Arrival 02

Being in an actual, real bed was nice. That was, admittedly, a bit of an understatement – it was very nice, especially considering this wasn’t just your average bed. No pile of hay with some bedding for Siege today. No, he got a full-on king sized canopy bed. Possibly more than king sized? He wasn’t exactly familiar with the nuances of bed sizes. All he knew was that it was big and soft (but not too soft) and decadent. He was still bleeding, still completely incapable of moving under his own power. But the bed was nice.

Tina had placed him very gently on the bed before returning herself to her original appearance and scurrying off to get some replacement clothing, shower off all the blood, and to fetch someone with more experience – not necessarily in that exact order. Frankie, meanwhile, had very pointedly stayed behind to keep an eye on him. Ostensibly, it was to keep an eye on him in case his condition worsened. And, well, Siege wasn’t entirely sure that wasn’t at least a part of it. But also it was very clear that Frankie didn’t entirely trust him. And, well, he couldn’t blame her – he didn’t particularly trust her, after all, though that might be the blood loss talking.

“The boss is probably busy with a client, so this could take a while.”

“Okay,” Siege growled in response – not really intentionally, but it was about all that his vocal cords could manage.

Frankie rolled her eyes. “Could you, like, drop the whole Christian Bale Batman voice thing? Like, I get it, you’re a grizzled badass whatever. But man is it hard to figure out what you’re saying.”

Siege pondered for a moment. “Sorry. Don’t think I can.”

“Ughhhhh.” Frankie pinched the bridge of her nose. “Hopefully there’s someone with seniority for Tina to throw at you if the boss isn’t available because good god do I not have the patience for much more of this.”

“Sorry for being injured.”

“Hey, if you’ve got the energy to snark, you’ve got the energy to recover, buddy. I’m a busy lady, I’ve got my own clients to see to.”

Thankfully, it wasn’t long after that exchange ended when Tina returned. “Miss Dreamer is busy,” she said succinctly.

“Yeah, figures.”

“I managed to catch Miss Rothschild at the end of a shift, though.”

“Oh, thank god.”

“I’m going to see if I can’t find Miss Smith, too.”

“Ugh, do you really think that’s necessary?”

“There might be some legal stuff that needs to be taken care of.”

“What, you think he’s gonna sue us or something?”

“I don’t know, maybe? But even if he doesn’t, I feel like he’d probably need to have a conversation with Miss Dreamer’s lawyer.”

“Well, in that case, I’m outta here.” Frankie waved dismissively, pulling away from the wall she was leaning against and heading out of the room. “She’s still mad at me for the whole Phi Upsilon Kappa thing even though that absolutely wasn’t my fault. Besides, I wasn’t kidding when I said I’ve got clients to see to. The boss lady’ll kill me if I’m late to work, even if there’s extenuating circumstances.”

“Okay, see you.” Tina turned awkwardly to face Siege. “Um. My shift’s starting soon, too, and I need to go find Miss Smith. Miss Rothschild will be here shortly, though!”

Siege grunted in response, which was about the best he could manage. Still, it seemed like Tina took that as an “I’ll be fine on my own for now” and left him to continue slowly bleeding out onto the bed. He had lost an awful lot of blood by this point, and were he not functionally immortal he’d probably have died by now. Hopefully the girls were at least a little aware of that caveat, because he’d hate to see anyone who wasn’t functionally immortal die on them because they’d taken twenty minutes contacting superiors rather than busting out a fucking first aid kit.

Thankfully, Miss Rothschild didn’t take very long to show up. She was, it turned out, a giraffe – and a very, very large one, in just about every way a person could be large. Honestly, it was a miracle that she could fit through the door at all. She was extremely tall, made moreso by a foot and a half or so of neck that made her cumulatively bigger than Tina’s hellhound form had been even before Frankie had shrank her down a few feet, and also extremely wide. Each thigh had to be thicker around than some people, and her hips were absolutely wider than the doorframe. Her breasts were also fairly large – somewhere around the size of her head, maybe head-and-a-half? Which was frankly massive, but yet somehow she still managed to be extremely bottom-heavy.

She also, Siege pointedly and uncomfortably noted, wasn’t exactly hiding any of that. Really, she barely had any clothing on at all. Her top was really more a ring of shiny black fabric that just barely contained her breasts, stretched to the point where a good portion of her areolas were visible. Her black skirt was similarly inadequate, riding high on her ample hips and doing an extremely poor job of hiding her impressive package. Oh, yes, she also had a penis. That wasn’t really surprising after Tina, but it was so obvious that it still managed to catch him off guard anyway. She had it tightly stuffed into a barely adequate candy red thong that also rode extremely high on her hips.

