It was going to be a party to remember
Ever since the release of nanite technology and its transformative properties to the public, people the world over had been vying for its use. The scientific, industrial, and military applications were endless. Though a small percentage of the technology was available to the public via legal means, its uses were limited to a variety of pre-programmed forms that could be paid for per use from a licensed supplier. With the regulations on the technology, the changes would only last a limited amount of time; permanent transformations were not possible with the restrictions. With the cost of legal transformations so expensive, very few parties could afford it, and fewer still who could afford it even wanted to.
Still, there was a small circle among the very rich who did enjoy purchasing nanite technology for recreational transformative use. The Ayres family. consisting of husband Victor, wife Sarah, and their two daughters Terry 22, and Emily 16, were one such family. The couple had been fascinated with the prospects of the technology for as long as its knowledge had become public. Both had spent millions on various luxurious vacations the world had to offer, but doing so as a different species opened up a whole new world to them. Since its legal release, they had used the nanites to spend vacations in the Bahamas as merfolk, to go flying with the wings of dragons, and run the plains as centaurs or horses.
One new trend among their friend circle was to use the nanites for lavish parties, each with a theme that attendees would have to abide by. One had been based on horror icons, another had been animals long since extinct. And for this years’ Halloween, the Ayres family was hosting a themed transformation party, mythical beasts and costumes come to life.
Their children had different thoughts about their parent’s activities. Terry had no desire to use the technology so drastically; she was content to use it for simple body modifications, ones to make her look more womanly, more attractive in the eyes of her peers. Her parents deemed this a waste of money, however. Such minor changes would only be temporary, after all, and there was no point making her look slightly more attractive when at the same cost she could spend a weekend as a mare, a hawk, a dolphin. Therefore, though Terry still lived at home, she seldom took interest in her parent’s escapades.
Emily was a different matter. She had begged and begged to be allowed to change with her parents, being absolutely fascinated with the idea. They’d considered her too young; the legal age of nanite usage was 16, and she had only recently come of age. But with the Halloween party coming up, Emily had redoubled her efforts, pleading with her parents to be allowed to use the nanites with them.
“Would it be so bad, to let her try it? It’s done wonders for us,” Victor argued, a week before the planned event. “She’s of legal age, after all, and if we don’t let her try it supervised, how do we know she won’t try it somewhere else?”
Sarah scoffed. It was like her husband was arguing for letting their daughter try drugs! It wasn’t like nanite technology was so cheap she could get it off the streets! Still, there was some truth to his words the more she pondered them. Emily would be supervised, after all. And many other teens in their circles had been allowed to become animals for short periods. Surely she had heard of the experiences from other girls her age.
Finally, after a few more nights of pestering from their persistent daughter, they finally relented and had her invited into the study to discuss the terms of her transformation. Emily had come fully prepared with an image of the creature she wished to become, smiling that her parents had finally considered her request.
“This. This is what I want to be,” she said excitedly, passing the pad to her parents, who looked at the image of what could only be described as a Cerberus, a three-headed dog with wings and a scorpion tail. This was too much! Sarah shook her head in refusal, passing the pad to her husband, who had a similar reaction. Both parents regarded each other with looks of disgust. They figured she’d picked a unicorn, a mermaid, something girly. But this? Was a three-headed creature even possible for the nanites? They quickly found, much to their chagrin, that it was indeed in the catalog of nanite programs they could choose from. Who had designed this creature!?
“But why? Of all the animals you could change into, why this?” Sarah asked her, hoping to at least get a straight answer from their youngest daughter.
Emily blushed, saying it was a simple wish to be something that looked like it could protect her family. In truth, however, her desire was a little deeper than that. Emily admired her older sister for many years, even though Terry did not always reciprocate her affections. She knew Terry was going dressed as a witch. She not only wanted to be a witch’s familiar but in this form of a massive beast that would protect Terry from harm, scare off any that would dare cross her path. It was silly, childish maybe, but it was a dream she’d had ever since she was a little girl and this was the chance to finally live out that fantasy for real.
Her parents looked at her, handing back the pad before telling her they’d consider her request. In truth, they wanted to give her time to pick something else, and over the next several days dropped hints around dinner of just that. Emily shot down any suggestions they had each time, her mind made up.
In the end, both parents decided there was really no harm in letting their daughter turn into such a beast, not really. Some of their attendees had decided on forms just as strange so such a thing wouldn’t be out of place in the slightest at this particular function. Hell, maybe Emily would give some of their friends a much-needed scare for all Hallow’s Eve.
