As Ventus is taken to the dorms, her eyes flutter from exhaustion. So many emotions in such a short time compared to her normal mostly neutral emotions is very taxing upon her. However, she still smiles, tails waving slightly so as to not interfere with anyone else in the HUMVEE.

She reaches behind herself to try and stop her tails before wincing as she feels all the twigs and leaves stuck in her fluff, and she groans before speaking up much louder than normal due to how loud she is hearing the HUMVEE even with her ears compressed against her head, and covered with a helmet.

“I hope there is a large bath there, I don’t think a normal one person bath will work with all of my tails. I’ll manage without a proper brush for now, but I will need one.”

Both of the soldiers in the HUMVEE pause before laughing loudly. Speakers in Ventus’ borrowed helmet spark to life as the driver says “Miss, you care more about getting clean and filling your belly than whatever you may have to do in service to the country you live in and those that are allied with it? Certainly an interesting choice”
After biting her lip gently, she laughs “I mean yeah. It’s not like I’ll have to do anything too crazy, and I’m sure the pay will be better than when I had a job. So I think I can focus on trying to make a good impression on those I meet, which means I need a bath, and food.”

Laughing more, the soldiers return to monitoring the road and driving.The HUMVEE is much slower than what cars were in Ventus’ memories, but she attributes it to being cautious in case of monsters instead of something being wrong. 

Several minutes of no conversation pass before a giant manor can be seen, which the HUMVEE pulls up to, stopping at the gate and getting scanned in. Looking around while they are stopped, she can easily see the edge of one of the cracks leading into the cavern just ten feet from the road on the opposite side from where they are. “Why are we so close to the caverns? What if they expand more?”

The one that scanned them in chuckles and gestures for Ventus to disembark, while grabbing the packed up technology to bring for analysis. “The crack has yet to expand in the past five months, and we are fairly certain there will be a surge of Mana from the caverns before such a thing happens, similar to when they first appeared. And before you comment on the name, yes the big wigs named it that due to all of the abilities it grants being similar to magic from fantasy novels”

Holding a hand to her face after taking off her helmet and getting out, she weakly asks “How much?”
The man stands there with a bemused smile on his face “I assume you mean how much did Vincent leave out? Quite a lot. He’s the one most likely to find Awoken, but also the one who will tell them the least. He probably called you a changed or something simple like that. Well you’ll be briefed tomorrow morning, so I won’t go too into detail, but more importantly, where is your luggage?”

The soldier that was sitting in the back approaches and whispers to the gate guard before stepping back, causing the gate guard to look towards Ventus with pity. “The change made it so nothing will fit? That’s unfortunate, but not the end of the world, we can get you a change of clothes. More importantly we have dedicated tailors assigned to modify uniforms for those that awoke more than just mana abilities. Good thing you’re a woman though, the men’s dorms are full to the brim. Looking at the file, you’ll be in room 15, the end of the hall of the east wing.”

Ventus laughs, inwardly worried if the women she’ll be around will notice something is off. Due to her worry of such, she almost misses what the guard says next.

“Ah right, introductions, I’m Todd, and I’m an assistant quartermaster while also dealing with watching the gate at night due to being awoken. I have the ability to hurl fire, so if you see some scorch marks near the canyon, that may have been me.”

Ventus is still swirling around in her own thoughts, but smiles kindly at Todd as she walks past, instinctively sniffing for food and then walking that way. She ends up heading into the west wing, not really noticing that it is the men’s wing until Todd grabs her shoulder, halting her in place.

“Miss Ventus, I wouldn’t recommend you be in this wing, especially at this time of night. Some of the awoken men are, well, overly flirtatious with women, especially their fellow awoken. It hasn’t caused more than minor complaints thus far, but I’d rather not risk it with someone that would grab so many of their fancies. At the risk of sounding rude, you meet mine too.”

Ventus blinks in disbelief and shakes her head before grabbing her stomach again as it growls loudly while her tails droop towards the ground. A blush also covers her face, but barely due to how little energy she has. 

