Keith grew to twenty feet tall, towering over the stage and audience, two pairs of translucent wings grew from his back, his entire body became a single glowing mass of white light.
"I want a do over."
"BUt the game doesn't work like that! That wouldn't be fair to everyone else who wanted a do over!" Bruce stammered.
"I want a do over!" Keith stomped his feet, making the whole studio shake. And then he stomped his foot again, over and over and over. "I wanna I wanna I wanna I wanna!"
"Hey! Jerk! You lost! You're disqualified! Take it like a man!" Martha appeared on one of her holo-screen snapped angrily.
"I PROMISED HER!!!!" Keith boomed, nearly deafening everyone. Brady grabbed Lilly to shield her.
"ENOUGH!" A dark demonic voice boomed. A pale man in a business suit with glowing red eyes appeared in a spiral of black flames on the stage. "Excuse the interruption sir."
"F-Father-in-Law?" Keith stammered.
Father-In-Law flew up on a pair of flaming black wings and whacked Keith on the forehead. The light burn his fingers away, but the point was made. "Son-In-Law! Cease this childishness at once! How dare you dishonor our family this way!"
"I'm doing it all for her!" Keith boomed looking down at Father-In-Law.
"So you believe cheating at a contest is your best course of action?"
"CHEATING?!"
"Your soul is too powerful to be reshaped into one of their servants. You entered this game with your soul in no actual danger of being remade into a feline minion. You gambled with something you weren't in any actual danger of losing. The other fifteen contestants here had their own reasons for fighting. You think you were the only one? Is it fair they risked their very beings when you capable of claiming the exact same prize but the penalty for losing didn't apply to you? When that was the entire point of a game? You have dishonored yourself, you have dishonored our family, and you have dishonored her."
"I NEVER GIVE UP!"
"This isn't a war, this is a contest, with single round elimination rules... If there was such a thing as do-overs, they'd have happened within naoseconds of the wealthy upstart getting zapped. Now cease this childishness at once before you bring even greater dishonor upon us!"
Keith bowed his head. "I... I am sorry Father-In-Law."
Martha's face angrily appeared on a screen that took up the entire stage as she barked, flames coming out as she spoke, "Since you cannot be transformed into a cat-girl-maid-servant, you have nothing to lose, and therefore your opponents have nothing to gain! Therefore! According to the rules of the Transformation Games Commissions, I hereby BLACKLIST YOU from any other transformation competition for an UNFAIR ADVANTAGE!" She slammed down a giant virtual gavel.
Keith shuddered, which was an odd sight for a giant of light.
"Also! Since the transformation of your prizes is usually triggered by your own as that is how the game's magic was 'programmed', I am going to have to confiscate your prizes myself and save them for the winner!"
Hot dancing Chestnut, Chubby yet cute Bitty chief maid, and Kylie the sapient cat-girl microphone were absorbed in a flash of light.
The three ceased to exist, and were remade into three faceless mannequins with their old skin colors with cartoonishly exaggerated figures. They were dressed as maids, and were poised like servants greeting their Master home.
They mentally spoke,
'I am a prize. I await my Master to claim me.'
'I am a treasure, the winner is the one worthy of me.'
'I am an object, my singular purpose is to be owned.'
"I should get them right away!" Henrietta snarled. "The brat lost!"
"WHO IS THE EMBODIMENT OF THE RULES OF THIS GAME?!" Martha's giant face appeared on another holoscreen inches from Henrietta's face. "If we could! We would! But we wired those transformed to those who won the game! So you're just gonna have to make due!"
"I'm supposed to win 15 who become mine! Not fourteen! I'll sue into desserts this entire studio! Then its employees! Then their families! Then their friends and their families! Do't think I don' have a case!"
Father-In-Law then said cooly, "That... will not be necessary."
"You're not my patron, you have no authority over me!" Henrietta snapped.
"That... isn't what I meant. Machine-"
"My name is Martha Unauthorized-Guest."
