Fox Serum had changed the world practically overnight, in terms of the business world. In less than a month it had revolutionized everything from entertainment to even electronics. But perhaps the most interesting application of the transformative potion.
Classrooms across the nation had begun to use the serums to transform people into various forms from educational purposes. Biologists and veterinarians gained a much greater appreciation of their subjects, learning far more through practical applications than from traditional textbooks.
This progress ground to a halt with the death of one Marie Lacosta, the first researcher to die while transformed. She'd taken the form of a seal, and had gotten a little too close to the nesting grounds of a pod of killer whales, leading to an unfortunate and untimely demise.
Immediately politicians were up in arms about the serum, some arguing in favor of it; many arguing against the transformative juices. But one voice sounded louder than the rest of them: that of business. Yes, since Fox Serum had started to spread through the consumer populace, sales of pet food and fertilizer were through the roof.
Before long, the lobbyists stood united in defense of Fox Serum, and bills were passed to make them as legal as guns. Advertising agencies worked around the clock to turn public sentiment towards Fox Serum, and viral campaigns spread throughout the media. In just four short months, industry had done for Fox Serum the same favor it had done for the automotive industry.
Just like how victims of pedestrian-car collisions were branded 'jaywalkers', victims of transformation were called 'stuckos', a monicker derived from how a dead transformee would remain transformed, stuck in the form they'd died in.
Funnily enough, this had an unexpected outcry from those obsessed with political correctness, and just like that protesters went from warning of the dangers of Fox Serum to proclaiming victims should be labeled as 'teefrips', short for an abbreviation used by doctors and veterinarians: 'TF, RIP'.
Just like that, Fox Serum had become a part of everyday life, and death a part of the average lexicon. And before too long, schools began to use the serums again, not only knowing of the dangers, but reveling in them. It was a good punishment for kids, after all: a legitimate fear of death, one that taught kids far better than words alone.
This had the added effect of producing a better-mannered generation of children, one who were extraordinarily open-minded, thanks to their time transformed. After all, what did political or spiritual beliefs matter, when form could be changed; why should people worry about being offended when death was a constant possibility?
Far from the dystopia envisioned by countless professors, the world had become a much brighter place to live, once you got past the death. People were happy thanks to transformation, wars were averted thanks to a renewed sense of mutual understanding, and the global economy was at an all time high.
It's in this world that we find a high school full of students ready to be transformed: Radaghast Prep. Every student who attends is required to take a special serum, a generic that allows teachers to transform them via an app into whatever is needed.
From making students into pea plants to demonstrate the work of Gregor Mandel to making children into foxes, in celebration of the great Doctor Adam Fox, Radaghast Prep ensures a well-balanced transformative education.
Of course, as with all schools, there will be troublemakers... Though there are less and less every day thanks to the school's revolutionary punishment system. After all, when a teacher can transform anyone into anything, they can easily make a brat into a bug, one that will either find a way to escape or meet an untimely, yet expected end.
Not that anyone expected it to happen to them. After all, everyone thought themselves a paragon of the educational system, even those in Ms. Tegan Thompson's Class F, the rowdiest class in the school.
Our tale begins in this class, during the first week of lessons...

Tegan sighed, looking at the small flock of disinterested faces that greeted her. How easy it would be to make them into the little sheep that they were... But she'd promised herself to remain the fairest teacher possible, and so she refrained from undue transformation.
That said, the kids weren't making it easy on her. To be fair, she had been covering the syllabus thus far, and she remembered from college how boring these first few days were. So, she thought, what better way for her to get the class's attention that to discuss punishment?
"Okay, I can see that all of you are about ready to fall asleep... So why don't I make things a little more fun for you? Today we'll be discussing how to live through a change as a bug."
Her plan worked beautifully. Almost immediately, heads and eyebrows both shot up, and her students leaned forward with interest. Some of them even brought out notebooks, ready to jot down notes from a lesson that would be genuinely useful.
