Gift Story Thing For Ness “Okay Ness, it’s very important that you’re careful to not touch anything too dangerous. I don’t know how much experience you have in labs,” Alkali said. He adjusted his pristine lab coat over his athletic, grey-furred shoulders before walking past lab benches leading Ness forward. The raccoon that followed behind adjusted his glasses, looking over every machine and potion that was within arm’s reach. He poked, prodded, and generally made a mess of anything he could. It wasn’t that Ness didn’t listen to Alkali; he just didn’t see how anything in here could be all that dangerous. Certainly nothing he wasn’t already used to dealing with when around his other mad scientist friends. “I’ll be very careful Alkali. It’s just a tour,” Ness said, dropping a flask of green liquid on the floor. It started eating through the white, tiled floor in seconds leaving a charred and black hole. Oops. The raccoon looked up to see if Alkali noticed but the roo was far ahead now. Alkali seemed to be busy elaborating on the scientific merits of his work. No harm, no foul right? Ness scooted carefully around the hole in the floor to catch up. Small fumes of steam fogged up his glasses, so he used the green fabric of his pullover to clean it off. “Now this next portion of the lab is where I keep the experiments in progress. Tech that isn’t ready for deployment. Lots of beta testing needed. Soon as I find a new test subject to help they’ll be tested and finished,” Alkali continued. The 10-foot-tall roo didn’t even turn around as he motioned to the machines surrounding the hallway. Ness started to space out, barely keeping track of all the names the roo said. Mass Transfer Device, Taurification Belt, Body Swap Ray, Cloning Machine- Body Swap Ray? Ness paused in his tracks. Sitting atop a table on a chrome platform was a small toy gun. The roo had tried to clean it up and make it look like it wasn’t a Nerf gun obviously, but it was pretty easy to tell. White paint can’t hide everything. It looked like a cheap pistol, with thick wires jutting out of the sides of the grip and ending at the barrel. On the top of it was an egg timer, duct taped in place. Ness had no idea what any of the buttons or dials meant, but he knew his ears didn’t deceive him. If this was a Body Swap Ray… well, the roo did say he needed test subjects. ZORT The roo had no time to react before a bright purple beam of light struck him in the back. Everything went black for a moment. The roo’s consciousness ripped violently backward, transferred through the purple energy until it crashed into Ness’s body. Alkali blinked once, then twice, looking down awkwardly at the gun resting in his hands. They were much more slender fingers, dexterous compared to what he was used to seeing. Green shirt sleeves rested at his wrists. As he got his bearings back, the realization of what he was holding hit Alkali. He looked up and down the hall, seeing a kangaroo. His body. Someone else was inside it, touching at his lab coat and adjusting the hat atop his head. He had a pretty good idea of who did it. Especially with the wide, shit-eating grin plastered on his face. Err, his body’s face. This could get confusing. “Ness! Why did you do that?” Alkali yelled. He tried to hop forward but without his natural kangaroo springiness he just flopped forward onto his face. “Ouch…” he mumbled, hands searching along the ground for his glasses. Ness’s glasses. While the roo turned raccoon tried to get to his feet, he found the Body Swap Ray pried out of his hands. “Dunno, just seemed like a good idea at the time. You should know better than to keep any bodyswap technology in arm’s distance from me,” he heard his body, his own voice, say. Looking up he saw the roo fiddling with the ray. “How do I get this thing to work again? I’m pulling the trigger but it’s not doing anything.” Alkali rose to his feet, awkwardly, still getting used to the new body’s proportions. It was quite a strange feeling, being loomed over by his own 10-foot-tall body. With a jump he was able to get high enough to pull the ray back, looking over it carefully. His raccoon features drooped instantly when he looked at the egg timer atop. “I put a timer on the ray. It was meant to keep the internal electronics from overheating, since it’s still in beta testing. But looks like it was set for a week of cooldown,” Alkali muttered, picking the glasses up off the floor. “So we’re stuck this way. For a week. I’ll hold onto the ray and see if there’s anything I can do to speed it up. Keep my body safe for me, alright Ness?” Inside the kangaroo’s body, Ness somehow managed to smile even wider. “Promise.” It took all of five minutes for Ness to ignore his promise. With a whole week set aside, he knew this was a chance to see what it would be like to live as a giant kangaroo. There were any number of ways he could get to that point, but the fastest was through drinking. Alkali’s body had a growth trigger that turned on anytime he drank alcohol and shrinking to normal took a long time. Ness said his goodbye and walked home, marveling at how he was easily able to look down at everyone on the streets. People came up to his waist at best; seeing the world from a whole new perspective sent a thrill up his back. Or maybe that was just his tail dragging on the ground and hitting things. It was much longer and thicker now, hard to tell. Doorways proved to be a particularly interesting challenge. Ness hadn’t realized it inside Alkali’s lab because his ceilings and doorways