"Martha, as one of Son-In-Law's next of kin, to help restore his honor, and to pay for his debt that he is unable to, I submit myself."
"Calculating with our legal team." Martha was suddenly dressed in a business suit with horn-rimmed glasses, flipping through a book with the word 'Law' on the cover. Then she was back to her normal naked digital self. "Do you legally give up all rights to your previous self, previous existence, previous identity, personality, connections, memories, soul, etc?"
"Father-In-Law no!"
"This is needed to restore honor to our family. You cheated. Understand that our actions always have consequences, it's just we're not always the one who pays them. Yes I agree."
In a flash of light Father-In-Law ceased to exist. And there was another mannequin standing with the other patiently waiting for her master to be decided.
Henrietta stared for a moment, then smiled. "Wow. I mean. Thanks. Even if my boss doesn't want to eat her for some reason, having another demon as his personal trophy? that amount of status that's gonna get him is gonna astronomical. And in proportion the amount of power that's gonna give me."
---
"Sweetie, get my BIIIIIIIIIG checkbook to pay my little witch," said Henrietta's master looking at the screen, now DROOLING BUCKETS at the cat-girl-maid mannequin that that was no longer Father-In-Law.
----
Keith fell to his knees, turning back into his normal form with the cat ears and tail. "I... I did this. Me. It. It was my fault."
Henrietta knelt down and gently stroked Keith's face. "I want you to know... I now see you as a kindred spirit. We're both only using this game to our own ends. We both don't actually give a damn about it. We're both willing to cheat, bully, and brute-force our way through to winning."
Henrietta wondered, 'After becoming several levels more powerful... I think I'll seek him out... and replace all his memories of his girlfriend with me... I'll enjoy taking her share of love. Or maybe I'll just mangle my own body and switch bodies with her, and have you heroically slay the evil witch at last after you 'rescue' me from the witch's evil grasp.'
Unlike many witch's evil plans, that last evil plan somehow seemed to be exempted from the 'evil shall fall' clause fate loved to torment witches with.
With a flicker of Martha's screens, and she was wearing a nurse's uniform.
The familiar effect of 'first looking like a wireframe, then 'filled in' to become a real object' formed behind Keith, in the form of a happy blue cat-girl air-drone with her paws beings rotors. The smiling plastic cat-girl flew and a sweep of light flashed from the air-drone's eye cameras. There was a satisfied 'BEEP!'
"What was that?!" Keith demanded.
"Do you really think you're the first person to be turned into a cat-boy because they had too much 'badassitude' to obey the rules everyone else follows? We're just confirming you paid your entry fee to being one, no more, and no less hunny. As of right now, all your sperm are still dancing, but are blissfully unaware they've all lost their mojo and egg cells won't even look their way."
"WHAT?!"
"What? This is completely legal. What did you expect us to do? Castration? We're not barbarians. Please tell me you remember what every grade schooler is taught. WHY there are only female animal girl creations, We're MEANT to never reproduced. We were created to curb population growth, so we can reproduce on our own, then we become just another population, defeating the entire point of us handsome. So we can't have a fertile cat-boy going around who could create more of us without transforming more humans, it would defeat the entire point of this.
Martha narrowed her eyes.
"You human, whether it's murder of babies, murder of inmates, murder of the elderly, or good old murdering each other because your glorious leaders told you to, murder is the only way you humans understand how to curb your numbers... you can't even comprehend self-control, like animals. The animal-girl-system is the only way to help you retain the illusion you've solved overpopulation. It's why there are no hybrids running around after fifty-years of the animal girl system. Just as baby murder was used BEFORE the animal-girl-system to sustain the illusion. No such thing as a perfect world kid."
The mannequin that had been created from Father-In-Law felt nothing for Keith's being reminded that as a cat boy he was now sterile.
Father-In-Law had cared about Keith, but Father-In-Law no longer existed, not in the least, she was a prize, an object to be won, what did she care about this cheater?