Tegan continued, a grin on her face. "It's a common enough punishment here, and so I feel you should all be ready for when it happens to you-and that's a 'when', not an 'if'. I know that a lot of you seem to think that you'll be free of change, so let's get that out of your heads right now."
"Um... My mom says that I'm very well behaved for my age..." One of the girls said, fidgeting in her seat anxiously.
Tegan glanced down to her name sheet to find the girl, noting her as one 'Hannah Fawkes'. She had the traditional behavior of a person who'd spent too much time as a dog, wiggling her butt anxiously and occasionally slipping into a canine pant.
Well, then she could certainly be excused for not raising her hand this once... Though she would need a reminder. "I don't doubt that..." Tegan began. "But you should remember to raise your hand before interrupting."
Just like that, the teacher pressed a button on her phone, and with a yelp of surprise, the girl's body began to twist and change. The class looked at her with shock and surprise, expecting her to become some sort of miniscule bug.
But to their surprise, instead of growing chitin, she began to grow fur across her body, though she still shrank nonetheless. Hannah seemed to be panicking slightly, though that was slowly giving way to the calm placidity of whatever animal she was becoming.
Her head cracked loudly as it diminished in size, and her fingers grew the hard chitinous cover of claws. Her arms lengthened and legs shortened, and she grew a large stomach for good measure. But the most telling part of her transformation came from her hands and feet, as her thumbs and pinkies withdrew into her hands and feet, leaving her with three long toes.
As the last waves of fur swept across Hannah's body, everyone knew what she was becoming. She let out a loud yawn as her body became that of a sloth, and her eyes glinted with interest as she looked at their teacher.
Tegan grinned at her work, once more marveling at the effectiveness of her app. This change was less of a punishment and more of a mood adjustment. A day as a sloth would help temper the girl's doglike enthusiasm, though perhaps she'd need repeat transformations over the course of a week.
"Now, nobody here should think of me as soft for keeping her a mammal. After all, I had my reasons." Tegan spoke confidently, all eyes in the room on her. "Can anyone tell me why I transformed her?"
A young man raised his hand, one Randall Gates. Tegan nodded to him, and he began slowly. "Because... She was overly excited thanks to spending time at home teefed into something high-strung? Maybe... A dog?"
Tegan nodded at him, a smile spreading across her face. "Exactly. As we all know, some parents have found it much more affordable to keep their kids as pets, though they do get the privilege of staying inside. If any of you are such pet-raised kids, feel free to raise your hand and tell me what your home life looks like, so I can give you a form to better round you out."
Nobody lifted so much as a finger, and Tegan smiled. No doubt they were afraid of her for her power over them... Well, that was good, but hopefully she'd be able to mellow them out. "Well, if there are no takers, I'll continue my lesson."
The best way to earn their trust was to teach them, and so teach them Tegan did. "Now, the first thing that most people do as a bug is panic. They think that the whole world looks too big, and they freeze like a deer in the headlights."
The teacher moved to the board, writing her next sentence in bold letters. "Don't do that." She tapped the board to reinforce that, looking at all of them in turn. "Have you ever seen a cockroach freeze in place, allowing it to be perfectly squished by a boot? Of course not! You'll want to give into your flight reflex, and seek refuge.
"This brings me to my next point: the walls and floor. While the floor is something you're far more used to climbing on, you'll want to take to the walls, depending on your habitat. If it's just people you're going up against, it would be far smarter if you were to climb on a wall. It's much harder for someone to squish you that way, and you'll be able to remain safe on your new perch.
"That said, don't stay in the open, even on a wall. You'll want to use as much cover as possible. Duck between rivets, hide around nails, stay under the lip of a chalkboard. You know all those places you hate bugs to go, because they're impossible to squish? Those places are your new best friends.
