s snout, stifling her sneeze.
“Fank you…” The unicorn said as best as she could.
+++
In another part of town, Angelica, the Quetzacotl woman, was in her living room, reading. Seemingly out of nowhere the wind seemed to pick up dramatically outside, howling viciously.
‘This storm is picking up fast…’ she thought to herself.
Suddenly, she felt slightly feverish. She got up and slithered toward the refrigerator, to grab a cold pack, but half way there, she realized she it wouldn’t help. Then she realized she had no idea how she knew it wouldn’t help. Then, she began to feel more and more information pouring into her mind, faster than she felt she could process; names, dates, history sciences, mathematics, the arts; it seemed like she knew a little bit of everything!
As her mind was filled to the brim, one thing suddenly became clear; Quetzalcoatl was the god of wind, art, and knowledge. Even without near-omniscience, she could figure out what had happened.
She looked down at the cross on her necklace. If she was suddenly considered a demigod, what did that mean for her own faith? It seemed even she didn’t have all the answers.
+++
Myra Winters did not fear the storm around her. At nine tails, it took little effort for the kitsune to insulate her home against the magic of this strange storm. No, what had worried her was her daughter’s call, telling them her latest human husband, Michel, and their child, Vincent, had both suddenly changed into female Kitsune.
This went against everything she knew about magic, mythic creatures, and humans. She had asked her daughter if she was sure; if her husband and child hadn’t simply become foxes with extra, decorative tails, but no magic. But Myra already knew the answer. She knew her daughter wouldn’t have used the word ‘kitsune’ if they hadn’t also displayed magical abilities.
The elder kitsune paced up and down the halls of her home, past some of her works of art; statues which had once been human before she had improved them. Her mind was rushing in all directions, trying to find some explanation for all of this. No mortal could ever become a mythic by simple magic; even a nine-tailed kitsune, or a demigod had the ability to empower a mortal like that. So was it the work of a god? Or some force beyond their comprehension? In any case, it worried her.
She paused from her thoughts, and took a moment to admire her works of art. Their transient flesh traded for a beauty that would never fade, their meaningless, confusing lives given purpose by her, with just a few adjustments to their minds, no longer needing food or sleep. Knowing that she could improve humanity in some small way like this gave her a sense of comfort, even in confusing times like these.
Which is why seeing them suddenly start to shift back to flesh and blood shocked her all the more.
As the enchanted humans-turned-statues absorbed energy from the RDF, a woman she’d turned into a jade statue of a snake became a cobra woman clad in a maid dress. A man she’d made into a muscular-looking marble statue became a busty puma with an amazonian figure. A small fountain shaped like an eastern dragon, that had once been a lonely teenager, suddenly took that form for real, becoming a toddler of the same species.
All three blinked and took in their surroundings and new forms, their memories of their old lives not as thoroughly changed as those that had become maids by the gun’s direct influence.
Myra was taken aback. Was she losing her mind? Her enchantments had not only been undone, but it had happened without any trace of magic that she could detect. And not only that, the eastern dragoness gave off an aura of genuine magic that she had never displayed as a human or a statue.
“How? How were you changed without any magic?”
“I’m not really sure, myself” The cobra woman said.
“Do you know where Master is?” The little eastern dragon asked.
“Master? Do you mean Master Curtie?”
“Yeah, that’s him,” The puma said. “I think the spell was broken so we could serve him better as maids.”
“To serve Master?” Myra’s mind raced. While her nature as a maid meant she had no objections to Master using the people she had turned into statues as maids, that still didn’t answer the question of how. Just what was going on here?
+++
Curt, Anna, and Skyla sat in the cabin, playing a game of Risk to pass the time, and try to keep their minds off things. A beeping noise came from the plastic gun again.
Curt sighed. “I wonder what’s gone wrong now?” He picked it up, noticing a message on the holographic UI about a “Free!!! Upgrade.”
“By popular request, we have added a new feature to our Furry Transformation Ray Gun, in all universes it has been released in! This free upgrade adds a Maid Profile, allowing the user to view information on any maid they have changed so far, including the settings used to change them, their age, occupation (only if they are more specialized, or are not full time maids), and other potentially useful information. To access, simply tap the profile icon, next to the “Progress to next Upgrade Bar.” This will bring up the Profile Menu.
“On the profile Menu, you can scroll through and select from your list of profiles. This list can be filtered by species, age range, Busty/Adorable and Nude/Maid toggle settings, and occupation. You may also type in a name to filter results. Finally, by clicking the the Target icon, the gun will automatically bring up the profile of any maid it is pointed at.
“We hope you find this feature useful. Have a nice day!”
“Well, at least its not another message about how the fallout’s making things worse. And it’s actually kinda useful, too.” Curt muttered.
Even as he turned his focus back to the game, he couldn’t help but think about the implications of the perception filter failing. While he doubted that some sort of SCP-style organization would suddenly show up, quarantine and "disappear" the city and every anthro in it, there was still the worry that as the perception of anthros as normal faded, all the maids would be facing serious discrimination at best, or be considered completely non-human at worst. At least now he had enough money that he could probably hire the best lawyers out there to try and make things easier for them, should the worst .
He looked over at Alexis and Naomi. Naomi at least seemed to be calming down a little, thanks to the help of Pearl and the interns in the cabin. Alexis, though, didn’t seem to be sleeping easy. He couldn’t help but feel responsible for all this mess. Hopefully, when this storm passed, he’d have some way to help make things right.