“As strange as that all is, and while flattering, I’m not interested. What I am interested in is the delicious food I smell this way, not the other.”

Todd pales at that statement, and the thunder-like growling of Ventus’ stomach. Urgently, he  starts guiding Ventus towards the actual mess hall, which is in the north wing, rather than the west of the men, or the east of the women. “We need to get food into you now, before you lose control. We don’t know the reason behind it yet, but what you were smelling was dense concentrations of mana, in this case, other awoken. It happens when an awoken enters a starvation state. Something about it causes others’ mana to smell like the finest meal you’ve ever had due to how killing something with mana makes you absorb some of it for whatever reason.”

Speeding up towards the direction she was being led, tripping a couple of times both due to the haste and lack of focus on her vision, Ventus whispers loudly, “Why didn’t Vincent mention that then? He knew I was hungry to the extent that my stomach was growling like thunder. I don’t want to eat someone.”

Todd laughs at Ventus’ comment as he is typing orders into his com unit, somehow not falling despite the lack of attention on where he’s going. “Sounds like Vincent will get demoted again with how dangerous that sort of thing is. Stupid of him for not even thinking of that, given he’s the reason we even know this happens in the first place.”

Upon stepping into the mess hall there is a grand chandelier hanging from the ceiling in the middle of the room. Along the West and North walls, there are counters filled to the brim with slightly cool food due to the time. Ventus immediately grabs a tray and heaps on food. Getting a bit of everything, before starting to eat as she stands at the counter, not even caring about utensils. As she eats,  her tails sway from the gentle pleasure of food. Her ears are twitching in joy before focusing on the conversation consisting of a couple of feminine voices gasping at Ventus’ actions before talking to each other in whispers, asking when a fox had arrived. Stopping mid bite and turning around to stare at the two women, her tails lash out, causing the counter behind her to break. Ventus doesn’t notice though, even as her food spills all over the floor.

The two women, one having devil horns, the other being completely human, look somewhat frightened when they notice Ventus’ glare pointed at them. Alarms begin blaring as spatial distortions begin appearing, cracking the tiles as well as void black cracks in the air form between Ventus and the women, before halting as Ventus takes a deep breath. Soon after the distortions vanish, the alarms silence, while Ventus steps towards the women, teeth bared yet somehow managing to keep control of her mana. Despite the display of cracking space, she has hardly spent anything from her reserves.  Upon getting to the women's table, she in a low voice with a growl mixed in, states “I am not a fox, do not refer to me as one, ever again. If you must refer to me by something other than my name, call me what I am. A kitsune.”

The devil horned woman laughs before mockingly saying “What’ll you do fox? If you touch me you’ll be in trouble.” while the human woman just pales, freezing despite wanting to back away. A slight blush forms despite the fear as she stares at Ventus’ many very fluffy tails.

Grinning with all of her teeth exposed, Ventus states with venom “Oh I was hoping you’d try to push things.” before she makes the devil-horned woman travel along one of the threads of space by wrapping the woman in her mana. The one she picks leads slightly above the chandelier in the center of the mess hall which is where the devil-horned woman reappears. After falling slightly, her clothes get stuck on the chandelier. She ends up hanging there as Ventus sighs and looks towards Todd. “Is there a broom and mop? I’ll clean up the result of my anger, well aside from her” she gestures towards the chandelier, “I don’t know why, but being called a fox seems to step on something intrinsic to me.”

The devil-horned woman loudly shouts “You will let me down right this instant, and then you will be reported to our CO.” before kicking and moving around far too much, trying to get down. All she accomplishes though is causing fragments of the ceiling to chip away around the mounting.

It’s at this point soldiers rush in because of the alarms earlier, only to be waved off by Todd, who explains the situation. They hesitate to leave until Todd pulls rank, and states that this is an awoken matter.

