Doctor Tableau looked down to her tablet with a wry grin; then back up to the models, all of whom were fidgeting anxiously in their TransTubes. Her subjects for the day were Elayne, Laura, and Advika; three women who were hired by Target; Toys R Us; and Walmart, respectively.

"I trust you know why you're here?" She asked them, looking up to the group idly. A chorus of slow nods greeted her, and the brunette smirked, glancing down to her tablet. "Well, since you seem to be unsure, allow me to explain. The three of you have been hired to provide these three major stores with mascots for their holiday season."

Laura put her right hand on her hip, looking to the large glass tube that surrounded herself with an anxious frown. "So does that mean we'll, like, be wearing costumes?" She wasn't a Harvard scholar, but she was intelligent enough to reason that this tube would somehow help them fit her for an outfit.

"Not exactly." Roberto, Doctor Tableau's assistant, called from the back of the room. He brought up a laptop and thumped it down on the desk opposite the girls, smirking at them before turning to his boss. "I take it their paperworks's in order, yeah?"

"It is." Doctor Tableau smiled, eyeing Elayne first. "I think we'll start with her, just to give the other two a taste of what they're becoming. After all, we haven't had any complaints with canine transformations yet."

"Plus, since Target's alphabetically first, it doesn't bother your OCD." Roberto chuckled, only for his laugh to degenerate into a cough as the doctor glared daggers at him. "Right, setting up the changes in three."

"Wait. Canine transformations?" Elayne asked from her tube, the dark-skinned woman beginning to have second thoughts about this. "You mean like turning into a dog?" As she spoke, a green gas began to creep into her chamber.

"That is exactly what we mean." Roberto spoke distractedly, keying in some extra changes at his pad. "Honestly, do these companies even know what they're asking for when they want fur patterns? I can do scale patterns, yeah? But fur?"

"And here I thought you were the best." Doctor Tableau looked to him with a chuckle, her lips quirking into a smirk even as Elayne began to bang at the glass.

"I am the best. It's just that sometimes, the best has to actually work for a living; and he doesn't like that." Roberto replied, keying in a few final changes. "Everything look okay here?" He leaned back, letting the doctor do her job.

Meanwhile Elayne was beginning to panic, thumping her hands against the tube loudly. "Hello? Model over here, asking you a ques-oh!" She broke off the start of her rant to yelp aloud, her hands flying to her backside.

She'd felt a sharp pain there, like someone had stuck her with a sharp needle, and the woman yelped as her fingers brushed up against its source: a short, coarse-haired tail. It was a small thing, but one that was growing larger by the second. It started to wag madly as she whimpered, her hands pressing against it to try and impede its growth.

"Oh, I wouldn't do that if I were you!" Roberto called from his comfy position outside of the TransTube. He nodded to Doctor Tableau with a smile, knowing she loved this part.

"As you would have known from looking at your contracts, all transformations are irreversible until your work is done. Any attempt to slow or stall the transformations may result in bodily harm, and thus a docking of pay." She spoke the rote words of their company's warning at a well-rehearsed pace, watching as white fur began to creep across her subject's dark skin.

"So buckle up and enjoy the ride." Her assistant added a line of his own, looking back down to his monitor. "And hope it's not too bumpy."

"B-bumpy? Why would it be? Ow!" Elayne whimpered as her eye began to ache, a pain not unlike a sunburn settling in rings along her skin. There was that same itchy warmth which covered the rest of her body, and yet an irritating tingle along her pores as a red target appeared on her face.

"Oh my God you're totally becoming the Target dog." Laura spoke from her tube, watching her fellow model's transformation with interest. "That is like, so cute!"

The hairs along the back of Elayne's neck began to rise as her clothing dissolved from her form, and she turned to Laura with a frown. "Well, just wait to you trrry rrrrt." She growled lowly as her face began to extend into a muzzle, her teeth sharpening and tongue expanding.

An invisible hand pressed hard onto her back, and the woman grunted as she was slowly forced onto all fours, her body shrinking as it fell. By the time her hands met the cool metallic glass of the tube's bottom, she was a third of her former size; a bad height for a human but a good one for a dog.