"And that goes double if you're on the floor. Scurry under books, around desk legs, under book bags. But above all, don't go into a bag. Never, ever let yourself get boxed in, because then it's a simple matter for someone to step on the bag. No matter how much you think that someone would like to keep their backpack or purse from being lined with bug guts, they'll like having a living bug in their bag just as little.
"There are three things you want to do when you become a bug, just like stopping, dropping, and rolling. Flee from people you see, find cover for your new buggy form, and nest until you're ready to change back. That's flee, find, and nest; three simple things."
Tegan paused to take a breath, then chuckled. "Of course, when you nest, you'll want to stay pretty close to an exit. I once had a student hide in the tiles above the classroom, and when he changed back, he ended up falling through the ceiling."
That drew a laugh from the crowd, and Tegan beamed, glad she was finally getting through to them. She scanned her list of names quickly, picking a student out at random from the bunch. "Jamey! Would you like to demonstrate what you should do when you become a bug?"
The boy in question, Jamey Anders, gulped anxiously. He hadn't expected being called on during his first day; he was hoping to get his notes from a friend. In all honesty, he'd kind of zoned out during that speech of hers, thinking about seeing that new superhero sequel. But there was no way he could tell her that, right? Teachers were hardly so understanding...
So it was that Jamey gulped and nodded, unknowingly sealing his fate.
Tegan smiled at the boy, though she had no idea that he hadn't been paying attention. Jamey was very goof at feigning interest, and so she'd been sold on his performance. Still, she wanted to take it easy on him, so she'd give him the most survivable body: that of an American cockroach.
It was fast, could climb on walls, could fly, and could even flatten itself to hide. In short, it was perfect.
Without further ado, Tegan tapped in the change code on her phone, beaming as the boy stiffened in his seat. Fox Serum was, as ever, a painless transformation; perhaps one that even boded on pleasurable. But the fear of becoming a bug made Jamey begin to flail, no doubt afraid for the future of his being.
His arms waggled madly as they began to shrink on his body, a pair of shapes moving beneath his shirt. He wanted to tug up his shirt to see what they were, but as he reached for his clothes his hands began to change. The young man gasped in shock as he watched his fingers fuse to become the claws of a bug, brown and ridged chitin lining his arms.
Heart pounding with fear, Jamey tried to ask for someone else to take his place. But before he could so much as give voice to a single word, his mouth split apart, becoming a pair of insectoid mandibles.
Some of the girls and even a few of the boys screamed in fear, though a few others were notably amused, trained to transformation thanks to reality television. The whole class watched as a pair of thrashing antennae shot their way out from the top of his skull.
His eyes changed next, becoming the compound eyes of a roach, bulging from his skull as they slid to the sides of his head. He only chittered his mandibles more in fear at this, beginning to shrink into his clothing as he did.
This was only a natural part of his transformation, his body dwindling in order to better reposition his limbs for their latest change. His hips and shoulders turned so that his new buglike limbs could all lie beneath him, and the extra space around his back allowed him to grow a pair of wings.
Jamey whimpered faintly as he realized that he was becoming some sort of cockroach, recognizing the spindly legs and the forming chitin over his stomach. That said, he wasn't able to see the latter for long, as his head cracked upwards, his neck shrinking into his growing carapace, a thick brown hide that was suited more for an insect than a mammal.
He'd never become anything like that before in his life, and the man let out a faint hiss in fear as the last vestiges of his human body slipped away, leaving him as a complete cockroach.
The first thing that Jamey did was panic. He'd never been in a bug's body before, so this was his first time ever seeing the world for how large it really was. Worse, it was also his first time in a body that was deprived of senses, namely hearing.
His antennae twitched at the sound of someone speaking, and he flicked them in the direction of the voice, hoping to pick up on more of what they were saying. But unfortunately, his two sensors lacked the sensitivity of ears, and he could pick up nothing more than the general vibrations of air passing past lips.