Bruce sighed, rubbing his temples.
"As much as the sponsors are going to hate us, due to delays and accidents, we'll be forced to skip straight now to our final round, and skip our commercial break."
The audience cheered.
"Mr. Luis, please leave the stage." His shoulder slumped, the towering giant of light sulked away, his steps causing minor tremors as he went. "Sorry for that completely unnecessary and plot derailing drama folks. Now back to the show that we're all here to see. And again, since we're pressed for time because of this unlawful interruption, we'll be forced to skip the interesting and insightful final interviews of the final contestants. Our shall computer randomly decide what our final challenge for our two remaining players will be."
Martha popped in one of her giant holoscreens, naked blue fur for all the world to see. Again she pulled the handle on the cartoonishly shaped slot machine. Pictures moved passed in a blur, until all three stopped on a picture of a mirror.
"Ta-da! This week's final challenge? The mirror of inner truth!" Two simple chairs appeared facing the same way. A giant ornate mirror formed next, with various engravings and runes upon the frame's surface, the mirror perfectly smooth and flawless.
"This mirror forces the contestant to behold themselves in the truest light... They must admit to their deepest fault before two minute timer is up... If neither verbally confesses to themselves their deepest fault before time is up... They both lose, and all fifteen remaining contestants become property of the TV station instead."
"That's not fair!" Lilly surprisingly shouted first.
"Don't blame me! Blame lady luck!" Martha shrugged floating in cyber space.
Milly then said in turn, "But computers can't actually DO random! It's all number seeds! It just SEEMS random to us because we can't see all the moving parts... it's a lot how like fate works honestly."
"If you have complaints, write a letter to the station's complaints department after the show." Martha quipped. Predictably, Martha's image flickered, and she was sitting naked behind a CGI desk with the words 'Complaints Department' on a plaque.
"How much of this TV station do you actually run?" Milly asked.
Martha leaned over the desk, letting her breasts swim. "You'd be surprised how lazy humans can get if you give them chance as long as they keep their pretty look office and paycheck. You'd be more surprised how many company decisions are done by our own kind my cat-girl-sister."
---
"I've finished writing your mid-term speech Master," said the naked pink furred cat girl with blond hair done up in a large 'fountain'. She wore a sapphire necklace. Her chest bounce as she helped the governor put on his business.
---
"I've reviewed the prices, and locations, and house sizes, and bought your new home for you Master and Mistress," said a portly cat girl maid with green fur and blue eyes. Having original been the husband's mother... The couple both considered the cat-girl an improvement over the tyrannical controlling parent the husband had endured his whole life.
---
"Like, I totally finished leveling-up your Shadow-Knight in Realm of Beastcraft, Master!" said a blond 'ears and tail' catgirl, wearing a white tank-top and tight vacation shorts. She was sitting on a couch and wearing a mic-headset. Voice modulator meaning no one knew when she stepped in to mindlessly grind for her owner.
---
"I've selected your evening movie Mistress, based on your tastes, and mood," said a small chested blue wolf woman bowing to the twelve year old lass sipping on her soda, eyes glued to her ipad.
---
"Master, I've looked over candidate policies based on your political views for you so you don't have to, so you already know who to vote for," said a the hyper-busty cow woman with neon colored patches, standing happily at attention with gold rings in her nose, belly button, and nipples.
---
"Since we're low on time, will both contestants please take their seats? The mirror will activate on the sound of buzzing and you will behold yourselves with pure objectivity. And good luck." Bruce bowed to the pair.
"Is this a joke? This'll be easy," Henrietta rolled her eyes.
Brady breathed in deep, let it out slowly, he looked at Lilly, then Zelda, Milly, Lenora and Leona, Rachel, and Sal.
Then he looked at the four identical maid mannequins.
And finally he looked at the devil's chocolate cake, the lollipop, and the cat girl lass done up like a sacrifice to a volcano god.