She looked down at him and let out a weary sigh. “Not even an attempt at first aid, I see. I’m going to have to have a word with them later.”

“I’ll be fine,” Siege grumbled.

“I’ll be the judge of that, young man,” Miss Rothschild said. Her tone of voice reminded him of a mother chiding a rambunctious child. Though, typically, in his experience mothers very rarely dressed quite so trashy. Her clothing seemed almost tailor made to draw the eye to various sex bits. Aside from her raw size, she wouldn’t have been particularly out of place on a particularly seedy street corner soliciting sex from passing men.

Something clicked in Siege’s mind. The way Miss Rothschild was dressed, the massive canopy bed, the mention of clients. “Oh. This is a brothel, isn’t it.”

“Oh, you didn’t know?” She turned around to gently close the door behind her, giving Siege visual confirmation that yes, her butt was indeed the biggest thing about her. A lesser man could very easily get lost in there. “Yes, among other things, the Hole in the Wall is a brothel. We’re a lot more classy than the term typically implies, though. But that’s for later. Right now, you don’t appear to be particularly up for sex.” Lisa turned back around and headed over to the side of the bed, calmly kneeling on the floor beside him. “Right now you clearly need medical attention. Not exactly my specialty, but luckily there’s ways around that.”

Miss Rothschild briefly looked him over, and Siege found himself wishing that Frankie or Tina had actually called her by her first name at some point because calling her Miss Rothschild was a bit clunky. “Hm. Interesting. Azure is definitely going to want to have a look at you.”

“Mnrf.”

“It’s a bit outside my typical wheelhouse, but you seem to be extremely cursed.” That was a bit of an understatement, but not exactly incorrect. “Hm. I might have to wait for Azure to show up after all, but that could take a while. You’re not from around here, are you?”

“Something like that.”

“As in you’re from another reality.”

“Ah.” Siege wasn’t particularly surprised that Miss Rothschild could figure that out, though he was a bit impressed that she could tell that much just by looking.

“I thought so. That could be mildly problematic, depending on circumstances. You’re also obviously extremely magic resistant, but there’s ways around that. There’s not really ways around you being from another reality.”

“I wouldn’t know much about that, sorry.”

“Layman’s terms, then. Generally, one of the biggest differences between realities is how magic works. And generally, whenever someone is freshly arrived from another reality, they still have some of their previous reality’s magic with them. After a while, you get... acclimated to the local rules, but until then using magic on you can result in unpredictable and possibly dangerous results. And since you’re extremely magic resistant, I would have to use fairly powerful magic to have any noticeable effects. Which would make the results even more unpredictable and possibly more dangerous.”

“I think I see the problem,” Siege grunted. “But it’ll probably be fine. It usually is. Healing magic tends to hurt like a bitch, though.”

“Well, regardless, hopefully I’ll be able to find a way around that.” Miss Rothschild snapped her fingers – much like when Tina and Frankie had done the same in the alleyway, the resultant sound was unnaturally sharp – and a small bottle of red liquid materialized in her hand. “My specialty is alchemy. Keeping things simple, alchemy tends to be the exception to most hard-and-fast rules of magic. Probably because in many cases it borders on being outright science, albeit magical science. If that makes sense. A powerful enough alchemical potion can typically override magical resistances, at least temporarily. Luckily, we don’t need any kind of semi-permanent effect, just long enough to speed up the recovery a bit. It also tends to play more nicely with inter-reality magic. Though, ah, again. Unpredictable. Open your mouth, please.”

Siege obeyed, and Miss Rothschild removed the lid from the potion before unceremoniously pouring it down his throat. It did not, he noticed, taste nearly as bad as healing potions typically did in his experience. Though, admittedly, his experience wasn’t exactly extensive. Generally, healing potions didn’t really do anything aside from taste bad. Clearly, the problem had been the quality – in addition to not tasting awful, Siege could immediately feel a tingling sensation spreading through his body, mostly focused on the various wounds. Within moments, the bleeding slowed and then came to a stop as they began to heal.

“It should also dull the pain a bit, though unfortunately I can’t say for sure how long it’ll last.”

“That’s fine. This is already more than I’m comfortable accepting.”