Within seconds of them leaving, Ventus’ sight observes the chandelier falling onto the human woman while Todd gets hit with shards of glass. Because of this, she quickly coats both Todd and the human woman with her power. Causing them to both move along a thread close to them, and landing outside of the mess hall. As soon as she does this, the mounting breaks off of the ceiling. Less than a second later, the chandelier crashes into the floor, fake jewels made of  glass jewels break off and scatter everywhere while the gold folds under the force of the crash. Surprisingly though, despite the damage to the mess hall, the devil-horned woman is fine in terms of health, only scared..

Laughing, Ventus grins at her “Well looks like I won’t be the only one reporting to your CO what with this mess, but it can wait for the morning, I’m exhausted, and I’m still smelling your mana, so I need to finish eating.”

After hearing Ventus’ statement, her eyes widened in surprise and panic. “You don’t have to report to the CO, I’ll manage it, you aren’t in your full mind. The mana hunger as it’s being called really hits us hard. Just eat, please.” desperation heavily evident in her voice, having built to crazy heights, since she doesn’t want to be killed for her mana to be consumed. She also is forgetting that Todd is there, and doesn’t want to be reported.

Ventus walks closer, leaning in and sniffing the air near the devil-horned woman, several times before backing away with a grin as she sees the woman’s expression shift to panic. “Don’t worry, I won’t eat your mana, but don’t insult me again.” 

Upon turning around, she lightly taps the devil horned woman’s nose with one of her many tails. This still sends her stumbling due to Ventus not knowing her full strength. Determined to finish her meal, she piles up another plate and eats quickly while Todd just looks red as a tomato due to anger because  not only was Ventus not fully at fault  because of her new instincts. She also warned the devil-horned woman Tesa. Despite all of that, there was yet another mitigating factor, the mana hunger. With all of those factors, the blame is almost solely on Tesa’s shoulders with only a percent or so being on the human woman, Avery.

After a few minutes of gorging herself, Ventus feels much better. Right after she looks over to Todd, appearing quite awkward “So uhhh, I don’t know what came over me. Perhaps I should just bathe and then sleep,” before laughing nervously, scratching her cheek. She may be willing to give up almost anything, but not the bath.

Todd chuckles, tomato face calming down to a normal pale before typing into his Comm unit.

Glaring at Tesa. Todd states “You should have known not to mess with a new arrival. Eruption statute 1 clause 10, which is the only one fellow awoken need to worry about since otherwise they’re durable enough to not have worries. You have to  listen to any awoken that has experienced bodily changes when they tell you not to call them something. This of course only applies when they warn you, but there were the cameras and several witnesses that can attest to this fact. You especially should have known better because you’ve had a similar outburst when people called you a demon rather than a devil.” 

Right after telling Tesa off, he gestures towards Ventus, leading her towards the women’s baths “You’ll be fine and not get in trouble. The Eruption statutes are the only thing Vincent gets correct, if that tells you anything about how important they are. Tesa will have to clean that whole mess up, and Avery is quite lucky that she didn’t antagonize you more once you told them to not call you that. She followed the statutes well enough so she won’t get in trouble at all. As for overall punishment for Tesa, she’ll likely be docked pay, and prohibited from cavern exploration for a month.”

Tilting her head, her ears partially folded in confusion, Ventus asks, “Why would being prohibited from cavern exploration be a penalty? Also, what are the statutes?”

Smiling while shaking his head, Todd opens the door leading to the baths for the women, pointedly looking away in case someone is there. “To summarize, you just need to be polite, and don’t antagonize the awoken. Most of the rules are for civilians, but for those that changed bodies, the ones for problematic words or phrases are necessary to be seen by everyone. So remember that and you’ll be fine for now. As for why being prohibited is a bad thing. Mana density is highest in the caverns, and while we don’t know all of the effects yet, increasing mana reserves, such as by being in the caverns or killing the beasts in and around them, seems to invigorate the body”

Nodding, Ventus rushes into the bath, no longer able to hold back. With a quickly shouted “Thank you” she slides on the floor as she changes directions to the changing room denoted by signs. The only reason she doesn’t fall when changing directions is because her tails push against the ground to keep her upright. Soon after, a more distant shout from her echoes out “Please have the change of clothes out there, since you needed to grab them anyway.” 

