Despite the fact that neither Rachel nor the other girls were particularily good with Spanish, they had a pleasant conversation over their meal. They seemed to be basically proficient in English, if not especially fluent, so David was able to keep up the conversation pretty well, with the occasional pause when things got a little confused.
It took her a bit, but she was able to put her question to them. The three weren't quite sure how to compare their own feelings with those of another group, but they did conclude that the sensations they shared didn't seem to be any stronger than normal, so the experience of David's chorus probably wasn't diminished for being shared by twice as many people.
Pedro in particular, despite her shyness, seemed interested in talking with David; as the only former boy in her group, she pretty obviously felt a kinship with her, and had a number of questions that she could hardly keep from all spilling out at once. David was a little weirded out by being the person who was assumed to know more, but there wasn't a whole lot she could tell Pedro; maybe if she and her sisters talked about this stuff more often...
Eventually she and Rachel finished their meal, while the three Brazilian girls were occupied with starting theirs. They said their goodbyes, David getting a warm hug from each of them in succession; she could feel her sisters reacting in slight confusion, and she could see the other two sharing the sensation of whichever was hugging her. (Rachel found this greatly amusing.) They also embraced the devil-girl, who was pleasantly surprised, and managed to restrain herself from doing anything untoward. And they made them promise to come back often; Pedro in particular wanted to talk with David more.
"Tchau! Visitem breve!" the three called after them. David smiled; she liked the way they sounded together. She'd noticed that, even though their vocal apparatus must have been physically identical, they still sounded different enough to be distinguishable. Guess enough of speech was in the brain to allow for that. Did she and her sisters sound distinct, she wondered?
As she and Rachel headed toward the door, the angel-girl grabbed the knob and tried to think of the church they'd entered through.
Not that way.
What? She blinked. She felt...a warning, maybe? Why shouldn't she go that way? That was where they had come from, they wanted to get home and not just to some other church...but the feeling was undeniable. Frowning, she tried to think of some other place nearby...
She opened the door, and they stepped through into an empty Sunday-school classroom, out of the supply closet. Rachel frowned. "Huh? This isn't..."
David shook her head. "It's Trinity Evangelical, I think. On the other side of town. We used to go here, when I was a kid. Rach, I...got a feeling we weren't supposed to go that way."
"What?" the devil-girl asked. "Why?"
"I dunno...I dunno if something happened to the church or not..."
Rachel's eyes widened. "What!? What about...tree-guy? What if something happened to him!? We gotta get over there!"
David gasped, and they raced out of the building. Rachel looked around for a bus-stop, panicking when she couldn't find one. "Come on!" she said. "Which way is it from here?"
The angel-girl tried to calm herself...please let everything be okay...
"Hold still," she said, as she wrapped her arms around the devil-girl, holding her tightly underneath her armpits. A moment later, they were airborne.
Robert huddled under the altar, listening to the flames crackle, cleansing the path the demoness had walked. Or was it? It sounded closer than the foyer now...no, he must be hearing it wrong. He'd set a firebreak, rolling back the carpet and leaving only the concrete floor, enough of a gap that the fire could not get through.
The smell of smoke was strong, though. Getting stronger by the minute...he coughed. He would be okay...God would protect him. Still...it was awfully thick. He was beginning to have a hard time breathing...
He heard sirens. The fire department!? He hadn't even thought of that! They'd blame him for this, when it was all her fault! But...no, he would endure. Millions throughout history had made greater sacrifices than this for the Lord, and he knew that he would face no trial or temptation it was not within his power to handle. Even if they sent him to prison, he had no wife or children who would suffer in his absence. He would endure.
The smoke...the smoke was incredibly thick now. It had a nauseating chemical air to it - the carpets must've been polyester. He couldn't go outside, but perhaps he should move to another part of the church...perhaps it would be less choking in the basement. He stood up, coughing violently as he staggered towards the sanctuary entrance.
He was just approaching when the church door swung open and a handful of firefighters in protective gear stepped inside. They looked around cautiously until one of them spotted the man staggering out from the billowing smoke. He rushed forward and heaved Robert over his shoulder.