The thought sent a shiver up her spine and made her tail stand at attention, an instinctive act that only made it stand stiffer with apprehension. Her thick fur finally stopped growing, leaving her with a short, albeit all-encompassing coat. Then her bones began to ache, some stretching and some shrinking as her body realigned itself to canine proportions.

Of course, all the while Elayne howled and whimpered with distress; not entirely pain, but more discomfort at having such an alien body. Her pupils dilated as she began to take ragged pants for breaths, her tail drooping low below her legs.

The last parts of her body, her hands and feet, ached as that same invisible force began to cramp along them. Her digits dwindled even as pads puffed their way into existence on her palms and soles. The woman whimpered as the last of her changed, and with that she was a woman no more; but a dog.

Advika spoke up for the first time, her eyes wide as she looked at the white-and-red animal pacing in the tube. "Is... Is she still her?"

Doctor Tableau nodded proudly. "Absolutely. People tend to like their mascots fully human. It helps if they run into any... Instinctual misbehavings." She said the words with a chuckle, tapping a button on her tablet and sending Elayna's TransTube shooting from the Transforming Floor to the delivery room.

The models jumped in shock at that, Laura's eyes particularly wide. "Whoa, like, cool!" She exclaimed, drawing all the attention in the room to her TransTube.

"And that brings us to Miss Toys R Us herself." Doctor Tableau grinned, nodding towards Roberto.

"So am I, like, going to become a cute dog too? That's awesome!" Laura clapped her hands happily, jumping up and down in her TransTube.

"Sorry to break it to you, sweetie; but you're going to become more of a giraffe." Doctor Tableau replied with a smile, looking down to Roberto's screen. "Though you are going to be a pony-sized one."

"Huh? Doesn't Toys R Us like, totally have a cartoon giraffe that's like all... Anthropomorphic?" Laura sounded out the long word carefully, glad that the movie Zootopia had taught her it.

"They do. It tested like ass." The doctor gave the girl a thumbs-down, sticking out her tongue.

"How come?" Laura replied, looking anxiously as gas began to flood her chamber.

"Ever see Five Nights At Freddy's?" Roberto spoke up, leaning back from his laptop and cracking his knuckles. "Or go to a Chuck E Cheese's? Cartoony does not translate well to the real world."

"B-but I always thought Chuckie looked kinda cute." Laura said, tilting her head to one side. Unfortunately for her, she chose to do this just as her neck started to grow at an exponential rate. The resulting tilt resulted in her bumping her head on the glass, and she yelped in surprise, first from the shock; and second, from the realization that there wasn't any pain.

"Like, w-why didn't I feel that?" The long-necked girl asked, returning her head to its normal posture and wobbling slightly, unused to seeing the world as though she was looking through a periscope.

"Ossicones." Doctor Tableau said with a smile, tapping her right hand to her forehead. "You've grown two of them. It's natural not to feel them; they're basically small antlers, after all."

Laura gasped in surprise, her eyes widening. "Like, cool! But... Wait, don't only, like, male thingies have antlers?" She pursed her lips tightly, then wobbled at a strange sensation between her legs.

"You're a sharp one, aren't you?" Roberto chuckled, watching her place her hands on the glass to steady herself. "Toys R Us's mascot is male, you know."

"O-ohh!" Laura half-exclaimed, half-moaned. Her clothing disappeared in time to reveal her transformed nethers, and her three observers gasped quietly.

"My word, but you are healthy." Roberto adjusted his glasses slightly, looking up to his boss. "You think I should tone that down a little?"

After a moment's pause, enough time for the woman's hands and feet to twist and harden into enameled hooves, Doctor Tableau shook her head. "No... No. I like it this way, a little bit of animal power to Laura. Worst come to worse, we can put him in shorts."

At that, Laura let out a half-bellow, half-bark; the distinctive cry of a giraffe leaving her lips. Her eyes were wide in shock as she craned her overlong neck to get a better look at herself, confirming that she definitely wasn't a she anymore.

Well, at least he... Laura's brow furrowed as he searched for some bright side, something that would make this change better. But before he could come up with anything, his hips and shoulders cracked, sending him face-first into the TransTube as he fell to all fours.

