Lori had been looking forward to this convention, like she looked forward to all conventions. Her day job might have actually been her hobby in a way, but cosplaying for herself was more enjoyable, and she could always find the time. Today, at this one, she had put a lot of effort into this costume, a Fairymon.

The costume itself was nearly perfect. Every detail as correct as possible. All that was wrong really, was that she wasn't quite as tall as the real Fairymon would be. It made little difference: she was going to make the most of it anyway. The convention had put on changing rooms especially for cosplayers, complete with lockers. Lori found an empty one and began changing, removing her own clothing.

She took off her shoes before sliding her white tights down her legs. She followed up by tugging her blue skirt down her legs, and then she removed her panties. She then moved to remove her blue vest and tugged her striped t-shirt over her head, knowing that for this costume, she had to wear only the costume itself. She had no worries about this, she'd worn other costumes that had no room for anything underneath. She paused for a moment before she unhooked and removed her bra, then checked herself in the mirror. Looking at herself in her birthday suit, she made sure she was confident she was in the right shape to pull this off, and apart from being a little too short, she was fairly sure she could.

To put the costum on, she began by fishing out the purple strapless bra of the Fairymon costume and putting it on. The belt and bloomers were next, the twp main parts of the costume that would hide her modesty with the belt serving a vital purpose in holding it all together thanks to the suspender portions yet to be attached. But the tricky part was next, hooking up the rest of the costume correctly and getting those vital detailed parts in place.

She put on the shoulder portions next, hooking the two suspender belts onto these parts and the main belt. Getting the suspenders to the right length correctly took a little adjustment as she slid the boots/leggings on. Connecting it all together took some effort, but the next would be the trickest. The wings. They had to be hooked onto the shoulder portion and the belt, as well as the bra. Some adhesive tape helped stick them down to her back as well. It was a little itchy, but she thought it was better to have some extra support rather than have the wings fall off and maybe take some other parts of the costume with them. Satisfied the wings weren't going to come off without a deliberate effort, she moved onto her head. She hid her own black hair below a hairnet before slipping on a purple wig, then put on the headband, visor, and gloves. She finished up with the last glove, and then checked herself in the mirror.

Looking back, was a virtually flawless Fairymon. She turned to check the wings, their attachements to her almost invisible. Nothing that wasn't meant to show was showing. She was done.

"Perfect!" She said gleefully. She closed and locked her locker, before heading out into the convention itself.

***

She wasn't the only one with a detailed costume. She'd passed an almost perfect Yuffie from FF7, an excellent Konata from Lucky Star, a Batman who looked like he'd walked out of the comic, and a very convincing Master Chief from Halo. What she'd also noticed though was some of these cosplayers seemed a little off, like they were somehow surprised at the attention they were getting. With costumes as perfect as they had, that was only to be expected.

Others hadn't done quite as well, but Lori could see they'd put their hearts into it. Of course, popular characters were everywhere. She saw a half-dozen variations of attempts on a Pikachu costume, too many Sailor Scouts to count, a whole horde of Sephiroths, and at least three of pretty much every main Naruto character.

"Wow, that's a pretty good Fairymon." A woman said to Lori as she wandered. Lori turned to see who had addressed her. It was a woman in her early twenties dressed up as an almost perfect Princess Jasmine.

"Thanks. Yours is pretty good too." Lori said in reply. All that was wrong was her hair had been dyed black and the girl was clearly blonde, her roots showing the telltale natural hair colour.

"There are some pretty impressive costumes here today. Some of them are nearly perfect, like yours."

"Yeah. They make me feel a little embarrassed about mine..." Lori admitted.

"Don't be. A little taller and you'd be Fairymon brought to life!" The woman said.

"I know. I wish I was taller, I like this costume a lot."

"I tried dressing as a Lilymon once, it didn't work well. The wings are a pain." The woman sighed.

"Tell me about it. I think I managed to get lucky with these ones, they're not too cumbersome." Lori said, gesturing to her own false wings.