Once she’s in the changing room, she grabs the hem of her dress and lifts it to pull it over her head, but instead it zaps her and changes into a ruby red bikini set with black and silver straps. They cup her new body perfectly. After pulling her hand that was zapped away quickly and blowing on it, she glares into the nearby mirror at her outfit. However, she feels her own mana in the zap, so her glare eases as a smile starts at the corner of her mouth. “You didn’t have to zap me you know, but I’m glad I’ll at least have something on at all times. I wonder why I have clothing made of mana though. At least they’re cute.”

Shrugging at the mystery, she searches for the brushes that surely someone that awoke needed, and after a few minutes finds them, right by the large tub that she had rushed by earlier. Steam rises from it gently, causing Ventus to pause, dipping a toe in before sighing loudly and slipping her foot, and then leg in, lowering herself in fully once her foot touches the bottom. She sits down, letting the hot water soak up to her neck. A soft rumbling noise soon rises from her throat, causing Ventus to giggle in glee “I purr, I actually purr. That’s fantastic.” She then gently moves her fingers through her water covered tails, freeing all of the debris from them. Leaves soon float to the surface before getting caught in the gentle current of the tub and heading to a filter, while the dirt falls to the bottom, slowly mixing with the water and getting siphoned quickly away.

Her throat continues to rumble away when Avery, the human woman that had called her a fox walks in. Pausing with a slightly awed expression on her face as she sees Ventus, she shakes her head to clear her thoughts and continues to the changing room, soon emerging for her own bath in the same tub given the size. Everything is hidden by the steam though, so Ventus doesn’t get an eyeful. Surprisingly Ventus felt somewhat sad about this, as she watches Avery slip into the tub without any preamble, softly whispering “I’m sorry for Tesa” before scooting to the far corner of the large tub.

Shrugging, Ventus just continues to run fingers through her tails, making sure every bit of dirt that was stuck gets out. About half an hour of this passes by as the nearby church bells toll midnight. Standing up slowly, water streams off of her, especially her soaking wet tails. 

As the water rushes off of her, Avery is staring hard enough to melt concrete, taking in every detail of Ventus’ tails, as well as the curves she can see from her position.

Ventus gets out and walks over to the shower, mentally shifting her outfit to cover the inside of her ears, just to be cautious. It works, allowing her to wash all of herself. When Her breasts are freed,  Avery looks away, blushing despite herself.

There is a pause as Ventus looks for soap, shampoo, and conditioner, speaking up to ask Avery where they are. Surprised, Avery looks back, taking another look at Ventus’ form before her brain manages to catch up. “Uh, they’re in the cubby over there. Free to use since the quartermasters keep track of the supply.”

Smiling, Ventus walks over to the cubby, tails waving with each step, stunning Avery once more with the sight of Ventus’ fluff. Upon grabbing the supplies she needs, she heads back to the shower, turning it on while standing out of the spray to not get hit with the initial cold.

Her shower takes twenty minutes more, mostly due to enjoying the feeling of water on her body, though she still ended up using a full bottle of shampoo and conditioner to her tails. It didn’t take much for each, but with nine long tails, it took a full bottle.

Laughter emerges from her as she continues purring, the melodic sound carrying to Avery before she loudly says “Ah I feel so alive with this body. Everything feels so much more intense, and worth living for.” Walking back to the edge of the large tub, she manipulates her outfit to cover her bits and then grabs several towels that she uses to mostly dry her tails. Finally satisfied with how dry they are, she pulls one into her lap and starts brushing it, taking another hour to fully brush all nine of them. Each pull of the brush is met with a low grumbling purr echoing out of Ventus’ throat.