“Don’t worry about it. Helping someone in your state is just common human decency, as far as I’m concerned.”

Siege was going to respond, but he was interrupted by the door opening rather abruptly. “Oi, Lisa, he die?”

“No. Actually, I think he would likely have survived even without our input. But I’ve expedited things.”

“Good. Out. You’ve got work to do, and I wanna talk to our guest in private.”

“Right,” Lisa said, before calmly getting up and leaving. Siege very briefly regretted only learning her first name immediately before she left, but only briefly.

Because right now, he had other, more pressing concerns.

“Now,” the new arrival, a blue-furred mouse, said succinctly. In comparison to Lisa, she was practically minuscule – around the same height as Tina’s normal form, though much closer to the giraffe in terms of breast size. She was wearing a simple, comfortable outfit of a sweatshirt and sweatpants. Probably something she threw together at the last minute after dealing with a customer – Siege could smell sex from the instant she entered the room. Almost intense enough that he didn’t notice that her very presence immediately set him on edge. Her mere presence had his every instinct screaming at him that this woman, whoever she was, was dangerous. “What to do with you.”

“I don’t want any trouble.”

“Good. Because there would be Consequences if you even considered it.” The woman snapped her fingers, and a stool materialized at his bedside. She sashayed her way over, swinging ample hips with every step before calmly sitting down. “Name, please,” she said, though her tone of voice made it clear it wasn’t a request.

“Siege.”

“Your full name. Please.”

“... Longshot.”

“Good boy.” She tented her fingers, leaning in close. “My name is Azure Dreamer. I’m the owner of this establishment. And you and I are going to have a nice, long chat.”
Push The Button 02

Vinyl was still not sure exactly how Octavia had managed to shrink back down to normal. Honestly, the whole situation had her extremely confused, but somehow that aspect was especially baffling. Octavia had been continental in scope one day, and then the next she was just... Octavia. Normal height, normal proportions. Five foot even and scrawny, with exactly zero hint of the titaness she had been not that long ago and zero explanation as to what any of that was.

That was really the frustrating thing. Not that she got in trouble – no, she absolutely 100% deserved what she’d gotten. Hell, if anything, she’d probably gotten off lightly, likely because she didn’t really have any idea what she was doing and also Octavia had done an admirable job of minimizing property damage. But the real sticking point, the thing that annoyed her about all of this was the fact that her housemate completely fucking refused to give any kind of answer as to what the fuck just happened. Why did she have a remote control that made her double in height and get super thick and buff and sexy every time the one single button on it was pressed? How did she undo all that growth? How did it work, where did she get it, where could Vinyl get her own.

Well okay it was entirely reasonable to not give her an answer to that last one at least. But the rest it was really not reasonable to not give her an answer to. Vinyl was curious, god dammit.

And, as Octavia probably should have known by now, the only thing more dangerous than a bored Vinyl Scratch was a curious Vinyl Scratch.

It had been long enough since the incident that things had more or less returned to normal. It wasn’t like it was the first time Ponyville had suffered serious damage due to Shenanigans. They had at this point refined repairing the town after it got destroyed by something or other into a perfect science. Really, Vinyl had barely needed to do anything at all – yet another reason it felt like she’d gotten off a bit lightly. And, with everything repaired, life was back on track. Obviously Vinyl hadn’t been able to have any gigs while the repair effort was on, so she needed to make up for lost time in order to make rent. And, incidentally, it gave her an opportunity to do a bit of experimenting.

“Vinyl, why on earth did you decide to host a concert this far out of Ponyville.”

“I figured we could all use a vacation after rebuilding again,” she lied, shrugging noncommittally. Vinyl had very specific reasons for wanting a lot of open space for this particular concert, and there wasn’t much more open space she could get than her own private beach. “Or at least I could. Thus, beach venue.”

“Yes, but there’s plenty of beaches within walking distance of Ponyville.”

“Yeah, but see, I own this beach.”

“Ah.”

“Yep.” One advantage to being a celebrity was that Vinyl very often found herself with more money than she knew what to do with. The cost of living in Ponyville wasn’t exactly astronomical, either, which meant it was frankly piss-easy for her to save up frankly absurd amounts of cash to drop on frivolous things like her own private beach purely in case she ever wanted to hold a beachside concert some day. And that some day was today.