The two chatted about past conventions, commented on some other cosplayers, and spoke of the events they planned to attend.  Unknown to them as they spoke, another woman behind her was observing them both.

'Yes... Hers is nearly perfect. A very simple change... The Jasmine too... but who first?'

***

Lori had eventually finished talking with the woman cosplaying Jasmine to go and see a preview clip of an upcoming anime. It was just a trailer, but this trailer was exclusive to the conventions and every time she'd tried to find it Youtube had taken it down or whoever had copied it had used a cellphone with no picture quality to record it...

Unfortunately, she was now at the back of a big crowd, and for some reason, it was a fairly small screen. She could barely see past all the people in front of her...

'Gha! I really wish I was taller!' She thought.

She tried to stand on her tiptoes, only to nearly lose her balance. The boots/leggings of the costume made that a little cumbersome. She tried to move, tried to see a gap, tried tiptoes again, and nothing worked. There was no way, it seemed, she was seeing this clip...

***

The woman who had watched them had just finished with the Jasmine cosplayer, who might not notice her missing blonde roots for some time. She'd watched where the Fairymon had went, and grinned. No one was looking at her or the Fairymon even in this crowd. It was perfect.

Besides, even if someone did see her waving the wand, what would they think she was doing? They'd assume she was just playing around. In a way, that was true. But not in the way they would think. She grinned to see the Fairymon grow visibly taller, the wings taking on a less cloth-like appearance. She'd made a perfect cosplay truly perfect once again. But what next?

Ah, one of the few well-done Sephiroths she'd ever seen. Time to make it perfect...

***

Lori had sighed, closing her eyes in frustration. When she opened them, she could somehow now see over the head of the guy in front of her.

'Huh? Did he drop his head down a little?' She thought, puzzled.

'Of course! He saw me trying to get a good view and ducked!'

This did not take into account the rest of the crowd in front of her, but she felt satisfied by her own excuse. She was also pleased she could now see the screen better. Still she felt it only polite to thank the good samaritan.

"Thanks." She said. The guy in front of her turned, puzzled.

"Huh? What for?"

"Ducking down a little so I could see..." Lori said. The guy looked confused, looked her up and down, then shrugged.

"No problem. Nice Fairymon by the way..."

***

The clip ended, and the screen was now going to be used to show an episode she'd already seen a few times, so like a few others, Lori wandered away from this part of the convention. She found herself heading off towards a number of tables where fan artists were showing their work off. Her eye was caught almost right away by a brilliant picture of TK and Kari holding hands.

"That's pretty good." Lori commented. The artist, a guy with white-dyed hair, saw what she was looking at

"Yeah, the girl who commissioned it thought so too. She wants me to do a follow-up. I prefer a Daikari pairing normally."

"Plenty of evidence for both I guess." Lori said. The artist nodded.

"Yeah. Nice costume by the way. I guess you like Fairymon?"

"Good guess..."

The artist pointed her towards another of his pics. It showed a Fairymon flying through the air with excellent detail.

"Practically a portrait of you." The artist said.

"Wow, that's awesome!" Lori said at seeing the picture.

***

The next artist she'd spoke to complimented her also.

"You know, I'm surprised at how many good costumes there are. The good ones seem to all be coming out of the woodwork as the day rolls on. " This artist, a girl with her hair dyed blue, noted.

Lori pondered this. She had begun to see some of the characters the less talented cosplayers seemed to gravitate to done well in the last hour.

"Yeah..."

"Some of them go to some crazy lengths for detail being correct. One guy, I don't know how long he spent on it, but his Master Chief armour looked real. Then there's people like you who carry around wings on your back."

She'd noticed the wings had begun to feel heavier somehow. It had begun a little while ago, but for some reason, the feeling of the adhesive tape was gone. It had been

"Well, they've been fine until now. They feel kinda heavy now though..."

"Maybe you're tired?" The blue-haired artist suggested

"Yeah. I haven't eaten anything since this morning..." Lori said.

