It was Halloween, but although some effort had been put into decorating the house Jexta and several others shared, it didn’t feel like enough. Something was missing, and it didn’t take the big pooltoy bat long to piece together what. She was quite the expert on all things Halloween, after all. She knew what was missing, and she knew just the enchantment to weave to fix the situation.

Not many were in the house at the moment. Many had gone off to celebrate Halloween in different ways, such as Joat and Deirdre going for a midnight flight over the town and Phira and Noctus spending romantic time together in a secluded forest. The only ones currently in the house to hear the doorbell were Alex the Zangoose and Serra the big anthropomorphic snow fox.

Alex was the first to the door, opening it up to reveal a rather plain-looking gourd resting on the front porch. Perplexed, he picked it up and took it inside, then informed Serra that the gourd was all there was. Serra suspected it might be a prank, that the gourd might suddenly let out a foul odor or something to that effect, but before either of them could further discuss what to do with it, the gourd began to glow brightly.

The results were swift. Alex and Serra found their bellies quickly starting to grow. Since neither of them wore clothes, they both had an unobstructed view of their bellies rapidly expanding, losing their fur as they turned into squeaky orange vinyl, complete with a pooltoy nozzle. The gourd was turning them into pooltoys, but what sort? Alex was no stranger to becoming a pooltoy himself, but that was him simply turning into a pooltoy Zangoose. This was definitely something different.

Even despite their gazes being fixated on their growing bellies, which were starting to develop vertical lines of darker orange all around from top to bottom, their could also feel something else happening. Their bushy tails were changing as well, becoming less fuzzy and much thinner. They looked back to see that indeed their tails had become much thinner, more like the tail of a cat or a monkey. They too were now vinyl, though in this case colored green instead of orange.

Next to change was their arms, legs, and paws, which also turned to green vinyl. The change was not too significant for Serra, as her fox paws already looked similar to what they would become, but for Alex the change was far more significant, particularly with his forepaws, his large red claws shrinking down and vanishing as his paws turned to ones resembling that of a fox or cat.

Lastly, their heads began changing. Serra noticed the change first, as her muzzle had started shortening, but both saw their muzzle become squeaky and green soon afterward. Alex felt his ears shorten and, when they looked at each-other, they could each see the other’s head transforming, soon looking just like a green pooltoy cat head. It seemed they were indeed pooltoy cats, but with huge round bellies that now resembled a spherical jack-o-lantern, complete with spooky face painted on in black.

At that point, the top of the gourd opened up as if on a hinge, then out of it came a thick smoke. Once the smoke cleared, it revealed a rather pleased-looking large pooltoy bat, who seemed quite eager to get the Halloween festivities started.