Or today-ish. Unfortunately, throwing a concert completely on a whim wasn’t an option. There were all kinds of logistical concerns that one had to take into account before actually doing the thing. Especially considering that the concert was taking place on a beach nowhere near any civilization. You needed power for all the lights and the turntables and such and that meant generators which needed fuel and you needed a structurally sound stage and you needed a place to put the audience and you needed some way of collecting money from them in exchange for tickets and if the concert’s gonna be longer than a few hours then you should also probably feed them and all of that needed people and time. So actually it was currently about a week or so after she’d made the decision to have a concert. Which was fine, if a bit annoying. It gave her things to do, at least, but it also delayed her investigation into the object of her curiosity.

Most ponies would, in the course of planning the concert, probably have reconsidered this whole scheme. Vinyl Scratch was not most ponies. She had never in her entire life met somepony quite so singlemindedly stubborn as herself. Which probably wasn’t saying much, granted, but still, the point was that she was very stubborn. There was nothing stopping her from just putting on a normal concert and not turning it into a debacle. She wasn’t yet past the point of no return or anything.

But she really fucking wanted to know what that button did.

The plan was actually quite simple. The difficult thing was getting her hands on the button again, and then smuggling it to the concert. Octavia had been noticeably more careful with where she put it after the last incident, understandably, and Vinyl’s typical fashion sense didn’t exactly allow for many hiding spaces. She tended to gravitate towards clothing that was skimpy and tight-fitting. Pockets were a rare luxury, and even with pockets the low-riding jeans she’d elected to wear looked practically painted on. And she couldn’t just not dress in the most trashy fucking outfit conceivable, because that was her brand god dammit. People would immediately notice if she wore anything that she could potentially conceal the damn button in, so she couldn’t actually carry the thing on her person.

In the end, she’d elected to just bring a duffel bag full of sundry stuff and stash the button in there. It wasn’t a particularly elegant solution, and she’d still have to get the thing on stage, but it worked, god dammit. An adequate enough solution to get her to the bulk of her plan.

“It looks like you’re all set up, at least,” Octavia said. “I’m going to get out of the way now.”

“You should totally stay and watch,” Vinyl lied again.

“It’s fine, really,” Octavia replied, exactly the way that she always did. Vinyl was no master manipulator, but she didn’t need to be. Octavia was predictable enough that all she had to do was plan around what she would probably do anyway.

“Well, at least hang around on the beach. That way you get to hear the concert and I don’t hafta worry about finding another ride home.”

“Did you really not- ugh, fine. I’ll stay within ride bumming range. But you really need to stop planning your concerts around my presence.”

“Fine, fine, duly noted. I’ve got some last-second stuff to set up.”

“Okay,” Octavia said tersely, very clearly aware Vinyl was trying to get rid of her. “Look, Vinyl. Just... Please try not to set anything important on fire. Again.”

“Relax, Tavi, I’ve got this under control.”

Octavia was clearly skeptical in that regard, but nevertheless electefd to leave Vinyl to her own devices. Good. An eager grin spread across her face as she reached into the duffel bag and pulled out the remote. “Okay, we’ve seen what happens when I mash,” she said to herself. She walked over to the turntables with a purpose and placed the remote button-down on her chair. “So what happens if I hold it down?”

Generally, Vinyl stood up for her sets. But it wasn’t entirely out of the question for her to sit down either, especially for longer concerts.  And she’d prepared a very, very long set for this evening.

She put a pillow on top of the button, for comfort purposes and also to muffle the beep that the button made when it was pressed. Didn’t want to risk the mic picking that up, after all. Hopefully putting it button-down would compensate for the presence of the pillow and ensure it actually got pressed at all when she sat on it. But, well, she could cross that bridge when she came to it. Right now, the setup was done and the only thing left was the concert itself.

“Alright, guys, are you ready?” The cheers from the crowd were, of course, deafening. The house was about as packed as the small, isolated cove could reasonably get. Her concerts almost always sold out, even when they were out of the way like this one so it wasn’t super surprising that it was packed. Vinyl took just a little moment to bask in the attention before grinning eagerly. “Sounds like you’re all ready to me. Alright, then, let’s do this shit!”

Octavia had moved a good way down the beach. Out of range of the concert but still close enough to hear when it ended. Not that she didn’t like Vinyl’s music, of course. But, well, it was... very loud. Bombastic. Rowdy. And, at the end of the day, Octavia was a classical musician. She could tolerate EDM in small doses or in the right context, but it just plain wasn’t her music, you know? So she just sort of moved well out of the way and sat down on the beach to watch the sunset while she waited for the concert to be over.