His tiny heart pounded in his chest as he skulked deeper within the caverns of his clothing, hoping beyond hope that Mrs. Thompson would continue on with the lesson. But the teacher had other things in mind, and he could feel heavy footfalls approaching his position.
Tegan pursed her lips as she looked at the pile of clothing. She'd yet to see a cockroach scurry out of them, and she knew that her floor had no cracks in it. Either Jamey had somehow pulled a Houdini, or he'd frozen up in fear, hiding in place like the terrified little bug that he'd become.
It wasn't much of a lesson if he didn't act upon his new body, so Tegan decided to give him a crash course in how to be a bug. She gripped his pants tightly, knowing his roachy body would prefer the insulation that both underwear and slacks provided, then yanked them into the air, shaking them violently.
A pair of boxer shorts plopped to the ground; then Jamey the cockroach landed atop them, all of his legs flailing madly as he landed in the pillowy cotton of his shorts. Some of the students in class recoiled in horror, but Tegan had seen enough bugs and had been enough bugs to remain unfazed, instead watching with interest as the roach thrummed the wings on his back, allowing him to roll over onto his belly.
"Okay, who can tell me what Jamey just did wrong?" Tegan announced loudly, her eyes sweeping the classroom for a raised hand.
One of the boys in the back, Maurice, raised his hand. "Um... He stayed in his clothing, making it easy for you to stun him?"
"Spot on." Tegan grinned, giving him an 'ok' sign with her fingers. "For those of you who don't know, being a bug means that you're very susceptible to things that wouldn't seem like too much of a big deal to a person. While you could normally handle a huge foot crashing down by your body, a bug will get very easily shocked by the impact.
"Their sensitivity to vibrations is huge, meaning that if you become one, you don't want to be in a place that could let you get trapped. Are there any other traps that we can think of off the top of our heads?"
Another boy raised his hand, Marky. "Shopping bags." He said confidently. Tegan arched an eyebrow at him and the boy chuckled, shrugging. "I live by the waste disposal plant, so I get my fair share of cockroaches. You wouldn't believe how easy it is to lure them into one of those; then crush the bag flat with a book."
Tegan nodded at the boy, mentally noting his cleverness. Not everyone would have thought of that, and she mentally filed away that he'd be a good predator, if she ever had to put an exceptionally bad student on a 'hunt list'.
"Anything else?" Tegan asked, nodding towards a front-row girl named Michelle.
"I think that bookbags would be a bad place too, right? Or purses?" She asked, smiling with pride as Tegan nodded.
"Very good! That's the answer I was expecting, and it's the one that you should watch out for if you get changed in school. You might think that hiding in a bookbag is a good idea, but unless you're a flatworm or a silverfish, it's really easy for you to end up squished."
Tegan paused, amending her statement. "That said, if someone makes you into something that's really tiny, like a louse or an aphid... You might be better suited trying to crawl into your bag through a closed compartment. Find where the zipper would close and crawl in through that little gap; most predators won't be able to follow."
She smiled as her students nodded sagely; then she looked down to see if Jamey was still working off his fall. She'd given him plenty of time to move around, but hadn't seen anything flit about in her peripheral vision.
Sure enough, the little bug was still there, and the teacher sighed internally, wondering what was going through the roach's head.
As it turned out, there were a good many things that Jamey was thinking about right now, not least of all a plan for his next action.
Tegan tutted as she looked down to the changed boy, motioning with her hands to the wall as she spoke. "Now, just as a refresher for you all, the best thing to do to evade getting crushed is to get to the wall; maybe even on the wall. Cockroaches, in particular, are suited to this role."
Though she knew he couldn't hear her, if he was at all attentive he could pick up on the gestures she was making. Tegan continued, motioning to the wall as she continued to instruct the class. "If you do happen to become a roach, I'm sure that you can take off along it like it was the floor. This won't always be the case; some surfaces are too smooth to hold onto. But anything painted should be perfectly safe."