The junior pastor's eyes went wide. They were going to...to...! "N-kaff-no!" he yelped. "No! You can't! I'll be-" But if the firefighter could even hear him under his helmet, he wasn't listening. He carted the weakly-protesting man outside, right out into the morning sun.
Before he even knew what was happening, Robert was laid flat on the grass some distance away from the church. He could see smoke lazily curling out from the bell-tower. He wanted to fight, but the smoke had weakened him...and he was already out in full sunlight, he could feel a strange sensation overtake his body. He would have to trust that God would guide his change.
They injected him with something, then placed an oxygen mask on him. It took a minute, but he could feel his breathing clearing up a bit. But his consciousness was fading...it was all right. God would protect him.
As he drifted off, he could hear the firefighters talking, distantly. He felt so strange...
"Whoa," one said. "Don't think that's going to go over well."
"Shuddup!" another said. "Gonna be traumatic enough without you yapping about it!"
...wha?
Max yawned lazily as she finished waking up, then rolled over onto her hands and feet and had a long, very feline stretch, tail curling stiffly back over her. She couldn't help but smile as she noticed Basty mimicking her down on the floor. It was...she still didn't know what she thought about the occasional catlike behavioral trait that turned up, but she didn't mind having more in common with her little friend.
She stepped down onto the floor and gave her cat a good scratch behind the ears for a minute, then went to the dresser. She shook her hair out, trying to straighten it a little bit, then picked up the bra - her bra - off the top of the dresser. Let's see, how did this go again...?
Middle first, that was what the saleslady had suggested. She slipped the shoulder-straps over her arms, then tucked the middle pair of cups in under her middle breasts, the combined weight of the two top rows holding them in place while she tucked in the top pair, then reached around back and fastened the middle strap. Then the bottom strap, then finally the top, and she was done.
Well, not quite. It did take a little adjusting to get everything to sit comfortably, but overall the process was less of a hassle than she'd expected. She supposed as she got used to it, she'd get faster still, at least to a point.
As she got used to it... She tried to shake the thought out of her head, but it wouldn't go away. What would become of her? As far as anybody knew, changes were permanent; she'd be this cat-girl creature for the rest of her life. What would happen to her? In ten years, would...would anybody even be able to tell that she wasn't born a girl? Would she even know the difference? Or would she just...sort of transition so smoothly that she'd never even notice if she abandoned the last remnants of her masculinity?
No, no. It was a pleasant Sunday morning; time for a leisurely breakfast (or was that lunch?) and relaxing, not for thoughts like this. She smoothed her fur slightly and threw on a shirt, underwear, and pants from the assortment she'd bought yesterday, sighing contentedly as she buttoned the back over her tail - no more awkward kinking! That at least she was unconditionally pleased with.
Max moseyed downstairs, still shifting and stretching the last bits of sleep from her frame, and made her way into the kitchen. Her mother was there, browsing through the Sunday paper. The catgirl sighed as she recalled the time, only a little over a week ago, when she'd looked more like her mother than her cat.
Her mom looked up and smiled at her. "Good morning, Max," she said. "Sleep well? How did it go getting dressed?"
She nodded. "Yeah, I did. And...um, it went well, I guess. I think I managed it okay."
Her mother nodded. "You'll get used to it," she said. "I'm proud of you for handling this so well, honey."
Max smiled in spite of herself. She didn't know that "get used to it" was something she was looking forward to, but still...things could have been worse, if only by a matter of degree.
Before they'd even arrived, they could see smoke curling up from where the church was. David felt very grateful for the premonition she'd had - what if they'd stepped back right into the middle of an inferno? Rachel was more worried about the effects - had anybody been hurt? What if the whole thing was going to burn right to the ground?
But they both calmed - slightly - when they noticed that the smoke was the last, lazy wisps from a fire that was put out. But how much damage had been done? They approached a little more rapidly than they really should have, and made a bit of a rough landing on the lawn in front of the church. David blushed and scrambled back when she realized she was lying on top of Rachel, who smirked.
They got up and looked around. There were firefighters coming out of the building, and a couple EMTs standing off to one side, with what David gathered to be a new transformee, given that she was staring down at herself and looking very upset.