It took her a frankly embarrassing amount of time to notice that she was growing. At first she thought she was just tired from the trip – Vinyl’s beach was, as stated, quite a ways from Ponyville. Her muscles felt tight and slightly sore, which lined up with that. But then she started to get horny. Really horny. At some point she’d started rubbing the crotch of her pants and she wasn’t entirely sure when. That, at least, was definitely not a symptom of tiredness. But she didn’t put together that the two symptoms were related until there was a loud ripping sound as the seat of her pants split open to make way for her newly colossal ass.

“Oh, god dammit, Vinyl,” she muttered to herself as she finally picked up on the fact that she was inching taller by the second. Boobs bigger, ass thicker, muscles bulging. Not the instantaneous change in size of last time, but rather a slow creep of bigger.

Or at least slow in relation to when the button was pressed, at least. She was still growing an inch a second, and the speed of the growth was picking up as she got bigger. Her clothing was, at this point, completely gone, destroyed by raw size. Celestia, she had to be at least ten, maybe fifteen feet tall by now. And rather than an inch a second, she was growing whole feet at a time in a steady flow of size.

At least they were quite a ways from civilization. That was the big benefit to how far out of the way Vinyl’s beach was – there were at least thirty miles between it and the nearest bit of civilization. Though, given the rate of her growth, it was entirely possible that wouldn’t be enough. Luna knows it hadn’t been enough last time.

After a moment of debate, in which time she reached fifty or so feet, she elected that she should probably head out to sea. Just in case.

Vinyl’s set, as anticipated, went on for a few hours longer than normal. She probably could have gone on for longer, but typically two hours was her maximum and she’d gone for twice that. It had already been late when she’d started, too, so by the end basically no one had any energy left. And, really, once you hit that point, if you kept the set going then no one had any fun.

Or, at least, no one had any fun with the concert. Vinyl imagined that Octavia was having a lot of fun with certain other things, and would probably only have more fun if she kept things going. But, well, she herself only had so much stamina. So she elected to just let the concert end there. Gave everyone a bit to slowly filter outta the venue before she called up the stagehands to start taking things apart – which could potentially take a while, yet another reason to not push things much longer than they already had been. “Okay, looks like everyone’s gone,” Vinyl said to herself before standing up.

That, it turned out, was a mistake. There was a loud noise, and the ground shook beneath her like an earthquake as she realized that probably counted as pushing the button. Vinyl found herself very thoroughly knocked off her feet and onto her back. Which gave her a fairly good look at the sky, or lack thereof. All she could see was a vast grey expanse, as far as the eye could see. “Ah, yeah, that tracks,” she said to herself as she put two and two together.

“Vinyl,” Octavia said tersely. “Once I return to normal you and I are going to have some Words about boundaries”
Inspection

Inspection day was always a stressful time for any small business owner. Doubly so if it was your first inspection. Delilah wasn’t exactly a stranger to the local government sending someone in to check if you were meeting the basic standards for things like hygiene and safety and such. She’d been in the restaurant business for pretty much her whole life. But she’d never been in charge before – at most she was the assistant manager. Certainly not the owner. And also there was the fact that this particular restaurant... wasn’t exactly the same kind of restaurant she was used to. She’d gotten into the industry as the guy who cleaned up the eating area of the local Wendy’s and had slowly worked her way up from there. But it wasn’t just the transition from fast food to sit-down dining that made this different, though it certainly didn’t help.

The key thing was that this wasn’t just a sit-down restaurant. It was... well, she really probably shouldn’t keep beating around the bush, especially in her internal monologue. This was her business that she had started. Not a franchise or anything, her own restaurant idea, so why was she being so coy about the fact that it was a fetish restaurant. Specifically boob-focused and specifically specifically lactation focused. Because she was a tit, you see. A red-breasted tit, to be specific. That had been pretty much the entirety of the idea. She was a tit, she opened a restaurant called Tits. It was a pun. Ha ha. Funny.

God she was so fucking anxious.

The general idea behind Tits was that basically everything was made with breastmilk somewhere in the recipe. Including the drinks. Especially the drinks – in addition to a large stock of LactAid, she had also invested in an equally large stock of LactAid variants to make her girls produce everything from milk to beer to pre-mixed cocktails. And also some for her employees. Mostly for her employees. An unfortunate reality was that even though she was somewhat preternaturally gifted in that particular regard for an avian, she was just too busy running the business to get involved in the nitty gritty like that.