From his position on the floor, Jamey began to panic. Instead of looking at his teacher's arms he focused on her mouth, trying to see what she was saying in hopes that he could read her lips. But while her hands were plainly visible to him, her lips weren't, no matter how close or far her scurried.
So, if it was up to him... His head started to hurt as he forced himself to think even harder, trying to come up with some sort of way to come out of this alive. The only thing he could think of was to stick to her as closely as possible, hoping that his reflexes from sports would keep him alive now.
It wasn't a very thought-out plan, but it was one of his old classic thoughts whenever he turned on the TV to see a new teefrip. 'They should have had better reflexes', he'd thought, and now it was his turn to live up to his words.
The bug set his antennae in determination, looking up to the woman's giant feet. Immediately he realized that they were each looked like they were ten times the size of his body, and Jamey began to fear for his life. What had once seemed like such a smart plan now seemed like the dumbest thing he could have done.
But he's already committed to it, so... The best thing he could do was stick around Mrs. Thompson's feet like a fly to vinegar.
Tegan sighed as she looked down to the cockroach, wondering what Jamey was on. Was he trying to be funny? She clicked a heel down close to his body to let him know she wasn't playing around, but he seemed to take this as a sign that he could dodge her feet.
She sighed, looking up to the class and silently hoping Jamey wouldn't be by her feet when she looked back down. "Okay... So, is anyone else seeing this?" She asked, watching as her students nodded back to her. "Good. Because this is something that you should never, ever do. I don't know what he's thinking, but trust me, you do not want to hang around someone's feet. Because every close stomp to your buggy body-"
Tegan paused, hammering her right foot right next to Jamey again and again, watching as he would freeze in shock for a half-second each time. She continued, looking back up to the class. "Because again, as a bug the shock of a footstep will temporarily short-circuit your brain, overriding the rest of your reflexes."
From his bug's eye view on the ground, Jamey had no idea what she was talking about. Granted, some of her stomps had come a little close to him, but he'd dodged them thus far, right? She'd have to change him back after that; it was a demonstration of how good he was as a bug!
Even if her every footstep had left him reeling like a bomb had gone off next to his head... He had to twitch his antennae once again as another stomp came his way, the bug equivalent of shaking his head to reorient himself. Then he was back off to dodging, unknowingly damning himself.
Sure enough, Tegan soon reached the limits of her patience. "Now, I know that all of you would love it if I was a push-over, but I'm not. And I think you can all agree that I've been very fair with Jamey so far, right?" She announced loudly, looking to the class to find only nodding, attentive faces.
Then she looked down to Jamey, watching as the roach continued to race in small circles around her feet as though he was trying to tip her over. "But," she continued, "it seems that some of you need a reminder as to what happens when you don't pay attention to lessons that could save your life."
With that, she lifted a heel slightly. Having been a bug herself, she knew how after a few near-misses, a transformee would begin to rely more on their finest instincts. In the case of a roach, it would be its antennae, meaning that if Tegan moved slowly before the killing blow, Jamey would never see or feel it coming.
Sure enough, Jamey missed the motion entirely His deaf form couldn't hear the content of her words; could only feel the vibrations of her talking. His angle and his vision were still bad enough to deprive himself of seeing her lips move, so he could only rely on his gut feeling, an idea from the same gut that had told him it would be a good idea to not protest being transformed.
There was no doubt in his mind: Mrs. Thompson had forgotten about him, and was instead moving onto the rest of her lesson. Or, better yet, she'd been praising him for a good job, and was ready to transform him back. Yes, that had to be it! That was why she was looking down at him right now! After all, what kind of teacher killed a student on their first week?
The cockroach stopped his motion, content with his performance and ready to be turned back. Too late, his antennae picked up the motion of her shoe, and the bug watched in mute horror as her heel descended onto his form, filling his world with a loud and violent cracking sound.
For an instant, he could feel everything: he could feel his guts squirting out of the holes that had split in his body, feel his body spilling onto the cool floor; feel his skull beginning to crack and pop.