The deal was that they were to watch Emily’s transformation, to ensure nothing went wrong, which meant she would have to change earlier and stay in the back before the party. Emily, of course, readily agreed to these terms. She sat in bed that night, dreaming of what her temporary body would feel like, to be massive and powerful. And having three heads? What would that be like?
The afternoon before the party, the family had gathered in the study once more, save for Terry, who wasn’t interested in viewing this sort of thing. Emily stood there, holding the injector that would change her into her dream body. She was clad only in a bra and underwear, the bare essentials to preserve her modesty in front of her parents before completing her change.
“You still have time to change your mind dear,” Sarah said. In truth, the program had been purchased already, and there were no refunds. But she would still rather spend the extra money to have her daughter turn into something more normal. Still, in this form, no one at the party would know it was her, at any rate.
With an eagerness to begin, Emily activated the injector for the nanites to change her body. She felt a strange tingling, the sign that the nanites were moving through her system to do their work, and giggled from the sensations. Victor gave her a knowing glance; he had changed himself on many occasions into a variety of forms and knew full well the excitement of a transformation.
The first change for Emily was pulling at her spine, and she giggled gleefully, reaching back to feel the expansion of her body that slowly stretched out into a tail. As it grew she felt the skin harden and stiffen like armor. She smiled; it was the perfect thing for her to be able to protect her family with. It began to arch over her back, the skin around it darkening and hardening into something resembling a chitinous material. She gasped at the sight as the end thickened and a round bulb grew out into a sharp point. A rush of fluid made her aware that it could extrude poison, though it was a facsimile more than anything. The fluid within would not be deadly to anyone as a safety precaution.
Her tail was nearly as long as her body and still growing. She tried moving it, its range of mobility was not as great as she’d like. She could curl it over herself and extend it rapidly, but could not move it back and forth like a canine’s. Still, she loved how dangerous it looked, how it made her feel powerful.
She felt her hands tingling next, dozens of tiny grey hairs sprouting as the skin on her palms thickened and darkened, hardening into black callouses. She giggled in delight as her nails blackened and began to thicken into points, growing longer while her fingers began to shrink and fuse. Her thumb moved up towards the back of her palm, shrinking faster than the rest of her digits into the beginnings of a dewclaw. She watched in fascination as her hands began getting bigger, the fur sprouting faster as she sported massive fluffy canine paws.
Arms bulged with thick muscle as her shoulders rotated forward, her elbows sinking into her growing flanks while her chest began to barrel out. Her shoulders began to ache as something erupted painlessly from the skin on her back, and she delighted in the sensations of bone and leathery skin getting longer, the beginnings of wings.
All the while, fur was spreading up her arms, over her shoulders and back as her breasts flattened and her frame bulked out, snapping the back of her bra strap as it fell uselessly to the floor. She longed to feel how soft the greyish black fur was but, of course, she lacked the feeling in her paws to do so. She resolved to ask Terry about it later, should her sister decide to play along with Emily’s plans.
The beginnings of canine paws formed from human feet, toenails thickening as black calloused skin formed over the soles of her feet. Her large toe rotated upwards, becoming a dewclaw as the rest of her toes shrank and expanded, mirroring her fully formed front paws. She felt the backs of her feet fill with that same fluffy grey fur as her heel extended. A snap in her spine prompted her to lower slowly onto all fours, the position more comfortable for her growing body. Her hips and thighs swelled with muscle, her stomach extended as she put on hundreds of pounds of muscle in mere minutes.
Her wings were taking shape behind her, arms of muscle and bone extending from where her shoulder blades once sat. Emily felt a strange sensation erupt from the tips, as though the fingers were forming. She grinned as she realized she could move them, the new muscles and flesh taking shape with new neural connections. Fur began to spread up the arm, though the fingers themselves were course flesh, like that which covered her body underneath the grey fur. An odd sensation of thin, leathery skin stretched between them as the fingers grew longer, the webbing between the spindly things restricting their separate movement. She realized she probably couldn’t fly with them; her body was far too heavy and they were more or less just for show.
Sarah regarded the transformation with a bit of horror, surprised that a daughter of hers could find such a form so appealing. Yet Victor stared at his daughter’s changing body with admiration. It really was cool looking, and he loved the fact that their daughter seemed so enamored with the form.
