Hunter clenched his fists. All eyes were on him, though they weren’t staring at his face.

“You must be really proud of yourself,” Hunter said to Natalie as he self-consciously folded his arms over his breasts, faintly noting that his voice was completely different from where it was before. It felt soft, albeit with the same vocal inflections.

“Of course,” Natalie grinned after a second’s delay, “we’re very proud of the work that we put into you.”

Dan coughed a little bit and idly stroked his hair. Fuck, was Dan ravishing. He had on a black dress that did nothing to hide his ridiculously enhanced curves. Hunter was tempted to stride right up to him and plant a big kiss on his glossy lips.

Somehow, Dan was unapologetically shameless about it all. Hunter couldn’t detect a flick of embarrassment on his facial features. He made no attempt to cover up his breasts, or pull the dress down a bit to better cover up his ass. Meanwhile Hunter couldn’t get past his struggle to properly keep himself covered up, and couldn't overcome the ever-creeping humiliation. How did Dan do this?

“Okay girls, let's have you two join the rest.” Natalie cocked her head in the direction of the door, led them over, and ushered them through to a different, larger space.

The aesthetic and structure of the Research and Development wing continued the transition to a futuristic, high tech setting that the Lunaris Sequence had started. This wing of the building was fittingly lab-like, which was a bit terrifying to Hunter to now be in an area that was otherwise cloaked by a shell of a mundane office setting. In spite of his observation that NewU wasn't great at what they were doing, he understood that serious money had been thrown at NewU’s internship project.

The new decorum was almost enough to keep Hunter from noticing the three transformed interns sprawled out across the room.

One of them, a redhead, sat quietly in the corner with an expression of utter bewilderment, eyes puffy enough for Hunter to infer that they had recently gone through a crying fit.

The others…one was dressed in green and also had a set of long, luxuriously blonde hair like Hunter now had. The last one had brown hair and seemed calmer than the others, observing Hunter and Dan and likely attempting to deduce who was who.

All five of the interns had, in Hunter's opinion, excessive proportions. Someone, definitely Blake, had a type. A type that required extensive, comical transformations to reach. That type wasn’t limited to manipulating proportions, either. Transforming men into women was a part of that type.

“I don't see much resemblance to their former selves, either…” Hunter whispered to Dan. “How could we tell them apart?”

“I know how to find Felix…” Dan muttered. “We should ask them all to say something disparaging about women.”

Before Hunter could think of a witty remark of his own, Natalie stepped into the room and waited a moment for everyone to focus their attention on her.

“All of you have now been processed through the Lunaris Sequence. Welcome to the first chapter of the rest of your lives,” Natalie started.

Not if Hunter had anything to do about it.

“Now! Take some time to get to know each other again. I'll be back in a little bit to get us back on track. I know you've been through a few minor adjustments, so try to relax.” Natalie gave each intern a sinister smile, then closed the door behind her with another click, indicating the security in the lab building was definitely a cut above what they had been used to before.

Everyone seemed to be looking at Hunter and Dan for direction.

“Um…I guess we could start with sorting out our names and pronouns?” Hunter suggested.

“Names and pronouns!?” Dan loudly questioned as he started running his hands all over his breasts. “How about, ‘Holy FUCK, I have MASSIVE MOMMY MILKERS!?’” 

Subsequently, the entire room broke into chaos.

The other interns followed Dan’s lead and started groping themselves in a panicked, very undignified fashion. Dan believed that the ‘post-transformation’ grope of one’s body was a standard ritual for newly transformed people, and Hunter had at the time disagreed. Against his better judgment, Hunter quietly gave himself a few pokes just to confirm what happened to him was real. 

“Of course it feels good,” he muttered under his breath. “Only feels slightly wrong rather than massively wrong. If I was completely cisgender, I’d probably flip out at the thought of being stuck like this.”

Hunter hobbled on his tall heels away from the rest of the group, sitting down and rubbing his temples. He snuck a hand down to confirm that yes, this transformation was certainly themed around giving everyone bodies one would expect from the shallowest male fantasies imaginable. 

He sighed.

Of course his new body felt good. Of course the clothes he had on were super revealing. Of course his proportions were exaggerated. 

Hunter imagined doing the secretary work that Dan fantasized about. Bringing someone a cup of coffee in his stiletto heels, desperately attempting to keep his skirt and top under control as he did it. That scenario seemed like a recipe for disaster to him, giving someone with very little heel training hot coffee and expecting there to be no problems. 

With a couple twinges of shame, Hunter admitted to himself that realistic or not, the fantasy was as hot as the coffee. Maybe the fantasy of having a ridiculously proportioned physique within a set of skimpy clothing wasn't limited to only being a male fantasy. Though with a faint note of self-awareness, Hunter was aware that making assumptions to the genders behind a fantasy tended to be a predictably chaotic path to run down.