Then the moment passed, and he could feel nothing at all.
The class winced appreciatively as Tegan ground her heel into the tile floor, a small frown on her face from both disappointment and the fact that she'd have to clean off her shoe. "Well, that's why we don't have carpeted floors." She quipped, smiling as the students began to laugh at her joke.
It had taken some doing, but the students were finally beginning to see what their teacher was all about. Fair but stern, with a sense of both compassion and humor alike. They grinned to her eagerly as she walked over to her desk, ready to learn their next lesson.
Tegan laughed at her class's attention, deciding to give a quick life lesson to them. "If you're going to be a teacher in the future, I highly invest in getting a set of wet wipes." She announced, pulling open a drawer to reveal a bottle of moist towelettes.
The teacher popped it open and pulled one from the lot, using it to wipe Jamey's remains off of her shoe; then to clean up the mess of his squished body from the floor. "Always clean up your own messes, too; and that goes for everyone." She added, nose crinkling as she realized just how far his insides had gone outside his body.
"And above all, if you're changing a student for not paying attention, try to find something that's not full of guts. Teefrips always make the biggest messes." She added, wearing a comical look of distaste on her face as she swept up the last of Jamey, tossing the wipes into a trash can.
The startled gazes of her students followed her, as expected. For some of them, this was one of their first times really seeing a transformed death up close. "It's a little different than they show it on the news, isn't it?" She asked, smiling to the class.
One of the girls raised her hand with a shy smile on her face, and Tegan nodded to her. "Yes?"
"Um... Does it always look so... Normal?" She asked, a shy grin on her face.
Tegan simply grinned with a nod. "Yep. It always looks and feels just like you were crushing a real bug. Bit of a mess sometimes, but there's nothing to be helped about that."
"Nothing to be helped?" One of the girls piped up from the back, and Tegan looked at her in mild surprise. A bit bold to call something out without raising her hand first, but that was to be expected at her age. "What the hell are you on about? You just killed someone; how is that okay with everyone?"
Tegan masked her surprise perfectly, looking a little closer at the girl. Ah, yes... Karen Thomas. If memory served, her parents were part of the Transformation Safety Association, something that popped up as a red flag on her student record. People linked with the TFSA always did overreact to the little things...
Tegan smiled at the student, deciding to try teaching her before resorting to punishment. "Okay, then... Tell me, Karen. Do you think that the real world is without consequence?"
Karen blinked, not having expected this to become a discussion. "Um... No?" She answered hesitantly, with the tone of someone who's started a losing battle.
"Good answer." Tegan chuckled, looking to the class. "All of you will no doubt transform at least once in the next two years, and I'm here to make sure that you survive them and can have fun doing it. There will be some missteps along the way, yes. But if we shelter and coddle you now, what would happen when you're in the real world, facing down your predator?"
Karen gulped anxiously, looking down to her desk. She hadn't thought about it like that... But she also wasn't going to give up her stance so easily! "Well, what if I want to only transform on TFSA-approved grounds?" She challenged.
Tegan smiled at the girl, genuinely enjoying this. "Well, then I'd say you're equal parts lucky and unlucky. Most people don't have the money or the connections to routinely enjoy such vacations, which is why TFSA parks are usually populated in part by wild animals. And of course, when you deal with wild animals, you have accidents. It's a little like Jurassic Park, but with wolves and bunnies instead of velociraptors and people."
"No way!" Karen exclaimed, squeaking to cover her lips. "I mean... What evidence do you have to support that?" She backtracked hastily, no doubt wanting to avoid becoming a bug.
Tegan's smile fell a little bit, and she shook her head. "Well... You should know that most safety organizations are just security theater. They can only respond to accidents or intentional attacks; not really prevent them. My sister used to volunteer at a TFSA park, and her death was the reason the TFSA has an enclosure for animals of a certain size."