At last, the changes began moving towards her head and neck, which remained hilariously small for her new beastly body. A grin crossed her lips as her canines began to expand, growing into sharp predatory points before a stretching muzzle could keep up. Fur spread up her thickening neck, her human hair falling out as luxurious gray spread over her expanding scalp. Ears begin to point, getting longer and larger on her still-growing head, their tips covered with grey fur. A thickened tongue prompted her to drool profusely, salivating at the scents of food she slowly became aware of. An ache in her forehead preceded bumps as the beginnings of her pair of bony bestial horns sticking out of her scalp. Emily blinked a few times as her eyes watered, and when she opened them, the room appeared much more in focus, rather like putting on a new pair of prescription glasses. She was hyper-aware of the moment with the natural reflexes needed for a predator.
Finally, a strange sensation erupted on her broadened shoulders, a lump that was gaining form rapidly, expanding, forcing her shoulders further apart. It was as though she was growing a new neck, the flesh the nanites were providing her carving out the beginnings of her second head. A similar bulge began forming on the opposite side of her head, and Emily growled in delight. She had no idea what it might feel like to have three heads, three sets of sensory information, and was elated to finally experience it first hand.
The bubbles of flesh continued to grow, to thicken and fill with the necessary raw material that would forge a separate set of eyes, ears, a mouth, and even their own brains to process such information. She could feel each side of her new heads expanding, could see them out of the corners of her current eyes as they took shape beside them. The ends of the flesh stretched out into a shape similar to her muzzle, and she could see the beginnings of new ears and horns. She suddenly became aware of the new heads; not just their presence, but the fact that they were blind, deaf, and mute was deeply concerning.
As the changes continued she felt the flesh on each head begin to hollow out, the bizarre sensations from both sides of her body at once. Her skull took shape, the canals leading all the sensory information to her brain from where her new ears, eyes, and nose would be. Her spine split and extended up her new neck, providing spinal column support and the connections for her new brains. In shock, Emily found she could now move the new heads with the same range of motion as her main head,
A slit on each side of her new mouths opened, and Emily gasped at the sudden intake of air from all three mouths. Breathing had never been so easy! Blackened gums itched as new teeth, a new tongue, esophagus, and nasal pathways appeared without within new canine muzzles. On either head, a pair of ears opened up and a set of horns sprouted out as well, stretching to match the ones on her first canine head.
All of a sudden her vision whited out and she shook her head-no, heads in unison, trying to eliminate the distortion. Sounds and scents quickly took over, though she had an easier time acclimating to those. Her canine sense of smell was still beyond her, but the sounds of her parents, the house, and the outdoors were simply enhanced. Sounds emanating from various directions provided her with an echo she could easily pinpoint.
Slowly, she opened her eyes on her middle head, then the next two sets in sequence to better allow her new body to adjust. Fortunately, by that point, the neural connections in her two forming heads had formed, and she was much better adept at making sense of the three different images around her. It was so strange, having three heads. Yet she didn’t feel a separate conscious from each, as though her mind still controlled the entire body. That was how the nanites worked, after all. In a sense, her ‘soul’ was distributed in the nanites, not within any of the three heads specifically. Still, it took some getting used to making sense of all the incoming information, though her three brains coordinated it well in a short period of time.
Afterward, Victor had her taken outside; he didn’t want to spoil the guests’ surprise at her form and wanted to respect the privacy of their daughter by not revealing that she had chosen this form. That, and he and his wife had their own transformations to complete, and wanted to perhaps enjoy some intimacy in the process, as was often the case with their nanite vacations.
Left to her own devices, Emily regarded the outside world with her new senses, adjusted to the integrated sensory overload from her multiple nostrils and eyes. There were so many things to see, to explore from these new perspectives! Yet she knew she had to be ‘good’ and stay put; otherwise, she might not be allowed to change again until she was 21! Still, she loved the sensations of nanite transformation and wanted to try it again as soon as possible after tonight.
Even from simply the backyard, however, there was more than enough information to keep her occupied. Her sense of smell and hearing were already amplified from the abilities of her canine body, and Emily spent a fair bit of time exploring those even in the limited space. She could decipher who had been here in the past few days, every animal, every trace of any being that had been here. Just as acute, her ears could detect sounds for miles. Stranger still, her separate sets of ears could twitch independently, pinpointing the source of any sound with much more ease than a normal canine. Most of all she enjoyed having three sets of eyes. She had the best of both worlds; a wide range of vision, such as prey animals with eyes on the sides of their head, but a predatory stare from each head, meaning she received amazing visual details from three areas at once! There would be no sneaking up on her while in this form!