were sized up. At his front door the problem of his size presented itself in much more obvious terms when it only reached the middle of his chest. He bent forward to fit beneath the doorframe, awkwardly scooting forward at an angle to fit through the tiny space. Even once inside he wasn’t able to stand up straight, hunching his shoulders forward. A whole week inside the house like this could get annoying quickly. Better to move things outside sooner rather than later. He carefully navigated his house as much as possible, but found there was only so much he could do at twice his usual height. The furniture looked like children’s toys and the ceiling cracked if he wasn’t careful to avoid putting too much pressure on it. Each step forward caused the whole house to shake. Glasses fell to the floor in the kitchen and lamps landed on their sides. A few times he accidentally kicked furniture out of the way with his newly elongated kangaroo stompers. This wasn’t going to work. Maybe he could just live in Alkali’s house instead. That sounded pretty nice. Getting to live someone else’s life in their house too. Ness made a mental note to come back to that later. Being a giant needed to come first. Ness finally managed to make his way to the refrigerator with plenty of collateral damage. He fished out cans and bottles of beer, as many as he could handle, and started to drink. But what Ness didn’t know was how fast it would work. Would it start growing him immediately, or would it take time? So rather than worry he started to chug every bottle he owned at once. A pile of glass and cans accumulated in the side of the room. Ness belched, shaking the house yet again, as he sat on a pitifully tiny couch. The alcoholic stupor hit him all at once making the world spin slightly. That was right before his whole body shivered, fur standing on end from head to tail. The room seemed to constrict around his body and the lab coat he wore tightened over his arms and torso before ripping away entirely. His pants were gone in a flash, leaving behind only a pair of bright green boxer briefs. Ness thought it would be painful to outgrow a house but it was all done so quickly he barely had time to register it. A kangaroo head popped out through the roof of his house, followed by long kangaroo feet and legs through the walls. He was about to lament the loss of his house when someone on the street pointed up and yelled, “Ahh! Some giant kangaroo just grew through Ness’s house! Someone call for help!” Ohh, right. He didn’t destroy his house. Alkali did. Ness giggled through a voice that wasn’t his own, standing up through the rubble to walk down the street. This was a good time to explore what macros usually got up to, without any of the consequences. Plenty of cities were within driving distance. Or walking distance, now that he was around 50-feet-tall. Maybe there was some more booze around to peruse as well. Ness enjoyed the little experiences of his growth like the way the pavement seemed to splinter and flatten under his feet. He giggled with each step forward, not paying attention as his tail swayed to knock cars and lamp posts out of the street. With an inspired idea, the kangaroo pushed both of his feet inside a few cars. They didn’t fit perfectly but it was close enough to make some functional, macro-scale roller skates. Soon as he got to some city’s downtown, he was going to test out his size with skyscrapers for sure. --- Ness wasn’t alone in exploring his new body though. Alkali realized that he’d need to be creative with getting around his house, now that everything was far too large by nearly a factor of two. None of his lab coats fit anymore so he was forced to simply wear the green pullover Ness gave to him. That made it difficult to convince the managing staff in his lab that it was okay to be working without Alkali’s supervision; it ended up being easier to just let everyone think he was Ness than correct everyone. He tried to avoid watching the news, afraid of what he might see there with his growth-prone body in someone else’s hands. Distracting himself with work was all Alkali could manage. The raccoon occasionally got glimpses on TVs of what was going on in the outside world. Accidentally knocked over skyscrapers… raided liquor stores… a lake used for a bath and more private activities… if he wasn’t so worried about how to deal with the fallout of his reputation, Alkali might have found it mildly hot. The first experiments with fixing the Body Swap Ray were a failure though. He’d hardwired the egg timer straight into the power supply, and removing it could break the ray entirely. One week was bad enough but a broken ray could lead to being in Ness’s body for who knows how long. Making a new ray was out of the question too. Procuring the parts alone would take longer than the entire week. There was no way around it unfortunately. That’s when Alkali got an idea. If he couldn’t get back to his own body, why not make the best of a bad situation? He was thinking of looking for new test subjects for his experiments after all. And clearly Ness had no problems with using his body for giant sized shenanigans. This would just be some well-deserved payback. Solidifying his resolve, the raccoon walked over to a table and chugged a vial holding a bright green liquid. Soon after his swaying, striped tail took on a shiny sheen as the fur dissolved away to leave a hollow, pooltoy tail. The transformation slithered along from the base of his tail all over his borrowed body. Slight