She was a devil-woman, seemingly in her mid-to-late 20s. Like Rachel, she was naked, and like Rachel she had glossy red skin and was not winged; however, she had a number of noticeable differences from David's friend. Her hair was dark red instead of black. Her horns jutted forward, where Rachel's stuck out a bit more to the side. And where Rachel had ordinary human legs with blackish nails, this woman had a clearly non-human construction where the foot was elongated into a whole section of the leg, with what would have been the calf doubling back and upwards to form a sort of Z or N-shape, the whole thing ending in a heavy cloven hoof.
But what seemed to be occupying her attention the most were the eight breasts running down her chest. The top pair were actually fairly large; not outside the usual range, but at the higher end of it, though the lower pairs decreased in size. They were spaced a bit loosely, so that the bottom pair was actually located just below the rim of her pelvis. She was distraught enough that she didn't even notice their approach.
"We saw the smoke," David said to one of the firefighters who'd come over to investigate. "Is everything all right?"
He shrugged. "More or less, yes. He-uh, she was the only one in the building, so nobody was hurt, and we stopped the fire before it spread to the crucial parts of the structure. It's reparable, we think, but it's going to be a while before it'll be ready for use again. She's certainly not getting out so easy, not considering she started it. Idiot hid in the church, didn't even seem to think about smoke inhalation!"
Rachel's jaw dropped. "WHAT!?" She stormed over to the devil-woman and lunged into her personal space; David couldn't help but notice the strong S-curve made by her spine and tail as she glared up at the older woman. "You ASSHOLE!" she yelled. "That was a NICE! BUILDING!"
The devil-woman stared at her in shock, then in fury. "Y-you!" she gasped. "You made this necessary! You defiled the church! You opened the Hell-gate in the tower! You DID THIS TO ME!!!"
"What!?" Rachel shouted. "We haven't even been here for like an hour! And that didn't even go to Hell's Kitchen, dumbass! It went to her place!" She thrust an arm in David's general direction, her hand stiffening into a flat palm, looking like she was about to whallop the older woman. The angel-girl rushed over to her and placed a hand on her shoulder, and she calmed down, a little.
Robert stared in disbelief. She was lying! She had to be...if she wasn't, it meant that all this was for nothing, that she had actually closed off a connection to-no! The demoness had to be lying, it was in her nature! Just because she had miscalculated didn't mean she hadn't been taking a stand against a corrupting influence! She was serving God!
...but...why had He allowed...allowed this to happen?
A police officer who had been consulting with one of the firefighters came up to David and Rachel. "Look," he said, "she's clearly...unbalanced, but nevertheless. She did claim that people matching your description were trespassing in the church, which she said was the reason she decided to commit arson. Obviously we're not going to hold you responsible for the actions of a nutcase, but I do have to ask: were you trespassing?"
David bit her lip; she had only narrowly escaped being in trouble for being here with her sisters! If they caught her again...but she couldn't lie! They were incapable of it, if she spoke she'd have no choice but to...
"We did no such thing!" Rachel huffed. "We weren't trespassing, I was invited here by the pastor! You can ask him!" It was, technically, true that she'd been invited to return, though it was stretching it a bit to claim that that covered entering the building without permission. Still, he seemed like an understanding sort of guy, and something was clearly bugging David about this.
"That is the junior pastor," the cop said, not looking particularily convinced. "He's - sorry, she's been taking care of things since the senior pastor went missing."
The devil-girl frowned. "What? He's not missing, he's right over in the cemetery! He's like 300 yards from here!"
That caught the policeman's attention. "What? Are you serious?"
She nodded. "Out by the far corner. You have to look a bit; he's mostly tree, so he's kinda hard to spot. Seriously, though, I found him and I'm not even a search party!"
The cop turned and walked briskly off towards the far corner of the cemetery, and Rachel turned to her friend. "Gotta love the power of judicious application of truth," she grinned. "So. Was that flying thing a ploy to get your hands near my boobs or something?"
David blushed. "Wh-what!? No! They weren't even near-" She noticed the twinkle in her friend's eye and realized the devil-girl was teasing again. "What am I gonna do with you?" she murmured, walking off towards where the cop had gone. This pastor guy sounded interesting...and she hoped he was all right.
