“And now,” April flourished Desdemonia’s hands, “Comes the moment we’ve all been waiting for.” She beckoned to me.

I took a deep breath. This was it.

If I took that step forward, I could be leaving humanity behind forever, doomed to an eternity, or perhaps, many eternities as another being entirely. Something so completely alien, even aliens from another galaxy would be more familiar. In exchange for what?

I saw the scowling faces of my parents. I was happy they were there. Hopefully, they would make sure there was no funny business.

I looked at April, standing expectantly, the moment stretching out a bit to become uncomfortable. Was this what I really wanted?

I thought about April as a youngster, swinging on the monkeybars, laughing and hitting me on the head with her hairbrush. I thought about Jeff Farnum and the way we used to play video games, each of us smacking the other when we scored a hit or made a kill, or opened a scroll.

I thought of Mitzy and her smile, the way she was so sunny and quiet. So introverted and kind. I thought about Mom and the way she folded laundry on Sundays, and the way her eyes crinkled when she laughed. Dad’s hugs, Pete Vargas tutoring me in the ways of the Alpha, Miss Minnick—

Glancing the through audience I found her standing with the other infernals. She was in full Changed mode, her barbed tail dancing over one shoulder. I remembered Coach Walker as he waited expectantly for me to step up to the plate, swing away, make that home run, steal second base.

“Seth?” April said. “It’s time.”

I sighed and took a step forward. “I keep hoping you’re going to say ‘April Fools.’”

The crowd laughed a nervous titter in response.

April smiled at me with Desdemonia’s lips. “I wish that were true.”

I stepped into the circle of the great Crystal.

###

The Rite was pretty simple. “Everyone bow your heads,” April said.

April raised her arms, and I could hear the crystal hum to life in front of me. It was like standing in front of an immense speaker system that had just been powered up. It hummed to life, and began to glow softly.

April murmured something, and now Desdemonia stepped up to her. April said an incantation and gently touched Desdemonia between her brows. A soft light sprang from the crystal directly to Desdemonia, anchored to the place she’d been touched.

“My, um, Daughter will file among you and touch each of you on your forehead. This will connect you to the Crystal.”

Desdemonia stepped down from the dais, and began walking through the crowd, touching each person on the forehead. With each touch, a soft tendril extended from the Crystal. I closed my eyes and opened my Third eye and was able to see the pulsating energy as each person connected to the Crystal. Each person’s tendril was the color of their aura, filling the crystal with light in fractal patterns that radiated toward the center.

It was beautiful.

With each touch the Crystal glowed more intensely. She cycled through the crowd, touching each person, her heels clicking on the marble floor.

I could feel the buildup of heat. I also felt that strange tugging sensation inside me as if something was testing the line to feel the solidity of the connection.

“Better hurry,” I said.

April raised her arms and began chanting softly. The Crystal sprang to life and the entire dais began to rotate like a giant merry-go-round with me in the center.

The lights of the hall dimmed as energy flowed upward to the Crystal. April’s incantation raised to a fever pitch, and the rest of the Wytches in the audience including my mother took up the chant.

I saw April approach Wizard Blackwater. He had to stoop in order for April to touch his forehead, but the instant she did it, a fierce green light stronger than any of the other colors streaked into the Crystal. It almost overwhelmed the rest of the colors, but then the interior energy of the crystal shifted a bit and it joined the rest as a different facet of the prism.

A wind began to rise due to the motion of energy. I felt it blowing through my hair as I rotated on the Dais in front of the Crystal which was now glowing every color of the rainbow. From Desdemonia’s memories I was able to recognize the overpowered nature of the thing could possible cause it to explode—

April was screaming now as the wind became tempest. I felt like I was standing in front of a bonfire as energy from the crowd flowed into the crystal. It glowed more and more, becoming almost incandescent as it rotated.

Desdemonia returned and I heard her shout something to April. Raising her own arms, Desdemonia began matching April’s tone and incantation, becoming a louder voice in the din.

The crystal spun faster and faster as the heat rose, and the wind blew. I could hear the building around us trembling and I fervently hoped the masons who had built this edifice had planned for such structural punishment.

“Now!” Desdemonia screamed in April’s voice and April screamed a word, and motioned with both hands toward me.

A beam shot out from the crystal and enveloped me.

Immediately losing control of my Alpha, the change swept over me. I felt my limbs lengthening, my brow bunching up, my legs twisting and becoming more powerful. Hair sprang from every part of my body as my snout extended, my eyes burning with the force of the change against my will. Fingernails became talons, teeth lengthening into a mouthful of fangs, and I roared my fury and frustration at the bonds that had enveloped me.

Dimly, I perceived Desdemonia joining April, both of them wielding power, the multi-colored light flooded into me.

I stood in full Werewolf, feeling the power of the body. Roaring, I tried to exit the circle enclosing me, but was unable to move. Why wouldn’t they let me go!

