(Mass TF, People to Various Animals/Inanimate Objects)

The hardest part about being a superhero was the double identity one had to lead. Lilly Aimes had always heard that, but she’d never really felt it until today.

Victory Day was supposed to be a celebration. The Power Court had finally captured Femme Splainer, and were showing her off in front of the entire city.

Lilly could see the supervillain now, clad as ever in her skintight green latex outfit, and a lab coat that didn’t go at all with her clothes. The woman had a mask covering her nose and mouth, preventing anyone from hearing her cursed words.

Yes, Lilly had a perfect view of her arch-nemesis… From the sidelines.

Unfortunately, she hadn’t taken part in the fight or the arrest. She’d had to finish her novel by a very important deadline. Of course, she did – but that meant that as a result, she was now stuck with the rest of the crowd.

Sure, Shot Gunn had invited her to join part in the parade, but that just felt tacky. Lilly never liked taking credit for something she didn’t earn. Besides that, she also couldn’t ditch her boyfriend for the day. Well, ‘ditch’ might have been a bit of an unfair term. Michael didn’t want to be here, but he was facing his fears for her.

“Hey honey, you getting this?” It was almost cute how anxious he got around crowds like this. He wasn’t agoraphobic; he just thought that they were ‘easy targets for another supervillain attack.’ And honestly, that was a fair assumption…

… Well, except for the fact that he was currently standing next to one of the Power Court’s finest.

Lilly wondered if he’d feel safer id she told him the truth about who he was dating. Sure, she wasn’t a powerhouse like Steelworker or Roy’d Rage, but as Textweaver, she could certainly put a stop to most challenges they couldn’t tackle alone.

Her text-based powers gave her a certain control over life’s narrative, letting her imagination run wild. It also let her ‘read ahead a few pages’ and see what was to come. And on that thought…

Lilly dipped a hand into her purse, so that nobody would see her using her ‘keys.’ Even if she wasn’t in costume, she’d at least let herself taste a bit of the limelight.

+But little did Textweaver know, not all was as it seemed.+ The words came automatically to her mind, without her needing to type them. She frowned. Why was her Story-Sense going off?

“Honey?” Michael repeated himself. “You worried about being this close to Femme Splainer? Don’t worry. If anything happens, I’ll protect you.”

It was almost adorable how he had such a high opinion of himself. Lilly smiled, despite her growing apprehension. Still, she kept a hand in her purse, working her keys and manually entering the next line to her story.

+Textweaver scanned the crowd, looking for whatever might threaten her.+ It was a good try, and she hoped it might trigger her Story-Sense again. Unfortunately, said sense remained stubbornly silent, so she tried again.

+Not finding anything, she turned her attention to the parade balloons…+

+…And she noticed something odd.+ Replied her Story-Sense.

Her pulse quickened. Were the balloons full of poison? Lilly focused hard on one of them. She found an odd, tessellating triangular pattern on its surface. Each triangle had a shine to it, like a mirror.

No sooner had the thought crossed her mind than a small red beam of light darted from somewhere in the crowd, rebounding from a mirror to strike Femme Splainer.

Lilly tensed. Was it an assassination attempt? Something to free the villainess? It didn’t seem like it was affecting the woman’s bonds, nor did she keel over. If anything, she was livelier than ever, squirming atop the float.

It almost looked like her body was… Expanding? Her green outfit was tighter than ever, but the feminine figure within drew further and further from humanity. Her torso was bulging, sucking her arms and legs voraciously. Femme Splainer thumped onto her knees, but it was like even her thighs didn’t have the muscles to support her.

The supervillain fell face-first onto the float’s stage. Or mask-first onto it.

Lilly was the first to see the threat. If that mask was damaged, Femme Splainer could entice the entire crowd into a riotous mob. Quickly, her hands darted across her keys, +In the growing confusion, Textweaver was able to deafen her boyfriend from Femme Splainer’s insidious tones.+

There. That way Michael would be safe.

By now, Overpowered Girl was reacting too. The alien girl flew towards Femme Splainer, hand outstretched to the woman’s mouth, ready to silence whatever orders she might spew.

“PHBLRRRT!”

Overpowered Girl flinched back, nose crinkling in disgust. It was clear Femme Splainer didn’t mean to impersonate a whoopee cushion, given the similarly surprised look on her face. It was also clear that she didn’t have a way to stop.

Each fart bulged her more and more, replacing her appearance with something strangely familiar. +She looked like a diaper.+ Lilly’s Story-Sense kicked in, and she gawped in stunned, somewhat amused horror. To think that her archnemesis would end up as some kind of plus-sized Pamper.

“FWEEERT BPBPLAAART PFFFRT” were the last ‘words’ that Femme Splainer would ever ‘say.’

