Into the Vanessaverse

Vanessa, for all of her encyclopedia-esque knowledge of the supernatural and otherworldly, was at a loss with her recent discovery. Nothing in her notes or books described what exactly this?thing was. No research on them either. It was as though they were brand new to the multiverse, which was impossible. Or it could mean said creature was beyond notice, or ignored outright, which was more plausible but still questionable.

Agent had entered the study quietly, not immediately noticed by Vanessa, who was pouring over her documents and books. Muttering to herself, she examined every detail she could about this creature. Every anatomical structure, every scrap of research. Agent tapped Vanessa’s shoulder, and she jumped lightly. She whipped her head around, shooting a small glare.

“Could you not?” she asked. “I’m very busy here, Agent.”

“Sorry, sorry,” Agent apologized. “You’ve just been in here for hours, and I got worried.”

Vanessa saw Agent’s face, full of worry, and she softened. She sighed a little. “No, I apologize,” she said. “I’m just at a roadblock, is all. This thing is positively vexing.”

Curious, Agent peeked over Vanessa’s shoulder to see what she was stressing over. The doodles and notes were vague, but there was at least one clearly-drawn image of some sort of creature. Spindly arms and legs, a small snout, a moderate tail with some plumage, some fangs. He would have considered it almost a rodent.

“They call it a ‘yinglet’,” Vanessa explained. “And for the life of me I can’t make head or tails of it.”

“What, this thing?” Agent asked, surprised. “What’s so confusing about it?”

“It looks like a typical based creature, but it’s apparently capable of near-human intelligence,” Vanessa said. “Learning, capacity. The problem is that I’m unable to procure one for my research due to interdimensional laws.”

“Eh?”

“The higher-ups got pissed because I accidentally turned a galaxy into a bagel, alright?” Vanessa sighed, harder this time. “In my defense, it was a very delicious bagel, but anyway. Point is, I can’t bring one of them over here to study.”

Agent considered the predicament, regretting his involvement already. Doubly so when he spoke idly, without thinking. “Why don’t you become a yinglet yourself?” he asked, before quickly clasping his mouth shut.

Vanessa turned her head once more to Agent, a smile growing on her face. “I think?” she said. “I think that is a wonderful idea, darling. And I may have just the spell to do it.”

With a snap, her trusty spell book materialized in midair, and Vanessa wasted no time paging through. She stopped eventually, finger on the paper. “Here we are,” she said. “Textbook Transfer. Turns elements on a page into reality. And in my case, it should be enough to make me into a yinglet.”

“Uh, Vanessa?” Agent said, hesitant. He was browsing the notes on her desk related to yinglets, taking note of some scribblings. Something about “poor attention span”. “I really don’t think-“

“Too late,” Vanessa said, with a mischievous smirk. She snapped her fingers, the spell washing over her within seconds, taking hold.

It was a quick response to Agent, although for Vanessa, it seemed to last for a lifetime. She could already feel her limbs becoming thin, their digits adjusting to a more animalistic appearance. Her body became slinky, her spine creaking and twisting into a curved stance. Her mouth, extended forwards into a muzzle, tiny fangs growing. A tail forming from her rear end, a thin one with a dash of purple at the end in one fluffy tuft.

The end result, then, was a true yinglet. Vanessa stood in place, much smaller than Agent was now, retaining her black hair and red streak, with her skin possessing a white fur across her body, barring the occasional purple markings. She examined herself, her tiny, scrawny hands and feet; her tail; her snout.

“Gosh, what a rush,” she smiled. “I feel so good like t-“

She briefly sputtered, her tongue caught on her last word. Agent balked slightly, unsure if he should respond, when Vanessa merely held up a finger. She tried speaking again, her tongue once again catching upon the “th” syllable. Trying a different tact, she spoke once more.

“Zhat’s better,” she declared. “How odd. Zhis species can speak, but it cannot use some sounds.”

“That’s the workaround?” Agent asked, bending down in both concern and curiosity. “How are you feeling, otherwise?”

“Hmm?I do feel razher good,” Vanessa decided. “Or?do I? No no, zhis is weird. Too weird. Not weird enough. Yes?”

Vanessa clutched her head, her eyes widening, her heart racing. This sensation, this experience?so many senses washing over her smaller skull at once! Animalistic urges to flee, to fight, to eat, to mate! And a drastic desire for clams, to boot. It was all too much for even a seasoned chaos witch to take.