As if in answer, I felt another beam of energy stab into me, then another, and another and another! Pain melted my brain as the energy literally boiled my blood inside my veins. I roared in confusion and agony as it felt like being dropped into a pit of molten magma.

Blessedly, it was all too much for my mind. I quickly lost consciousness as more and more and more beams of energy stabbed into my body. Whiteness enveloped me, and that was all I knew.

###

I awoke sometime later. Confusion radiated from my core. Where was I? What was I?

I put a hand to my head. I felt out of sorts, strange, but not in pain. Something was around my head, many somethings…they sort of felt like rope or some other kind of…

One of them moved.

“What the bloody fuck?” I said, sitting upright.

“Seth!” Someone yelled beside me. It sounded far away, distant. What the hell…

I turned and looked down. Somehow, I was above the dais. Everyone was down there, looking up at me. But I was sitting on the ground—

“Seth!” someone yelled again. It was a tiny someone.

My eyes fell on something else, something that shone, glittered. Pretty! I reached for it. It fit perfectly around my wrist, the multi-faceted jewel radiating in different colors that entranced me. My wrist looked strange, the skin darker—

I felt that strange tugging sensation again, pulling my lower regions. I looked down…

And saw immense breasts jutting out from my torso. They were covered in dark smooth skin. They lay upon a belly so expansive, taught and round I had a hard time believing it was a part of me. Beyond that, I saw thick legs leading down to strange, beady, seven-toed feet. I wiggled one toe experimentally and giggled as it wiggled back as if waving at me.

I looked at my hands. They too had seven digits, but not really fingers, more like stumpy lumps. My palms were also different, darker, dusky, the skin thicker, tough.

“Seth!” someone yelled up at me. “It’s me, son. Your father!”

I looked down at the little someone. My father?

Memories came flooding back in. What I’d been doing, where I was sitting. The Dais of the Council chamber where the great crystal. April had planned for this, that I’d be much larger than I’d been previously…

“Dad?” I said. My voice came out loud and…higher in pitch.

Raising my arm, the multifaceted jewel came into view. It was the crystal, the one on the dais, the one that was seven feet tall.

And it looked like a rather large bauble wrapped around my wrist.

I could see my face reflected back from dozens of surfaces on the jewel. Mouth, nose, eyes of glowing azure framed by arched brows. It was a pretty face with dark skin and a cute button nose. Something moved in my periphery…

Okay, they weren’t snakes on my head. I hadn’t turned into Medusa, and everyone was staring up at me and hadn’t been turned to stone. I grabbed one of them and brought it in front of my eyes. I was whiplike and long, and coiled around my finger. I realized with a bit of concentration I could control it, leave it coiled, or have it stretch out flat as an arrow, or let it hang loosely down over my rounded dark shoulder.

My hair had been replaced by tentacles.

I stood up. I had to crouch not to hit my head on the ceiling of the council chamber.

Looking down at my body, I recognized it being someone similar to the being from the noxious planet I’d visited. My skin was dusky, but instead of elephantine, it was smooth, thick. My eyes went up from my strange rounded feet with the seven digits, to solid legs and on up to my midsection where things underneath were hidden by that enormous belly.

I put my hands down there and found--Let’s just say, a more feminine contour than masculine. That plus the breasts—

I was female.

I was easily fifty feet tall. Maybe sixty. After examining myself, I carefully sat back down and leaned over as far as I could to speak to everyone in the chamber.

“Can you hear me?” I said, and everyone covered their ears.

“Seth, you’re going to have to whisper son!” Dad said. I was hard to believe the man I come to admire and respect barely came up to my shin.

“Sorry!” I whispered.

“How are you feeling?” Mom called up to me.

How was I feeling? I didn’t feel anything in particular, especially after the pain of the transformation. Plus, I didn’t feel like I was out of my mind with rage or anything…

“Good,” I said. “I mean…looks like I’m a girl now.”

I looked around the area. “Where’s April and Desdemonia?”

“They, uh…you were out for quite awhile, Seth,” Mom said. “Everyone is sort of regrouping for when the Who attacks. Do you feel anything?”

The Who. Jesus, I’d completely forgotten why we were there in the first—

I felt that tug again. “Ow!” I said, holding my stomach. It was very round and protruded out from my body. I was very fat.

“What’s wrong?”

“I think he’s coming,” I said.

I felt the tug again, longer this time, with more pressure. “Ow!”

Something moved inside.

I think realization dawned on all of us at the same time.

“Oh shit!” I said.

My mom screamed at my dad. “Jim, tell me we did not just provide the ‘Gateway’ for the Who!”

“I’ll get Desdemonia.” My dad said, and started running for the door.

Wizard Blackwater parted the crowd, coming forward. He planted his staff, facing me.

“This,” he said. “Is going to hurt.”

Another pain came, and this time I knew what they were.

Contractions.

I was about to give birth.