His hooves clopped against the metallic glass of his confines and he groaned loudly, his tongue drooping from his mouth only to lengthen to an almost comical size in seconds. Thankfully, he only had to remain like this for a few seconds more, as his neck cracked next, letting him hold his head high like any other creature of his species.

Laura's skin began to itch next, and he looked down to watch as golden fur coated his body, brown splotches dotting his new coat of hair. It raced along his form, starting at his feet and drawing all the way up his long neck, tingling all the while and changing whatever it touched. His arms and legs became ungainly stilts; his body a giraffe's bulky trunk.

As it finally reached his face, the mascot groaned as he felt his skull begin to distend; nose and mouth stretching out into a muzzle. He let out a low groan as he worked his expanding jaw, his teeth growing large and blocky and his nose becoming little more than a snout.

A tail squirted out from his spine as though his form was fluid; its length soon swaying behind his giraffe butt. That left his ears and eyes the only untransformed part of him, and he grunted as his cone of vision became a wide prey-view, eyes sliding to the sides of his muzzle. Similarly, his ears drew to the top of his head, flicking gently from left to right to left again.

Then he yelped as Doctor Tableau tapped her tablet again, shooting him down into the delivery room. There had been no real growth there, so he was still a perfect size for kids to ride... She didn't envy Laura in the slightest.

Voicing her thoughts, Roberto shook his head tiredly and looked up to her with a grin. "You know, those kids are going to destroy her. Well, they would if I didn't make her sturdy. As it is... Maybe she might go insane? But that's the worst of it."

Advika shuddered in her own tank, looking at spaces where the dog and giraffe had been with a shudder. Then a slow smile of relief began to spread across her face, as she looked out to Doctor Tableau. "Wait... I applied for a Wal-Mart mascot; they don't have one! Does this mean I'm free to go?"

The doctor looked to her assistant, a small frown on her face as she looked down to her clipboard. "Mnn... No, sorry; we have here a specific set of instructions for you. Let's see, first off we're supposed to see how you look as someone familiar to Wal-Mart; basically one of their typical customers."

Advika blinked at that, her eyes widening. "H-hold on, what?" She stammered, whimpering as gas began to filter into her TransTube. She whimpered loudly as her tanned skin started to lighten, becoming a creamy shade of Caucasian in scant seconds.

"Hm. And here I thought she'd be black." Roberto spoke from Doctor Tableau's side, eyeing the transforming woman with a small frown on his face.

"Racist." The doctor quipped, her eyes similarly drawn to the shift of form that was beginning to affect Advika and duly ignoring his reply.

Just like the other two transformations thus far, the gas was having an effect on her clothing. But while the other models' clothes had simply vanished from their bodies, Advika's were transforming along with her, growing large and baggy, becoming a pair of sweatpants and what looked to be a quintuple-XL shirt.

Seeing how loose her shirt was on her frame brought a sob to the thin woman's mouth, as she realized what was to come next. Sure enough, her frame began to swell, skin rippling and body bloating as she gained weight.

The woman had never been fat before in her life, she'd always kept her diet slim for her eventual career as a model. It left her particularly unprepared for this assault on her form, and she whimpered with distress as certain parts of her body began to feel heavier than others.

Advika had never thought of it from looking at hefty people before, but gaining the extra weight actually felt like she was. She'd always assumed that being fat was natural to them, and yet she could actually identify the heft of every additional pound on her body.

The woman clutched her hands to her sides with a whimper as she developed a pair of flabby love handles, her belly growing large and hanging over the elastic weight of her sweats. That prompted her to outright moan in distress, clutching her hefty weight in both hands. "Noo! I have a pot belly!" She whimpered, hiccuping and completely missing how chunky her thighs were getting.

"Not only that; you're also getting a muffin top." Doctor Tableau said off-handedly, watching the model change with a smirk on her face. "I suppose that muffins will be one of your new favorite foods for the next few months, hm?"

Advika could only hiccup sadly, feeling tears begin to trail down her chubby cheeks. This wasn't what she'd signed up for at all; and yet here she was, transforming into some bloated blimp of a woman! She could feel jowls, actual jowls, grow on her face, and a third chin soon joined her second, the sweaty folds of fat beginning to feel like a necklace around herself.