Meanwhile, Avery has been staring the entire time Ventus has been brushing her tails. Heart thumping towards the end, Avery gulps. She wonders both how the purring, since it can only be that, feels and also how soft Ventus’ tails must be with all of the care being put into them. Standing up and walking out of the tub finally, from her neck down she’s as red as a lobster. Wincing with every step, she nervously walks up to Ventus.

Ventus looks up in surprise, not having expected Avery to approach her after what happened. After taking her appearance in for a second though she blushes slightly as her gaze is drawn to Avery’s breasts, larger than they appeared when covered. Frowning as she sees how red Avery is, she asks “Why’d you stay in so long? I don’t bite” a pause “Well when I’m in control I don’t bite, let’s put it that way. Mana hunger is scary now that it has passed for me.” 

After a moment of thought, she giggles and bares her teeth slightly towards Avery, grin apparent as she teasingly adds,  “That is, unless you want me to bite, or lick, or nibble. I felt how you were staring at me the entire time you’ve been in here,” before ending the conversation with a wink.

Gulping once again, her rising blush causes Avery’s head and neck to turn the same lobster red as her overheated body. Avery tentatively reaches towards Ventus’ tails, unable to stop herself due to wanting to feel the fluff. Thankfully, before she touches Ventus’ tails, she remembers to ask  “May I feel your tails?” Only for Ventus to suddenly stand up, having just finished brushing the last.

“I’d rather not, if my ears make me feel weird when others touch them, my tails are probably worse. Especially since I’ve been purring for the past hour due to brushing them. Also, probably not the best to ask a Kitsune you called a fox only a few hours ago for a favor.”

Pausing, she flicks her tails to get the last bit of water out, and allowing the cared for fluff to expand, she adds in a whisper “Besides, I don’t know if you’d care for me like my partners do, despite the distance between us.”

Then, without another word, Ventus grabs one last towel, carefully dries her ears before getting the rest of her body. With but a thought and connecting her mana to it, her outfit turns into a pair of short pajama bottoms and a pajama top. Ruby red with threads of silver and black twisting across in a seemingly random way. There are more silver and black threads than there were in the bikini.

Walking past Avery to get out of the baths, Ventus allows two of her tails to gently brush against Avery’s hand, shivering at the tingle that shoots through her spine, but Ventus doesn’t let her little teasing of Avery affect her visibly.

Outside of the baths, she sees clothes on the ground. Smiling, she picks all up, along with the accompanying scissors since they didn’t have time to modify them. She then wraps herself in her mana and travels along the threads leading down the hall, ending up at her dorm room less than a second later, despite it being at the end of the wing, while the baths were in the middle. Muttering “Room 15, alright, time to head in, slip these on, and fall asleep,.” before opening the door, flipping the light switch once the door is closed. 

Her eyes quickly take in the brown walls before they are drawn to the three queen sized beds, each with a nightstand next to them on the far wall. Above the beds there is a long rectangular window that covers most of the back wall. Three desks  line the left wall, while a small fridge is the only thing that takes up the right wall.

She sends a thread of mana into her outfit once more, and they change into panties, yet despite her best wishes, they also form a comfortable bra. Sighing at this development in frustration, she tries something else. Turning the outfit into a pair of tight fitting pants, the bra doesn’t form. “Well I guess I can’t shrink it more than a certain amount, oh well it is comfortable enough so back it goes”

She wills it back with a spark of mana before sliding on the pair of pink pajama pants, figuring out where to cut while holding it with her fingers. She then slides  the pants back off and sits on the left of the three beds. Quickly snipping an x into the pants where she held them. She slides them back on, carefully easing all of her tails through the hole, letting the cut press against her tails so as to hide as much as they can, before finally sliding on the matching top.

With a quick flick of mana, the light switch twitches before flipping off. She slips into the left bed, curling up while easing the blanket over her legs. For the rest of her body, her tails suffice, wrapping gently around her, and keeping her warm. Her last thoughts before sleep comes more easily than it ever has in her life are that she hopes she wakes up in her body, and that she would have preferred red or white.