scents of burning rubber filled his nose. A nozzle popped into place where Alkali’s belly button used to be. “Fascinating,” he muttered, starting to rub his vinyl fingers over the pudgy and air-filled tum. Each movement caused a strange creaking, squeaking sound to emanate from deep inside of him. That could take some getting used to. At least until he moved on to the next experiment. This certainly worked out to his advantage. “Neeessss, are you in here? Someone at the front desk told me you were visiting Alkali.” Alkali whipped around to find Vin approaching. The mink swooped from table to table looking for his boyfriend. Oh, this could be problematic. How was he supposed to keep up the charade that he was Ness? The answer soon came to him. It was simple: don’t keep up the charade at all. This was all going to end up being on Ness’s reputation after all. “Oh, yeah. I’m here. Just doing some testing of these experiments for the roo,” he replied, walking forward. Each step on the ground caused a slight squeak. Vin’s eyebrows raised as he looked the raccoon over. “I uhh, didn’t know you were into pooltoys. What happened?” “Just an experiment, like I said. In fact,” he started, picking up the experimental Mass Transfer Device. It looked a bit like a Bop It toy except both ends were fitted with a gun’s barrel. “Why don’t you just hold still for a second? There’s something else I’ve been meaning to test and now you’re here.” Carefully pointing one end of the device at the mink and the other end at a large table, the pooltoy raccoon mashed on the center Bop It button. Atop it a piece of tape had been affixed with the words ‘Transfer Mass’ scrawled in sharpie. Two beams of light burst from either end of the toy, striking each of their targets. The table slowly began to shrink away, along with all the lab equipment that had been set on it. Glassware and wood alike slowly diminished as shimmering particles of energy traveled through the beam and toward Vin. As soon as it landed there he felt a bizarre heaviness to his front. His plaid shirt bulged forward, suddenly filling out. The buttons strained to stay together as the bottom of his shirt untucked from his pants and started to ride up on his slowly expanding gut. Vin’s tail frizzed out as he watched the transfer of mass to his midsection, surprised by the sudden change to his body. “N-Ness, what are you doing?” he stuttered. The button to his slacks popped away as a growing muffin top forced his pants to bulge with more and more weight. Thickening thighs and a well-padded rump forced his pants to rip slowly now that the button had come away entirely. Luckily for Vin they didn’t burst apart completely; the transfer of the table was finished, leaving no trace of the furniture behind. The raccoon’s air-filled tail swayed behind, creating small static sparks as the fabric of his pullover rubbed against the vinyl surface of his body. “Well that was quite the successful experiment!” he said cheerfully. The mink had been reduced to resting against a table, still not entirely sure what just happened. He looked down at the remaining few buttons of his shirt that hadn’t popped away and gingerly pressed a hand into his gut. “Let’s see, what else can we transfer into you Vin…” Alkali said, with a devious grin. This time he needed to aim for something much more substantial. Scanning the room he settled on a large machine, a 10 foot cube of buttons and wires. It was meant to be a future experiment but he’d left it untouched for months, a functionless testament to his procrastination. Perfect. “Now hold still. Gotta stress test this device after all,” he said before mashing the button again. There was no way for Vin to avoid the beam. He’d been surprised enough the first time, but now he was carrying an extra hundred pounds or so on his body. His usually slinky mustelid body couldn’t swoop out of the way properly, and so the odd feeling of gaining weight started once again. The transferring was a little less surprising this time so he had a moment to actually enjoy it as it happened. What was left of the buttons on his shirt popped quickly away to reveal his brown fur, allowing the weight on his torso to wobble forward heavily. A pair of moobs rested over a beachball sized tum that gurgled trying to keep up with the new size added each second. Much as he wanted to heft his belly up with both hands, he was more preoccupied with keeping his pants from falling down or being destroyed. Both hands held onto the belt loops of his pants and tried to pull up, only to find it didn’t cover his rump anymore. Nearly half of it spilled out the top. If he tried to pull too much harder he risked tearing it entirely. Vin gulped and looked up at what was left of the machine being transferred into his own weight; it barely looked any smaller at all. Maybe a half foot smaller cube. Vin whined as his face turned a shade of bright red. He was going to have some trouble walking out of the building at this rate. 300 pounds… 350 pounds… 400… “I suppose this might not be the best time for me to mention this but, I don’t have a way to reverse it yet. Oh well. We’ll figure that out later, right?” Alkali said, taking a seat in a nearby chair to watch the show. --- The week dragged on and on. Alkali was starting to get used to being in someone else’s body thankfully. Once you got past the shorter, fluffier tail and the lack of hopping being a raccoon wasn’t all that difficult really. Plenty of urges to steal shiny things for safe keeping though. He