At the very least, it sucked that someone like Blake was behind these bodies. That much was obvious.

“You alright, Hunter?” the redhead asked, having found their way over to Hunter. Dan was still pacing around the room playing with himself.

“How did you know it was me?”

“Well, out of the two of you, I doubt you would say ‘Mommy Milkers’, for one,” they chuckled. “It’s Carter.”

“I’m surprised you can laugh, Carter.” Hunter commented. “Weren’t you crying earlier?”

“No…” Carter lied, then shook his head. “Fine, maybe a bit. It took me a moment to get myself together, but now it’s all just noise. Besides, this shouldn’t have been a surprise. We’ve read the same stories.”

“Read? I thought our earlier conversation was about places like this existing for real.”

“Um…” Carter started to stammer, evidently realizing he overplayed his hand. “Yeah. Y-You know, other people’s accounts of their experiences.” He started hugging his chest.

Hunter was at a crossroads. He knew for certain that Carter was an egg in a similar manner to Dan. Obsessively reading the stories over and over, searching for any kind of gender-bending content, and definitely hoping a place like this could get its claws into him and make the changes he might not be willing to admit he wanted.

Should Hunter call him out on it? It could be argued that this would be for Carter’s own good, though starting such a heavy conversation right after they had all been through the robotic forcefem hallway might be in bad taste, and if Hunter didn’t approach the subject just right, it could cause Carter to withdraw even more.

“I’ve read some of those myself,” Hunter admitted. “And it’s weird to be inside the same stories that we had found from other people. I can’t believe this is real.”

“Exactly!” Carter said while trying to hide a smile. “I didn’t think this could happen to me.”
“And yet it has,” Hunter smiled. “Though I could do without the extra padding all around me.”

“This is a bit over the top.”

“I’d rather find something to put OVER my top right now,” Hunter cracked, and the two of them laughed for a moment before getting up and rejoining the rest of the group. 

Dan had made his way over to Felix and Simon, though Hunter didn’t know who was who yet. The brunette was leaning on the wall while the blonde seemed agitated.

“Hey, I’m just saying that you got the cameltoe you wanted,” Dan said to the blonde.

“It was a frickin’ hypothetical,” the blonde said, annoyed. Felix must be the blonde, then. “Hypotheticals aren’t supposed to come true!”

“Well, this one sure fucking did,” the brunette, evidently Simon, rolled his eyes at Felix.

“How are you so casual about this?” Felix squinted at Simon. “Shouldn’t you be cowering in a corner?”

“I mean, I’m not myself right now,” Simon smirked. “The rules have changed, dude. I’m a girl now. And I’m pretty sure I’m a hot one.”

“Oh, this is gonna suck,” Dan muttered.

“Listen to yourself, dude,” Felix shot back. “Just because we got placed in new bodies, or murdered and resurrected, or however that pod with the creepy robot voice works, doesn’t mean anything changed up here.” He tapped the side of his head.

“Don’t be too sure. We’re in girl bodies, so I reckon we’ve got girl brains, too. Our minds are different because of that. I bet we’re going to start finding guys attractive, and our hormones are going to help us with our posture and wearing these heels, yeah? I mean, I’d gladly switch back given the chance, but right now I’m basically a completely new, independent person.”

Felix looked like he was going to throw up, and Carter looked incredibly uncomfortable and struggled to keep his mouth clamped shut. There was a fire in Dan’s eyes, and Hunter felt it within himself too.

“That’s not how any of this works!” Dan protested. “Holy fuck, who filled your head with all that garbage? It’s like you got frozen in 1999 and recently got let out so you could come here.”

“Dan,” Hunter warned. Dan was entirely correct, though Hunter didn’t think a confrontation at the moment would be helpful.

“No, I’m taking a stand. You’re attracted to whoever you’re attracted to. Heels and posture are skills, not based on any sort of biology. You can’t take someone, place them in a new body, and expect them to live out a completely different life. That’s not how life and memories work. You’d be talking about identity death and actual mind control. Not biology.”

Simon rolled his eyes. “Whatever you say. You’ll feel it soon enough, I’d bet on it.”

Felix got up and walked away, and everyone else except Simon followed him. Simon elected to stay right where he was.

“There’s no way he’s serious, right?” Felix looked at the group nervously.

“He tricked himself so he doesn’t have to think about the implications of what happened,” Dan quickly explained. “It’s easier to think of yourself in a very binary fashion. Man or woman. Right?”

“Yeah. I’m a man, and I’m getting my fucking body back…but what’s with all that garbage about women?”

