Corporate life is one full of drudgery, disrespect, and disappointment. Noa, but a simple intern, has internalized these lessons all too well.One fateful morning, fate shines down upon the arctic fox as her errant wish for bigger and better things is granted.

Artwork by Bobert!

"Can only imagine how late I'll have to work to cover for this..." Noa grumbled. Drink carrier in hand, she patiently waited for the cross walk to signal safe passage.

BZZT

The arctic fox cast a nervous glance towards her pressed pant pocket.

BZZT BZZT

With a resigned roll of her eyes Noa fished out her phone and unlocked it. Her heart sank at the accumulating number of unread messages. Biting down on her lip, she reluctantly opened them.

Dan: "could you get me an latte while you're out"

Dan: "actually wait no make it an espresso"

An unintelligible slurry of groans and curses poured free from Noa's lips as she read through them.

Dan: "forget it its all good"

Dan: "i trust my pa to pick something good for me"

Noa arched her brows. "Excuse you? Your what?!" she practically shouted. Lips pulled flat, Noa quietly seethed. "Careful what you wish for, I guess..."

Brushing a hand along her suit jacket, Noa defeatedly pinched at her name tag. "Might as well just sharpie over you and make it official, huh?" she thought.

Her eyes went wide at the realization that "PERSONAL ASSISTANT" was already engraved

upon it and glowed with an otherworldly light.

"Ummm..."

THWACK

With a yelp, Noa's high heels snapped apart. The fox's swollen soles and bloated toes, straining against the interior of her uncomfortably form fitting shoes, slammed into the sidewalk beneath her.

"What the hell?!" she panickedly shouted. Thoroughly flummoxed, Noa grunted as a searing hot sensation rose within her throat before spidering out to her limbs. Her petite frame audibly creaked as that suffocating warmth massaged at her muscles. They responded by thickening, compacting, and ballooning in size.

The arctic fox, actively inflating outward and upwards, awkwardly balanced the drink carrier in her thickening hand. Noa's pressed pants, pulled taut against her watermelon obliterating thighs, threatened to tug apart thread by thread. Her suit jacket rode up along her broad shoulders as it crumpled along her elbows.

"Stop stop stop stop stop my budget can't afford this!" Noa pleaded as her breasts surged forward and forced her jacket apart. Her biceps and triceps, formerly flat, erupted into mountains of toned flesh.

Whining nervously, Noa tugged at her collar. Where it had once been neatly tucked away beneath her shirt it now stretched itself thin to accommodate her thickening neck. "Am I done? Are we good?" she asked of no one in particular. Panting, the hulking fox gathered herself before fearfully taking stock of the reactions from those around her.

The reaction from the passers by, even those waiting at the cross walk alongside her, was muted if not non existent. Some blankly stared ahead. Others buried their heads in their phones.

"I know I shouldn't be disappointed but I would have expected... I don't know... something! Anything!" Noa embarrassedly thought. "I'm not crazy, right? This is a thing that just happened?"

The cross walk binged loudly and beckoned Noa to cross.

Shoulders bunched together, the fox turned her attention to her phone once more as no one paid her any heed. She furiously scrolled through her messages and winced at the sight of static and broken pixels swirled across the screen. Her logged chats overflowed the screen with corrupted lettering and ascii symbols.

"Alright so maybe I am," Noa mumbled through gritted teeth. Blinking, she watched on in a mixture of dread and curiosity as her phone stuttered and struggled to reload her message history. With a bright burst of light, which Noa immediately dimmed for the sake of preserving her battery life, the screen returned to normal.

Cheeks puffed out, Noa dared to scroll back through her message history yet again.

Noa: "Won't this make me late?"

Dan: "dont sweat it"

Dan: "come on youre salaried not hourly"

"Wait. That's not what he said..." Noa mused aloud. "Wait. I'm salaried now?!" Heart racing, she continued to read on.

Noa: "My time sheet was rejected the last time I logged "Coffee Run" under the the Administration bucket. Per your instructions."

Dan: "seriously? goddammit"

Dan: "check your email"

Dan: "let me know if you dont see the email signing off on the override"

Noa immediately refreshed her email. Sure enough, a notification had appeared within her inbox indicating her time sheet had been accepted.

"What the... I... this... this can't..." Stammering, Noa struggled to gather her thoughts as her understanding of reality and the very world around her crumbled in on itself. At least, until a moment of clarity struck her like a bolt. "Hold on. If I'm salaried... THEN THAT MEANS I JUST GOT A PAY RAISE!" she bellowed with a flex.

Myriad stares and shaking of heads were promptly directed at Noa following her boisterous declaration and power pose. With a nervous smile, she immediately shrunk in on herself and hustled across the crosswalk.

"Personal Assistant, huh?" Noa thought as the embarrassment faded. "Though come to think of it... this really is everything I wished for isn't it? And, um, more..." Noa shyly trailed off as her thoughts about her own proportions inevitably drifted back towards those of the fox with a flair back at Djinn's Delights.

"Even if I don't understand it, it's hard to deny it," she hummed. Her eyes drifted down towards the various cups of coffee still, thankfully, sloshing to and fro within their drink carrier. This much hadn't changed, at least.

BZZT BZZT

Noa greeted the incoming messages with, for a change of pace, curiosity rather than abject dread.

Dan: "oh yeah dont forget to treat yourself to something"

Dan: "i know how bad the morning crush can get"

A sly smile curled up on the arctic fox's cheeks. Slipping her phone back into her pocket, her swollen fingers nearly ripping it clean off her pants in the process, Noa couldn't help but smirk. She tugged a cup of coffee free from its indentation in the paper pulp and drank greedily from it.