But, luckily, thanks to the wonders of LactAid, her employees didn’t need to be particularly gifted in that regard. She’d made a nice little deal with the pharmaceutical company that made LactAid. They got a small cut of the profits, free marketing, and got to be in on the ground floor of what they were very certain was going to become a very popular franchise, rivalling the likes of Hooters or Buns. In return, she got a deal on bulk purchases, including a lot of exclusive custom variants, a steady supply of Gro-+ so that she didn’t need to worry about endowment when it came to the hiring process, and probably most importantly, plenty of nullifiers for the girls to take in between customers to prevent overdosing.

She’d heard horror stories of what happened to people who overdosed on LactAid. The more you took without waiting for it to clear your system or taking a nullifier, the more you ran the risk of side-effects. At the least, you ran the risk of upping your baseline milk production. At worst, your production could start to snowball, or you could end up growing a few extra nipples or entire breasts or even some horns and an udder, and there was at least one known case of someone turning into a forty foot tall minotaur. And, no matter what, an overdose almost always led to a crippling addiction to the pleasure that that level of extreme lactation resulted in.

They were all very cautious about how they handled the medication. Bust size wasn’t a requirement for being hired, but they did have to carefully screen prospective employees to make sure there was no risk of them going Milk Crazy. And the LactAid and Gro-+ was kept in a big walk-in fridge in the back that was locked at all times – Delilah had a key, along with the shift manager and the supervisors, but no one else was allowed in alone.

“Okay so, last minute check. Is everything in place?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Um, Miss Finster?”

“You’re absolutely sure.”

“Positive, boss,” the head manager said confidently. She was a cow – most of her earliest employees had been bovines of some sort, for obvious reasons. And so of course most of the most senior employees were bovines, and thus most of the management roles were bovines. “I checked and double checked and then you checked and double checked my checks and then I checked and double and triple checked your checks. We’re fine.”

“I can’t be too cautious.”

“Miss Finster?”

“Hey, I’ve been in the sex business for years. Trust me, inspectors can smell fear. Just relax and you’ll do fine.”

“I’m confident that once we’re past this first hurdle I’ll be fine. It’s just, you know. A little stressful.”

“Miss Finster the inspector is here.”

Delilah swore internally. “Tell her I’ll be with her in just a moment.”

“Um, I mean... She’s here here.”

It took all of her willpower not to swear externally as she turned to face the nervous young waitress who had the dubious honour of being the bearer of bad news. She was a tabby cat, dressed in the standard Tits waitress uniform, a sort of cross between “German milkmaid” and “trashy hooker”, which just barely managed to contain tits almost four times the size of her head. She was a cute kid with a load of potential, but right now Delilah was much more interested in the person standing beside her.

The first thing that she noticed about the inspector was that she was enormously tall. Like eight, eight and a half feet tall – factoring in the candy red high heels, Delilah found herself essentially at crotch level. She was tall enough that her ears were brushing the ceiling of the kitchen. “Hrm,” she said with a slight frown, making a note on her clipboard. “Ceilings could stand to be taller. Not very macro-accessible, though the dining area is better.”

Oh, god, they were already off to a bad start. In addition to being tall, she was very lanky. Her legs and arms seemed to almost be too long for normal human proportions, and conversely her torso seemed a bit unusually short. She was also rail-thin, with two prominent exceptions; the first, breasts that, while not quite on par with any of the wait staff, still strained the fuck out of her simple white blouse; and the second, a big ol’ bulge in the crotch of her pencil skirt. The look was topped off with a severe looking set of black-rimmed glasses and a twin set of golden braids that almost reached the ground. The rest of her was a much brighter shade of yellow, and also looked sort of... off, though Delilah couldn’t put her finger on how.

With that slight frown still on her face, she continued to write down notes on her clipboard before tearing off a segment and handing it to the waitress. “My number~” she said, making a vague “call me” gesture with her hand before turning her full attention to Delilah. “My name’s Eve Bunsen, but just call me Eve. Shall we get started?”

“Right. Uh. Right.” Delilah wasn’t sure what to make of Eve. It was hard to know if she should be making anything of her, if she was honest. This whole situation had her very far out of her depth. The government inspector had just shown up out of nowhere with exactly zero fanfare and the first thing she’d done was give her fucking phone number to one of the waitresses? How was she supposed to react to this? What was she supposed to even do here? “Uh, you’ve already seen the dining area, and this is the kitchen. What, um. Do you want me to show you anything specific, or-”

“Why don’t we start with the obvious.”