fought extra hard to avoid turning his lab into a hoarder’s paradise. And of course, each day led to a brand new experiment on his temporary body. The pooltoy experiment was fun enough of course. But even more entertaining was trying out the Cloning Machine. Getting to confuse people by using one copy of yourself to do work while the other went out and made a mess of Ness’s art gallery was plenty of fun. The self-kissing was a pretty nice benefit too. That led to transformation experiments, shrinking experiments, a macro experiment (Nesszilla, his personal favorite), a headswap experiment just to try and keep up appearances as Ness, yet another pooltoy experiment… by the end of the week Alkali was fresh out of things to test. And just in time too. Now that the week was over he could finally body swap back to his proper form and end all this silliness. Yet Alkali was a little sad. This week was the most productive he’d been in months. There was no avoiding it though. Ness was probably causing chaos in his kangaroo form and that simply couldn’t continue. The body-swapped raccoon picked up the Body Swap Ray and made his way downtown to meet his other half. The scientist had a plan that should let him have his body swap cake and eat it too. Finding Ness was pretty easy. He’d been all over the news for days; it was practically the only thing talked about. He’d visited a half dozen cities over the course of his rampage, but never meant to actually destroy anything. It was mostly on accident from drunken shenanigans. The kangaroo had taken a liking to using his growth trigger and cleared out every bit of liquor in the cities in order to keep his buzz going. That kept Ness giant the whole week long… even a little larger than after the first day too. He rivaled most skyscrapers for size now, finding the best place to rest his days away was in city parks that could barely contain him anymore. And the scandalous things he’d done in public… reporters in helicopters had to turn away most of the time, only daring to look when the green boxer briefs were on. When they weren’t on, they’d often be left covering most of a nearby building. That was the danger in being drunk all the time though, Alkali assumed. The raccoon exited his car and looked over the park, dwarfed by his body’s giant kangaroo paw. This was definitely the place. “HEY, NESS!” Alkali yelled trying to get his attention. The roo’s foot shifted, nearly knocking Alkali to the ground as Ness sat up. He grinned awkwardly down at the little raccoon, holding a large truck in one hand labeled ‘Pugweiser Beer’. Apparently the cities recently started sending booze his way in an attempt to placate the beast. Better that than stomping through town looking for more liquor stores or pubs to raid. “Oh, heya Alkali! Err, Ness,” he said, voice booming through the park. Alkali had to cover his ears; apparently even a week as a giant hadn’t taught Ness to watch his volume. “You’re not catching me while drunk, what a surprise! Has it been a week already? Time flies when squatting in someone else’s body right?” The roo popped the back off the truck and chugged the whole thing in one long gulp. Alkali watched as his former body shivered and expanded by a whole fifty feet in an instant. Gosh, that was… really nice to watch happen from down here, he thought. “I had someone measure me the other day. Five hundred feet tall. Can you believe it? Feels like I was just fifty only a week ago,” the roo said, a shit-eating grin gracing his face. Ness scooted forward and pushed his face down toward the tiny raccoon. The marsupial’s nose alone was several times taller than his whole body. That was probably exactly what Ness was enjoying too. Clearing his throat, Alkali took a deep breath. “Yeah, it has been a very interesting week. But the ray is ready to go again. So just hold on while I send you back where you belong.” “Awwww, do you have to? Just one week couldn’t hurt right? I never got a chance to go up to the Great Lakes for a bath.” “No, it’s time. So just hold still,” the raccoon said, pulling the strange ray out yet again to take aim. This time though when the ray hit Ness’s body something odd happened. He recognized the sensation of his consciousness leaving the macro kangaroo’s body, that was similar to last time. But it wasn’t traveling down to his raccoon body at all. Instead it seemed to jump into the car Alkali took, running into whoever was sitting in the back seat. Ness shook his head once he was in a body again, looking himself over curiously. He saw the plaid shirt, and brown fur and… oh no. This was definitely not his body. He wasn’t quite used to seeing all this weight on it either for that matter. He took up the entire backseat of the car with a heavyset, barely clothed body and a mink’s muzzle in front of his face. “So, I might have lied,” Alkali said. A smiling raccoon approached the car and opened the door. “I think I do wanna borrow your body for a little longer. But I can’t have you running around in mine anymore. You’re… a little too good at it. Decided to give someone else a test drive. Vin didn’t seem to mind.” The raccoon pointed a thumb over his shoulder at the macro roo, as Vin explored his newly upsized scale. Ness watched as the body he inhabited just seconds ago waved down at people surrounding the park. “Wait, another week in my body? A-Are you sure about that?” Ness asked. “A week? Nah, I was thinking more like a month. Upped the time length for waiting on the body swapping ray. Hope you don’t mind!”