“Aaaaaah what is zhis?” she asked herself. “Head hurts, out of my head, bad thoughts! Run run run, no wait, zhis is fine, everyzhing is fine.”

She started speaking rapidly, often contradictory with her own declarations, her mind a muddled mess. Deciding enough was enough, Agent gently put his hands on Vanessa’s shoulders, taking care to not injure her fragile form.

“Vanessa, hey, calm,” he said, hushed. Perhaps it was his words, or his tone. Regardless, Vanessa’s eyes slowly returned to their original size, and her panic attack was subsiding. “Easy now, this is okay. Just take a deep breath, and get calm.”

“C-calm?” Vanessa’s awareness was gradually recovering once more. “Yes?Calm. I am calm.”

“You okay?”

“I’m okay,” Vanessa decided. She looked over herself once more, in amazement. “Such a potent spell?Zhis is no ordinary creature, Agent. My mind was everywhere at once.”

“Yeah, it certainly looked like it,” Agent agreed. “Look, if this is too intense, maybe you should reverse this before–“

“Now hang on,” Vanessa interrupted. She tapped her foot impatiently. “You honestly zhink zhat zhis will be too much for me? I’m not stopping yet.”

“But–“

“Not another word about it,” Vanessa said, turning away from Agent, arms crossed. “I shall experience some more time as a yinglet, and I’ll research everyzhing I need to know about it.”

She briefly turned her head back to Agent, giving him a small smile and nod. “I’ll be fine, darling,” she insisted. “It’s me, remember?”

She wandered out of the room, perhaps to test her body’s capabilities. Agent was left in the study, rubbing his head awkwardly.

“Yeah, I know it’s you,” he mumbled to himself. “That’s what worries me.”

?

The world was so much bigger at this height, Vanessa thought. While she was no stranger to transforming herself, she typically chose to be something larger, sometimes bigger than entire planets if she felt particularly bored or randy. To be smaller, on the other hand, was unique to her. Big enough that she wasn’t making out with unicellular organisms, yet small enough to be made out with by other creatures.

And this sleek form, even. The tail, the nails, everything felt so bizarre, yet familiar. So right, yet so wrong. It was a total sensory overload on all fronts.

Before Vanessa had known it, she had quickly dashed to her kitchen, the contents of which would be more than filling. She was hungry, definitely hungry. Food was needed, and not just any food.

“Claaaaaaams,” she droned, smelling the telltale aroma of seafood in her fridge. She leapt into the air, grasping onto the door’s handle, tugging on it with all her might, eventually dislodging the door and exposing the chilled contents.

The fridge indeed had an assortment of food within, including seafood. The selection of clams, however, was lacking-only a single one to be spared. How unfortunate.

Vanessa, however, would not let this moment go to waste, and dived into the fridge to grab the clam in her little paws. She gleefully ran out of the fridge just before it closed on her, and gave a devilish “weh-heh-heh” of yinglet chuckling, before she chomped down on her treat. Shell and all.

She was always ravenous, and so her clam was gone within seconds, leaving the witch empty-pawed once more. She stared at herself, perhaps wondering where her delicious clam had gone to, and she felt eater’s remorse. It was such a delicious treat, and now it was gone already.

An idea sparked, however, and her mood improved. What was she doing? She was a witch! She could magic herself some clams if she so desired! All it would take is a bit of concentration and focus. She lifted her hands, focusing hard, watching the air and thinking about delicious clams. Then, as if by magic?

She now had TWO clams in her hands.

Which she happily stuffed into her mouth with glee.

Ah, but that wasn’t quite enough either; with every clam she ate, the desire for more clams grew. It was all she could think about inside that smaller brain of hers, a narrow-minded focus on her singular wants. Clams, and how to get them.

She raised her arms again, concentrating once more.

?

Agent appreciated the silence and lack of being manipulated into something humiliating that would transpire when Vanessa was left to her own devices. No hypnosis, no embarrassment, nothing. All was quiet for a solid five minutes.

He sighed; yes, he had to check on her, he supposed. Too much silence meant she was doing something untoward.

Getting up from his chair, he followed Vanessa’s trail, winding up in front of the kitchen door. A lot of rustling was occuring beyond the wood, and he gently knocked on the surface.

“No one is here!” Vanessa chirped from the other side. “Zhere is no clams to eat!”