“Wait, what’s going on? Did she just turn into some kind of pillow?” Michael asked, adjusting his glasses as though that would give him a better look.

Lilly relaxed, shaking her head with a smile. She prepared to release her hold on his hearing, but as she started to key in her next words, another red beam lanced from the crowd, rebounding from a mirror to hit Overpowered Girl square in her back.

The blonde had enough time to look surprised before she shrank down within the confines of her clothing. Lilly only had a second to glance at her, but she was sure she saw the woman’s sharp features grow softer, chubbier, younger.

Her costume fell toward the ground, a wriggling bundle within. Luckily, Mister Rubberband was there to catch it. He frantically searched the near-empty costume, tugging the collar down to reveal a crying baby’s face.

+Somehow, the strongest among them had been instantly reduced to an infant. And it would not stop there.+

Lilly’s head snapped up as a dozen more beams danced across the sky, each of them connecting with another of the flying heroes. Like something out of an old science-fiction movie, the brave men and women all shrank down to squealing, wailing infants. And fell.

Most of the heroes on the ground raced to catch them. Some, like Lilly, turned their attention towards the crowd, watching as floating drones lifted from the stunned citizens. Each of the little drones sported an underslung laser, and each pointed toward another hero.

Lilly pulled her hand from her purse, conjuring a keyboard underneath each palm and frantically typing.

+The first beam missed, harmlessly spattering against asphalt. The next misfired, turning its own drone into a rubber duck. The third,+

She wasn’t fast enough to stop all of them. Red lines shot skyward, reflecting from balloons to connect with superheroes that Lilly had fought beside for years.

Whenwolf twitched and shuddered as fur burst from his pores. It came in thick and shaggy, overheating him during the hot summer day. His tongue spilled from his mouth, and he painted his shadow with drool. Desperately, he tugged at the back of his spandex outfit, claws tearing through the rump to reveal a thick, wagging tail.

The Plunder twins scrabbled desperately to hold onto each others’ bodies, even as long ropy tails slid past their waistbands. Their twitching noses pressed against one another, and a cacophony of squeaks slipped from one rodent muzzle into another.

Inflatabelle shuddered as her skin turned plastic and glossy. Her lips parted into a permanent ‘O’ and the corners of her mouth curled upward into a seductive smile. Her elbows and knees bent, and she fell backwards. By the time she landed, her sex doll body was so light that she simply bounced off the ground.

“The balloons!” Lilly cried out, as loud as she could. Crystal Lyn heard her, and raised a diamond arm towards a balloon, firing justice-laden carats at it and sending it to the ground.

But in doing so, the mineral girl didn’t notice a drone aiming right at her. Instinct made her move before she could process it, and she found herself flinching as a laser blasted her chest. Her heart sank, and stayed that way for a lingering moment. But nothing happened.

+Textweaver realized: None of the direct impacts were doing anything. As long as she could get between the beam and one of the balloons, she would be fine.+

Lilly let out a held breath, smiling.

+But, she couldn’t help but wonder: why, then, did the drone target Crystal Lyn directly?+

Another drone fired at the crystal girl, and another. And another. It was like a spotlight hitting a disco ball. Each of the beams reflected from the shimmering surface of Crystal Lyn’s body, spattering the crowd with transformative chaos.

Unlike with superpowered beings, average citizens were nothing more than fodder for the array of lasers. They simple burst from or shrank within their clothing on the spot, erased in an instant.

“HUGHHROAR!” A grizzly bear bellowed from the tattered remnants of a blue sundress. A nearby dachshund piddled itself, cowering beneath the baseball cap that still clung to its head. An elk ran away from his wailing mother, only for her scream to become the guttural snorting of an ugly warthog.

“Lilly, look out bAAAHHHA-AH-AH-AH!”

A crash of hooves knocked Lilly to the ground. She huffed as the air was driven from her lungs, and her hazy vision caught sight of a donkey nearly getting crushed by the massive elephant that used to be his… Girlfriend? Wife? +Stepdaughter.+ Oh.

+Distracted as she was, Textweaver was slow to realize why that last cry had sounded so familiar to her…+ Lilly’s Story-Sense tingled, and she scrambled onto her back, looking desperately at the animal that had bowled her over. Just as she dreaded, a mindless ewe idly chewed on Michael’s glasses. It looked to Lilly stupidly and bleated.

She must have missed something. But-

+A glimmer came from the car behind her.+

Lilly rolled to the side, narrowly dodging a beam that turned a nearby policewoman into a babbling chimp.

The superheroine cursed. Of course – they were in the middle of the city. Just because the floats were the most immediate threat, she also had to worry about every single car mirror, polished bumper – hell, even the windows might be shiny enough.