She barely even noticed as her face grew more homely, small acne scars dotting her skin even as her eyebrows began to coarsen. Her hair lightened to a trashy bleached blonde, and she could feel her teeth rearranging in her mouth, a gap forming between her new buck teeth.

Several cavities formed in her molars, only to be filled with tarnished gold. A fine stubble of peach fuzz settled along her face, which brushed her calloused hands along with distaste. After that, it was just a few more pounds here and there until her transformation was completed; though she was none the less happy for it.

"I look like something from Honey Boo Boo!" Advika sobbed, burying her chunky face in her hands and weeping openly.

"Just in time to sell some 'Independence Flags' to commemorate the 'War of Northern Aggression', yes." Doctor Tableau said with a smile, only to look down at her tablet as a new notification beeped at her.

She frowned and sighed, and Roberto looked to her quizzically. "Something wrong?" He asked, leaning over her shoulder to read along.

The brunette clicked the screen off with a scoff, looking back into the tube. "Some idiot went and shot up a school because 'Southern Pride' or some such nonsense, and this look's being pulled. Pity, the backup look is so... Bland."

"Well, we're not the ones who'll be wearing this for the next few months, so it's no skin off our bones." Roberto shrugged, tapping in a new change into his laptop. "Though it might be some skin off of hers."

Advika watched all this with mounting confusion, her thick brow furrowed. "Hold on, what now?" She asked, feeling her body jiggling as she voiced her concerns.

It seemed that the scientists wanted to let their work do the talking, and gas began to fill her chamber once again. Instead of soft, heavy fat; this change was accompanied by hard, light glass.

The woman moaned as her skin began to harden, her form creaking as it began to reshape to something entirely different. Her arms, legs, and even her head bifurcated, becoming the rounded points of a six-tipped star as her brittle skin turned a garish yellow.

Hints of cerulean began to work their way around the new points of her body even as her new six limbs began to lose all form and feature until they were just little rounded rods, surrounded by a blue background.

This latest change was a quick one thanks to its simplicity, and in seconds Advika hovered in the air as a large yellow star outlined in a rich blue. She had no eyes, ears, or mouth to speak of; yet she could somehow see out from the golden parts of her body.

She tried to ask what had happened to her, but that only resulted in a gentle pulse emitting from her form, her whole body lighting up for a second and letting out a quiet tone. The sound was probably meant to be as inoffensive as possible, yet Doctor Tableau scowled nonetheless.

"I swear, political correctness will be the death of art." She muttered darkly, folding her arms.

"I dunno, I kind of like it." Robert muttered, stroking his chin. "Still not sure how we got her to float like that, but hey; whatever works."

Advika blinked twice at that, letting out a pair of quiet, interrogative tones. She couldn't see herself, but from the feel of her new form, she was hardly human. Which, naturally, brought with it one pressing question: what would happen to her now?

As if to answer that, her TransTube went opaque. A darkness began to creep across her mind, and the floating star gently settled to the ground with a quiet thump, and she lapsed into a long dream, not to be woken until arriving at her local Wal-Mart.

Doctor Tableau smiled as she looked to the dark tube; then turned to Roberto, free to speak openly with him. "That's not the point. Do you remember the Starbucks mermaid? And how we had her frozen, constantly displaying herself for anyone to see?"

Robert smiled fondly, tilting his head to the side. "Do I ever..." He chuckled, shaking his head to return to the present. "What about her?"

"Despite that store' sales taking a massive boost thanks to the crowd she drew, the company wants us to make the next one more 'tame'. Tame! Can you imagine it? I swear, in mere months we'll all be designing formless little trinkets like her." She gestured impatiently to Advika, growling lowly.

"Well, it still means business for us." Roberto chuckled, looking back down to the laptop and blinking in surprise. "Oh hey, on the bright side; the NRA wants us to do a new mascot to promote how that latest shooting wasn't their fault. Want to think up something steamy?"

Doctor Tableau lit up at that, a smile spreading across her face like wildfire. "Do I ever!"

She tapped a button on her tablet once again, and with that the last of the mascots was on her way to what would be her new life.