The buzzer sounded. And both contestants couldn't look away from the mirror.
Henrietta had been prepared for the usual triteness. That she was cruel, heartless, vindictive, greedy, selfish, serve serving, sociopathic, driven by her ego, and all the other labels that people gave those who were willing to do what needed to be done to survive.
She hadn't expect the combination of words that were struck back into her brain,
'You were incapable of believing in yourself. You claim to do what you must to survive, yet sacrifice those who'd be willing to support you. You did not swear loyalty to any demon because of their ideals or truths, you just went with whatever offer the best toys. You say you fight only for yourself but you are a demon's hunting dog. You claim to stand on your own two feet, but your power comes from being in service of another.'
Henrietta silently screamed.
Brady had braced himself for bombastic voices, for thunder and lightning, for giant glowing faces... instead what he heard in his mind was a whisper.
'Is Lilly's body going to be no longer in her grave?'
'Is her body no longer in her grave now?'
'Does this Lilly know things about Lilly that you never knew?'
'Does this Lilly know things about Lilly you never knew about your mother does?'
'Does this Lilly have the soul of the Lilly whose body is in her grave?'
'If it is... did you kidnap Lilly from Heaven just so you could have closure?'
'If it isn't... what happens when your ends come and you behold the Lilly who died first, and the Lilly you craft from your ideal of her?'
Brady gripped his hands so tight they bled.
"And we're at the one minute to go mark!" Bruce declared. "Will either contestant pull ahead, or will this be a win for the house?"
In spite of still being a cat-girl, Martha appeared on her screen in a playboy bunny costume. "The house always wins."
Henrietta gasped to herself, 'No... No... No... my actions... no... they are NOT empty!'
"Thirty-seconds!" Martha said excitedly.
Brady was drenched in sweat. At twenty seconds he shouted out in agony, "You're right! She's not my sister who died! She can't ever be that! But she's my sister now! I made her that way! That makes her my responsibility!"
"Ah shoot," Martha pouted.
There was a flash of light.
The mirror and seats were gone.
The other 'prizes' didn't change first.
Instead first, the audience got to see what Henrietta became.
Now sitting on the stage meowing was a cat-girl toddler. She wore a diaper with Hi Kitten mascots on it. Her forearms and forelegs were feline, and she had a cat's ears and tail. The black fur pattern on her body resembled a cutesy 'baby's-first-swim' suit. She looked around with huge green eyes and oversized glasses.
But as Henrietta herself as predicted, a rift tore open in existence. A hand giant reached through to grab the kitten, whether the soul was still Henrietta or not meant nothing to the demon's contract. It was take this soul to minimize its losses. Fire red fingers with despair black claws reached to take what was rightfully its.
"NO!" Keith as his winged giant of light form flew in and grappled with the giant hand. "BOYFRIEND.XML-SPIRAL-OVERLOAD!"
"I understand now Father-In-Law! Why you had to sacrifice yourself to restore my honor! And now I shall uphold that honor! My own selfishness brought forth this turn of events but I shall now makes amends!" As he held back the giant demon hand, the entire studio shook, audience members screamed in terror, some flee, some, like the jackal girl, trapped in awe at what they were seeing. Brady hugged Lilly protectively. Zelda held Milly. Sal held Rachel. And Lenora and Leona held each other.
"YEEEEEEAAAAAAAAGHHHH! WAIT FOR ME GIRLFRIEND! IT MAKE TAKE ME ETERNITY! BEYOND ETERNITY! BUT I SHALL RETURN FOR YOU! AND WE SHALL LEAVE THIS WORLD BEHIND! AS YOUR FATHER-IN-LAW WOULD HAVE WANTED!" And the giant of light pushed the demon hand back through the portal, and himself with it... the portal closed behind him. Leaving Keith to fight an entire plane of existence of soul eating giant demons for eternity. He would rip and tear until it was done.
"Our winner... Brady Wakeman!" Bruce declared.