“Right.” Of course they should start with the thing most likely to go wrong – the LactAid. Delilah felt like an idiot for not figuring that out herself.

“You,” Eve said, turning to the waitress. “Come with us, please.”

“O-oh, um,” the young lady said, about as caught off guard as Delilah by that particular development. “Why?”

“I would think it self-evident?” was all the explanation they got. Why on earth would they need a random employee? Was she going to ask her about the working conditions or the safety or something? Or maybe it was a ploy to catch Delilah off-guard – in which case, it was working admirably.

“Right this way,” she said, swallowing her confusion and getting on with the inspection. Past the fridge, past the freezer, past the supply closet, finally settling on the Medication Room. “We keep it locked most of the time. Only a handful of employees have keys, including myself.”

“That seems a bit much for over the counter pharmaceuticals,” Eve replied, clearly intentionally trying to bait a slip-up. Delilah was determined not to give her one.

“You can never be too careful. Safety first and all that.”

“Oh. I was assuming you were worried about your employees stealing from your supply.”

“Well... Yes, that is a concern. But it’s not too expensive to replenish our supply, and I trust my employees. I’m more worried about the side-effects.”

“Ah. Most people would consider those to be the point of the drug.”

“Uh. I suppose?”

“Anyway, show me the supply, please.”

“Um. Right.” Delilah unlocked the door and awkwardly gestured for Eve to lead the way, followed shortly by herself and the cat waitress. “As you can see, we have a fairly extensive supply that’s replenished regularly directly from the source.”

“That’s a bit of an understatement! I would consider this to be a lifetime supply for most people.”

“Well, we go through them surprisingly quickly. Each customer’s order necessitates a fresh dose.”

“Ah, of course.” Eve turned her attention to the shelves, scanning them thoroughly. “Quite a variety, too. You must have a very robust menu. And of course customers have the option to drink directly from the tap, yes?”

“Of course. Every new flavour is, of course, very thoroughly tested to ensure they’re safe to consume for both our waitresses and customers, as well.”

“Well, I’d assume so, but that’s more on the shoulders of your supplier, no?”

“Well, yes, but I’d think it’d be the kind of thing you’d want to know is being done?”

“Ah,” Eve said, calmly pulling a bottle of Margarita LactAid from the shelves. “I think, perhaps, you might have misunderstood the nature of this inspection.”

“I have????”

“I think so, yes,” Eve replied, making her way over to the door and closing it. After a moment’s thought, she snapped her fingers – the almost unnatural sharpness of the resultant noise making it clear she’d cast some sort of spell. “You seem to be under the impression that I’m a health and safety inspector, and that’s... not strictly inaccurate but also not entirely true.” She opened the bottle, pulling out a single tablet of LactAid before closing the lid and putting it back where she’d found it. “At this point, I’ve done all the health and safety inspection that I need to do. But mostly, I’m here to perform... Let’s call it quality control.”

With that, she tossed the tablet into her mouth and swallowed. Delilah stared in slack-jawed disbelief. Eve seemed content to ignore  her, instead focusing on squeezing her tits as the LactAid kicked in, twin blossoms of sticky moisture staining her shirt. “I- you- what?”

“Mmm, don’t just stand there like a rock. If you don’t convince me that you’re capable of satisfying the average customer, then there’s gonna be serious consequences.”

That was enough to snap Delilah out of her flabbergasted stupor. She was still, of course, not entirely sure how okay with this situation she was. She was going to have to have Words with the city’s department of adult entertainment about this debacle later on. But god dammit, right now her priority was keeping herself in business. And if that meant grabbing some LactAid and maybe some Gro-+ and having sex with the admittedly kinda hot inspector then so fucking be it. She grabbed a bottle of Champagne LactAid and popped open the lid. “Alright, fine, whatever you want, ma’am,” she said, just a bit tersely.

“Oh, come now, no need to be a stick in the mud. Here, lemme give you a hand with that.”

“I-” was all that Delilah managed before Eve grabbed the bottle and shoved it into her beak, tilting it up and emptying the whole damn thing down her throat while the poor waitress watched on in horror.

“Now,” she said, with a grin that was both eager and maybe just a bit crazed. “Let the inspection proper begin.”