Curious, she looked up at her house, her sister’s room visible from the backyard. Emily lamented she couldn’t fly up to the window like she wanted, though, there were ways to get Terry’s attention. She was to be her sister’s keeper for the night after all. Howling and barking, she was sure Terry could hear her. Though her sister was aware she was to transform, she didn’t know the exact form Emily had planned to take. She hoped it wouldn’t shock Terry too much!
Terry heard the growling for the yard below as she regarded her own costume in the mirror, getting that last look down pat. She had decidedly made her appearance as ugly as she could, no small part in defiance of her parent’s lack of consent in buying her nanites to improve her human appearance. Reflected back at her was the stereotypically ugly witch, thick nose heavy with warts, tattered robe, and matted hair. But her strong, tall body rocked the look nonetheless. She didn’t appear frail or weak, rather wise and powerful.
Distracted from admiring herself in the mirror, Terry looked down, startled by the noise. The beast she saw nearly gave her a heart attack. The monstrosity had three heads, horns, broad wings, and a thick insectoid tail. Was that Emily? Why did she become that monstrous beast?
“Emily?” she called down, and a glint in the creature’s eye responded to her name. Terry stared at her sister with a mix of fascination and horror. Against her better judgment, she went down into the backyard, regarding the magnificent beast that her sister had become up close. She approached nervously but was shocked to see Emily bow before her, whining lowly and rubbing her furthest head gently at Terry’s thigh. It had the desired effect, giving Terry a look of excitement. The brilliant idea crossed her mind then; how would she look with such a beast at her side at the party? The continued gleam in Emily’s six eyes was all she needed to confirm that her sister had the same idea…
******
Later that evening, the courtyard of the Ayres family home was a glow in a parade of mythical creatures the world had never seen. There were centaurs, pegasi, minotaurs, werewolves, vampires, demons, merfolk in the swimming pool, and even a dragon! Not a single human guest was allowed to be present, save for children of the invited guests that were too young to legally transform. Of course, extra staff had been employed to wait on and even clean up after some of the messier species but still, it was a party to be remembered by the gathering of transformed attendees.
Mrs. Ayres looked stunning as a naga, her upper body mostly human, save the two extra pairs of limbs that made her appear more like a deity. Her lower body slithered along the courtyard, gathering welcomed stares from her guests. Mr. Ayres was stunning too; a massively muscled minotaur, thin loincloth all that stood between him and the envy of most of the other males in attendance. The pair introduced themselves, of course, as the hosts of the event they needed to be recognized. But part of the fun was trying to figure out who was who among the other invited guests.
Waiting till most of the guests had arrived in order to make her entrance, Terry walked out into the courtyard, Emily in tow. She couldn’t help but grin at the stares everyone was giving her; even in the collection of beasts the three-headed demon dog her sister had become stood out in all the right ways! The three-headed beast growled and barked menacingly at anyone who approached too close. Even knowing she couldn’t harm them nonetheless made them nervous of her demeanor.
Not everyone was afraid of her beastly familiar, however. A teen girl, likely 15 or 16 herself and dressed in a simple vampiress gown, approached slowly, more curious than terrified. Terry recognized the girl as one of Emily’s classmates, the daughter of one of her parent’s rich friends. The girl saw the massive guard dog in tow of a powerful witch, and instead of recoiling in fear, she reached out towards the beast. Emily knelt down to encourage the girl to come closer.
“See anyone you recognize in those faces?” Terry asked, teasingly, looking for the hint of recognition in the girl’s face. She blushed, indeed having some idea of who might be in that body. But there was no way Emily would do something like that, was there?
Yet, she had to know for sure. “Emily?” She asked directly to the beast’s center head. Grinning a wide-toothed canine grin, the beast nodded all of her heads in unison, the motion making her a little dizzy. It had the desired effect, however, as her classmate squealed in delight at such a fascinating body her friend had chosen for the evening.
Petting the seemingly gentle beast, the girl ran back towards the crowds of mythical beasts gathered. Pointing to the beast Emily had become, she yelled, “Mom, that’s what I want to be, is it too late?” She asked her mother, a beautiful centaur that was in the midst of a conversation with a satyr and an ogre. Her mother regarded the magnificent three-headed beast for a few moments, as she pondered her response. She had promised her daughter a change this Halloween, after all, and had already purchased an extra nanite program for her use. And the night was still young……