+The drone behind Textweaver exploded,+ she keyed, taking care of at least the one that had tried to ambush her. But that still left a bigger threat.

Dash Man tried to tackle Crystal Lyn to the ground, but a beam struck his chest. His legs shortened, sending him tumbling to the ground. His chest hardened, and he skidded helplessly towards her foot. By the time he hit her, he was just a confused box turtle.

Robogirl tried to send some drones to shield Crystal Lyn, but it came at the cost of her defense. A beam hit a victim’s fallen watch, striking her in the back. Robogirl’s arms and legs snapped to her sides, and she let out a pained “HURK” as she violently doubled over, her face slamming between her legs. Seconds later, she fell to the ground as little more than a flip phone.

+Crystal Lyn reverted back to her normal form!+

Lilly hated to do it, especially because she knew her friend recognized why it was happening. A few harmless direct hits splashed against Crystal Lyn’s leotard before a reflected hit caught her square in the jaw.

“TextweavURR!” Her jaw bulged comically, the rest of her body shrinking. “WHYYY-” Her voice choked off as stone overcame skin, leaving her as a stoic Easter Island head, albeit one with an arched, surprised brow.

The cry seemed to echo, and with a chill of dread, Lilly realized that she was the only one left. Not just of the heroes – she was the only person still human. At least a dozen drones buzzed around her. And fired.

+Textweaver conjured shields of words, letting each block the transformative blasts,+ Lilly moved faster than she had in her life. It was working, though. Each of the first dozen blasts struck a word, fizzling it away to nothingness.

+A drone exploded to her right, then as another fired, she made a,+ Lilly paused. The word wasn’t coming to her. It was similar to a sword. She couldn’t picture it in her head. But the beam was getting closer. +WALL!!+

The beam hit the word, and her eyelids fluttered. +Heroine realized that lasers stole speech,+ her Story-Sense slurred. She’d never heard it be anything less than perfect in her life, and she gulped.

It looked like each time she deflected a ray, she lost that much more from her vocabulary. Which wasn’t good, considering that another volley was incoming. +Girl made more things so many possible to save from bad threat!+

Her brain felt smoother. She swayed on her feet unsurely. It wasn’t just words. Concepts were being stolen from her too. A beam hit her open mouth, and she gagged as her tongue bulged. It swelled past her lips, drool uncontrollably spilling down onto her shirt.

+Make scary robots explode go boom loud noise,+ Lilly stumbled as another beam hit her hips, and another hit her shoulders. Her body wrenched like a puppet whose strings were pulled in opposite directions. She thumped onto all fours, her cheeks swelling too, flapping like canine jowls.

+Not dog person need protect more,+ She’d already lost the words she’d used to attack the drones, and was fumbling for anything, whatever she could use to prot… keep her safe.

+Danger all over!+ Her Story-Sense wailed.

Lilly struggled with whatever words she had, summoning them ahead of herself. +Pant slobber drool bark fetch play roll over sit stay speak+ was all her brain could muster, and even those were taken from her.

Fur itched at her all over. Her ears grew heavy, flopping against her cheeks for a moment. New muscles made them flick upward, tufted triangles flicking left and right in an attempt to orient herself. Her nose was stretching out from her face, darkening. She was turning into some kind of…

+Samoyed,+ was the last word her Story-Sense would say. She repeated it a second later, using it to block another beam.

Lilly felt so helpless, like a brainless idiot called onto a trivia stage. More beams darted toward her, and she only had one word left. She didn’t even realize that with just one word, there was nothing she could do. She’d been moving on autopilot for so long that she simply offered the word instinctively, picturing it in her head.

+Lilly+

Then it too was taken from her, and her eyes glazed. Whatever humanity she had left was shaken away with a waggle of her canine hips, a roll of her shoulders. Her new tail started to wag as she processed all sorts of smells that she didn’t have words for, but that was okay because she didn’t need those anyways.

“Behold, your new conqueror! The Maiden of Mirrors!” A new person cried, somehow walking out from a reflection. “My mechanical minions synchronize with my ability to see into your reflected lives, finding new forms that a mirrored… World…”

She trailed off, realizing that nobody was listening. Well, to be more accurate, she realized that nobody was capable of listening. The woman looked around, disappointment clear on her face. “Well, that’s a shame. You were supposed to last longer while I finished doing my makeup…”

She looked so sad. The new Samoyed barked to get her attention. She didn’t like seeing people sad! The dog clumsily padded over to the woman, and got a nice scratch atop the head. She liked that, so she licked the woman’s hands to encourage more pets.

“Ha! Well, at least one of you has the right idea. I can only hope there’s some other Super Society that can put up more of a fight, though…”