“Vanessa, I know it’s you,” Agent called, rolling his eyes. “Look, a coming inside-“

The absolute moment he twisted the doorknob and opened the door, an entire avalanche of clams cascaded atop him. He barely had time to move before it collapsed, burying him in shellfish. Vanessa, meanwhile, casually sat atop the landfall as she slid down the newly-formed ramp.

“Zhese are mine,” she said, stomping her feet. “None for zhe humans!”

Eventually Agent clawed his way out of the ocean of aquatic delicacies, gasping for air amid the stench, at least high enough to expose everything from the waist up. He caught his breath, slowly turning to face the witch yinglet.

“Five minutes,” he said. “Five minutes in, and you’ve already flooded your kitchen and succumbed to the mindset of this thing?”

“I was blind, silly boy,” Vanessa teased, and she twisted her body so her tail brushed against Agent’s exposed face. “Zhe scav is far better for a beauty like mine, no?”

Agent blinked; now she was coming on to him. “Are we really doing this now?”

“We could be doing a lot of zhings,” Vanessa teased, caressing Agent’s face. “A lot of zhings.”

“Okay, enough,” Agent insisted; he would have stomped his own feet if he could. “Vanessa, I need you to pay attention here. You’re slipping, you-“

“Aaaaaaah so borrrrring?” Vanessa immediately plopped onto her back, groaning. “Too much talkings, humans do so much talkings! I have zhe goods, you also have zhe goods, what else is zhere?”

Agent was nonplussed. “Please stop propositioning me while you’re in the form of a rodent-like thing,” he said, deadpan. “It’s weird.”

“What’s weird is how I am not riding you-“

“Vanessa, please,” Agent snapped. He put his hands gently along Vanessa’s shoulders, careful to not hurt her fragile form. “Look at me. Look at me, Vanessa.”

He looked directly into her eyes, and she stopped acting erratic for a moment. She stared back, observant.

“This is going too far,” he said. “You need to fix this.”

“Fix this?” Vanessa said. She looked at her hands, her body. Herself.

“Yes,” Agent nodded with a small smile. “You’re a witch. You need to make things better, okay?”

“Yes,” Vanessa agreed, nodding slowly, and Agent was pleased at how he had reached her. “Yes, fix this?Make it better.”

“Good,” Agent agreed, leaning back to watch what Vanessa would do. The witch climbed atop her clam pile, examining the scene.

“We don’t need zhe one yinglet,” she declared, confident. “We need zhe TWO yinglets.”

Agent nodded idly, before his eyes widened. “Vanessa, wait-“

There was a blast of energy as Vanessa had concentrated as hard as she could.

?

Generally Alice avoided coming to Vanessa’s manor by choice-she had to keep up appearances, after all, and the ability for the witch to drag her along was part of their friendly rivalry games. But the mouse had loaned Vanessa a book on fantastical creatures, and had come to collect, as Vanessa was uncharacteristically silent for a long time, a whole two days.

Thus, the visit.

She unlocked the front door with her own gifted key, opening it cautiously. “Vanessa?” she called, bored. “I’m not in the mood for games-“

“YAAAAAAAAA–“

A small creature landed atop of Alice’s head, and Alice wasted no time in plucking it off to inspect. It certainly possessed Vanessa’s hairstyle and color scheme, and-yes, it was getting into what was possibly a seductive pose. Clearly her.

“Why, hello,” Vanessa teased Alice. “You are here for zhe good times, yeah?”

“Please stop,” Alice rolled her eyes. “Whatever you did, undo it. And give me my book back.”

“No can do, Alice mouse,” Vanessa wagged a finger-claw. “I am zhe best yinglet ever. I won’t let zhat go.”

“Okay, new tact,” Alice groaned. “Where’s Agent?” He would be the more submissive voice of reason, so she could get out of here quicker.

As if on cue, another door opened. Instead of a human, however, another brown-haired yinglet cautiously peeked out, wearing glasses and, curiously enough, a maid outfit.

“Good evening,” Agent greeted. “A-are you here for zhe party?”

Alice glanced at the flirty Vanessa, and the even meeker Agent, both turned into smaller yinglets, both far more annoying in that shape. She made a judgement call.

“Nope,” she said. She let go of Vanessa, letting the witch drop to the ground with a slight bounce. Then she turned tail towards the door, walking out without a second thought. The book was not worth this.

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