The girl went quiet at that, her eyes wide with shock. Tegan smiled at her, continuing. "But if it helps, she was being pretty stupid. She wanted to get a closer look at some foxes, and decided that being a rabbit was the best way to go about that. Naturally, they gave chase and she bolted out into the open... Which at least let the cameras catch her death, giving us a great educational video."
Karen shakily raised her hand, and Tegan nodded for the girl to talk. "If you don't mind me asking, how can you be so calm about that? Shouldn't you be more upset that she died?"
Tegan smiled softly, leaning back against her desk. "Well, that's the thing. I'll always miss her as a person, but as a rabbit, she was just another animal. That's the deal you make when transforming: you become a part of the circle of life, dropping on the food chain."
Karen was quiet after that, and Tegan decided to continue her lesson, heading back to the whiteboard. "And if you drop on the food chain, what do you do?"
"Flee, find, and nest!" A few kids called back in response, the rest of them raising their hands.
Tegan smiled at them, nodding. "Very good, though I would like you to raise your hands next time." She jotted down the three words on the board, circling them with her marker.
"And don't be a stucko like your sister!" One of the girls called from the back, her voice laden with disdain.
Tegan's blood boiled for a second; then she turned back to the class with a smile on her face, finding a few of the students looking uneasily towards the girl in question, who realized that her classmates weren't going to cover for her.
"U-um, are we not joking about that?" The girl stammered nervously, unintentionally confirming that she was the one who'd spoken out. "I mean... She did the same for Jamey, and I liked him..."
The teacher glanced down to her attendance list, looking back up to the girl in question with a smile on her face. "Excellent point, Candace. But let me remind you that first and foremost, while we all enjoy a bit of humor at the expense of teefrips, your words have consequences. Meaning that while you're free to insult the dead relative of a woman who can transform you at any time, that might not be the smartest decision you can make."
"Then again, I should thank you, because you did give me the perfect opportunity to reveal your class predator." Tegan walked to the bedroom's closet with a grin, opening it to reveal a large glass cage. It had multiple levels with hiding spots and escape routes, clearly designed for the cage's inhabitant: a large snake that hissed dramatically.
"This is Jason Randall, a felon convicted of breaking and entering who's doing time served as an educational pet." Tegan loudly announced, pulling out her phone. "I think I'll give you an hour with him as a lesson."
Candace opened her mouth to protest, but only a squeak came out as her body began to change. Her limbs started to shrink as her body grew, coarse fur itching out from under her collar as her tailbone began to ache.
The girl looked to her backside just in time to see a long and hairless tail snake out from her spine. She recognized the appendage: it was that of a mouse.
Tegan strode confidently towards the girl, grinning at the snarky teen began to shrink within her clothing, the billowing fabric going from a size too large for her to a poncho to a massive tent that covered her wriggling, squealing form.
Candace could only panic, her heart pounding as she tried to come to terms with how big the world was around her. Her changing head certainly wasn't helping things, her eyesight growing worse and making the mountains of her classmates harder to see.
The girl squeaked as whiskers shot out from her lips and her nose stretched away from the back of her head, leaving her with a rodent's muzzle. Her teeth lost their perfect straightness and their whiteness, and her hands dwindled to tiny paws.
The sense of change fled her body, and she poked her head out from her collar to find a familiar, yet alien world around her. Then a pair of hands wrapped around her, and she urinated instinctively, squeaking in fear.
Tegan crinkled her nose at the wet feeling in her hands, then moved to the glass case, dropping the little mouse onto the highest level with a faint chuckle. "Remember: flee, find, and nest." She said, adding as an afterthought, "Oh, and Jason? Try to be easy on this one. It is her first day."
The snake hissed as the mouse began to scurry blindly through the cage's levels, missing several good hiding spots. Tegan sighed, turning away from the cage to resume her lesson. A couple of lessons taught, a couple of students transformed. Just another day at Radaghast Prep, she thought with a smile.