Dan continued to talk. “Simon doesn’t want to reconcile the dichotomy in his brain. So he’s electing to blame the body he’s in. Conforming to the expectations of the gender binary is easier so that he doesn’t have to use his brain.”

“Fuck, I…” Hunter noticed a flash of regret on Felix’s face. “I said that cooking was women’s work. But I still don’t know shit about smashing eggs.”

“Cracking eggs,” Dan corrected with a gleeful smile.

“Whatever. Are…people going to expect me to be good at cooking from now on?”

Hunter quietly interjected. “You would.”

“Huh,” Felix blinked a couple times, expressing what Hunter read as true doubt. “I apparently have…stuff to think about. We’re definitely going to get our bodies back, right?”

“I…certainly want mine back,” Carter said hesitantly.

“Well, we're going to have to work on that.” Hunter stepped forward. “Together. They’re not getting away with this.”

“I’m in,” Felix said, with Carter nodding along.

“Yeah…take them down…” Dan mused with a note of hesitation, then nodded as well. “Hunter, can I talk to you for a second?”

Hunter gave Dan a quick ‘yes’, and the two walked over to the furthest corner away from everyone else. Hunter still wasn’t great at walking in heels, but Dan was a true professional.

“Can we get this out of the way first?” Hunter asked. “Lori, she/her?”

“I want them to force it on me first.” Dan gave Hunter his infuriating smile. “It’s hotter that way.”

“So I take it you enjoyed the Nightmare Hallway?” Hunter recalled the strange entity in there. 

Luna. 

The key to the heist had to have been Luna. So all they needed to do was find the AI or whatever was behind it.

“Definitely. You?” Dan pulled Hunter back to reality.

“Umm….” Hunter blushed. “Yeah, I did. I mean, look at me! There’s so much red and…bits that feel a lot different and I’ve never actually had or given myself cleavage before. They’re getting air, Dan! It’s strange!”

“It really is. I mean, I think they could have gone way further, but for our sanity it’s better they left a few holes unfilled.” 

“Huh?”

“Don’t worry about it,” Dan said with a wink in a seemingly random direction. “Hm, no cameras in here either. Anyway, the ‘Nightmare Hallway’ was over pretty fast and didn’t give us time to dwell on each individual change. So, eh, seven out of ten.”

Hunter shook his head. Dan was ridiculous as always. “At this rate you might be better served doing something like this yourself.”

“I really should, shouldn’t I?” Dan said cryptically.

“Though believe me, this is definitely a ten out of ten on my scale,” Hunter admitted with some reluctance, and whether it was due to his new body or just plain exhaustion, he quietly decided to spill the beans. “I didn’t know I could find enjoyment out of something like this, before we came here. This is all…really new to me. Even with being transformed by Artemis before. I didn’t understand how…intimate, being forced could be. I’m basically a plaything right now. It’s really scary and at the same time I’m craving more.”

Dan pulled Hunter in for a hug. “I'm proud of you. In many ways you’re just as vulnerable as the others. And I mean, if you want, you’re pretty vulnerable to me jumping your bones and breaking that scale of yours.”

“Eep,” Hunter squeaked intelligibly. “I’d...like that. Once we’re safe.”

“Good girl.”

In that moment, Hunter’s entire universe exploded. This was the first time Dan had ever deliberately gendered him as female. He knew he was still genderfluid and preferred gender neutral under normal circumstances.

These were definitely not normal circumstances.

Her lover knew exactly the right button to push. Probably because Hunter had used it against him before. Damn him. In an instant, her entire body went flush. She looked up at Dan’s beautiful face, and moved a couple strands of black hair out of the way. She wanted – no, needed, Dan to keep going.

“You can be my girlfriend for a while, if you feel like it. Doesn’t have to be forever. Only if it’s what you want,” Dan said gently.

“I don’t know…I’m still me, at the end of the day. I think. If I change my pronouns up, am I betraying myself?”

“That’s a very trans question to ask,” Dan said. “No, you’re not betraying yourself. You’re honoring yourself.”

“Then I…I’d like to be your girlfriend for a bit.” Hunter shivered, her legs threatening to give out at any time. “I want to try thinking of myself as a woman, for now. If you’ll still have me.”

Dan didn’t give her a direct answer. Instead, he leaned in and planted a kiss on Hunter’s red lips, one she immediately reciprocated and pushed forward to meet. They remained in that embrace for a few tender, wonderful moments. No matter who Hunter decided to be, she knew she was loved.

They broke the embrace, with Dan whispering that they needed to get back to the others. Hunter agreed, and they started walking back…

…Only to realize Simon, Felix, Carter, and even Natalie were watching them with varying degrees of shocked expressions. 

Oops.