***

She figured she could try and adjust the wings, or maybe just take them off if they were going to be a problem. But for now, she was heading to the bathroom, and carefully reached around to try and tug them up a little.

"Ow!" She cried out. That had hurt!

'Have they got stuck? Maybe I had better leave them...' She thought, thinking maybe the adhesive tape had worked too well. Still, she was about to go get something to eat, and though she had been wearing gloves, she figured she should take them off and wash her hands.

It was when she went to dry them, she was confused. Normally the dryers were put a little higher up, weren't they? Maybe it was just the way this place was built...

After washing her hands and realising she had nowhere to store her gloves properly. She decided to just loop them through the belt she wore, because they wouldn't fit in her money pouch.

That had been her secret weapon. She'd realised ahead of time she'd have no pockets, and so, inside the boots/leggings, there was a small pocket. Inside, instead of any money, a credit card to pay for anything, or if she had to, withdraw some money from an ATM. Of course, she had no idea how to carry any change in that event...

'I must be tired. I'm thinking about things that don't even matter just now... Lori reasoned with herself as she pulled the card from its hiding place. Something to eat and a sit down, that was what she needed...


***

It seemed even the vendors at the food stands were finding the costumes impressive. She'd been complimented there as well. She figured she should check the sales, and headed for the section set aside for the market. She'd bought a few things, but as she was looking at one stall of manga, the seller had something to say.

"It's kind of weird. I go to conventions all the time, and ones like this with no Cosplay contests, you get people with great costumes. Ones with them though, you don't get nearly as many." He said.

"Maybe it's just a coincidence?" Lori thought.

"Could be. But with the kind of talents they have for their costumes why don't they try and win something with them?"

"Maybe it's just about fun for a lot of them. I cosplay for fun myself..."

As she pondered this, someone bumped into her wings. She could have sworn she had felt it...

'Okay, I think there's something wrong with the tape. I'm going to need to take these off...'


***

She'd tried again, and it did feel painful to remove them. She couldn't understand it, this tape had worked fine before, why had it become superglue now?

'How did they get stuck? I'd better try and fix this...' She thought, as she headed back to the changing room. Her locker key was hidden beside her card, and she felt uneasy as she approached her locker. It hadn't been so low down before, had it? It was the right locker, but she was sure it was about a foot lower down...

She unlocked it anyway, and tried to pull her wings off again. It hurt once more.

"Ow... I'm going to need a mirror... "

Then she noticed something. Her clothes looked odd. Experimentally, she took her skirt, and tried to pull it up her legs. It was tight. Way too tight...

"What the..."

She held her shirt up to her body, seeing that it was a few sizes too small now. Had her clothes shrunk? She tried to remove as much of the Fairymon costume as she could, but the wings wouldn't budge. She found, to her surprise, they were not attached to the bra and the adhesive tape, but right into her back.

"They're... They're real?"

She tried something. The wings gently fluttered. She stood there, most of her costume removed, confused for a moment.

And then, she panicked. Without thinking about it, in her panic, she had began flapping the wings she'd only just discovered to be real.

'What do I do?! What happened?! Did my costume become real?!'

She came to her senses, wings still flapping. A girl dressed as Sailor Moon had walked into the changing room and was staring at her, wide-eyed.

She realised she was flying a few feet off the ground when she stared down.

"Um..." Lori began, really not sure what to do or say next...

***

The woman put her wand back in her pocket, feeling pleased with her day. She loved conventions like this, making people's near-perfect work go that extra mile. She only regretted two things. That the conventions ended, and that she'd missed a few good ones through lack of chances.

Still, there was more fun to be had. For instance, pondering the best time to undo her enchantments. She wondered what would happen if she left them in place a little while now the convention was over... Maybe she could only undo some of them and leave others a little longer. Maybe she could see if some of her chosen cosplayers came back for the next day still in their now very realistic costumes...

She'd definitely ponder it on the way back to her hotel. She'd also ponder maybe going to one with a Cosplay contest next time...