The house of a red fox anthro was mostly quiet, aside from the sound of paper rubbing against paper as the house’s resident looked over the day’s mail. It was more of the same, mostly advertisements for stuff he had zero interest in - at least, until he saw the last letter. He froze at the sight of the dark-blue envelope, addressed to him from a name he was very familiar with: Felgar. He sat everything else down on the table, using one of his claws to open the envelope, contained within which was some sort of invitation. He didn’t realize his body was tensing up as he read it.
	Hello there, Chester! You and fifteen other mortals have been invited to what I’d like to call the Transformation Track! Your friend Aileas (who will be there as well) helped me design it! I shall bring you to the track’s location two days from now, at ten in the morning. You will see quite a few familiar faces!
	Regards, Felgar.
	Chester read the letter several times over, just to make sure it was real, his heart pounding the whole time. One does not - can not - turn down an invitation from the demon duck. It took his racing mind several seconds to register the sound of the phone ringing, which he then quickly picked up. “Hello?”
	“Hey, Chester,” it was his German shepherd anthro friend, Trev, calling to ask, “I got this letter from someone named Felgar. Is that the same Felgar who keeps screwing with our friend Dom, as well as you and your band?”
	“It is,” the fox confirmed. “Did he send you an invitation to this Transformation Track thing, too?”
	“He did. He also mentioned something about bringing me there. Are we going to be transported or something?”
	“I’m sure of it,” Chester stated. “We can only hope that Felgar doesn’t do something nigh-apocalyptic… again.”
	“My letter also mentioned Aileas. That’s your friend that runs the clothes shop in Bremerton, right?”
	“Yes. She can enchant objects to make them transform people.”
	“Well, good luck to us both, and everyone else invited. I’ll see you then.”
	“Bye, Trev.” The two anthros hung up at almost exactly the same time.

* * * * * *

	It was just after breakfast on the appointed day. Chester was lying on the living room couch, stretching himself out as much as he dared as a pamphlet, also sent from Felgar, sat on his belly. It was a rulebook that he had now read three times over. His head rolled to one side to look at the clock that hung over the fireplace, showing the time to be 9:59. Chester sighed and stood up, looking around the room for any sign of how Felgar would take him to the place, but none revealed itself.
	At least, until he took one single step, and suddenly found himself in the middle of a white, cylindrical room with other people, humans and anthros. No doors were visible, but there were multiple muffled conversations taking place somewhere above the ceiling. Everyone looked around at once, and they all seemed utterly confused, but at least there were some familiar faces. “Chester!” a feminine voice called out. He turned around to see the other person mentioned in the invitation, the arctic vixen Aileas. She seemed rather excited. “It’s good to see you here. Are you ready for this?”
	“I think so?” Chester said, mostly looking at her, but also still scanning the room, specifically looking for Felgar. “Where is Mister Demon Ducky?”
	“He’s somewhere else. Would you be mad if I told you that I had a very heavy hand in designing this course?”
	“You have?” Chester’s brow ridge raised a little, causing his forehead to wrinkle ever so slightly. “Color me surprised, I never thought Felgar would actually work with any of us to that extent.”
	“Y’all are here, too, huh?” came another woman’s voice. The two foxes looked to see Karina, the ebony-furred wolf lady, making her way towards them. “This oughtta be interesting.”
	“I think so, too,” Chester replied as Aileas said, “Hi there, Karina.” A three-way handshake ensued.
	“Stuart Filipek, please come up to the interview stage!” a familiar, high-pitched voice requested - undeniably that of Felgar. Following that, there was a sound of stone grinding against itself as one-eighth of the wall sank into the floor, revealing an upwards-sloping path that led to a large, circular wooden stage. Through that opening, a lone human exited and went up the ramp, and then the chamber re-sealed.
	“Good luck to him,” Chester heard Trev say. He craned his head and looked around, and was able to make out the back of his friend’s head.
	“Trev!” he called out. He waved as the German shepherd turned around, and his eyes lit up.
	“Hey, Chester!” The two worked their way to the crowd towards each other. “It’s good to see you!”
	“The same to you!” Chester said. “Honestly, I’m surprised Dom isn’t here,” he added, looking around. Just then, the sound of an airhorn, muffled and distorted by the walls, made its way inside the chamber. Above them, the muffled conversations suddenly died out. The chatter inside the chamber went on, albeit somewhat subdued, and on the occasion, a gasp or laughter could be heard from above the contestants.
	It was almost ten minutes later when the door opened again, and that same voice called out, “Chester Cadwallader, please come up to the interview stage!” Several wishes of luck came to him as he stepped through.
	The interview platform, it turned out, was a polished wooden circle, and the wood appeared to be cedar. From his position, Chester could not see the course, as he was currently behind an outside auditorium, where the audience must have been, and above that, Felgar himself as the announcer. He couldn’t see the duck, but he could absolutely sense his aura - and he felt another, intimately familiar aura approaching him. Even so, he could not hide his surprise when his own wife, the tigress witch Ning, emerged through a back door. “Hey, honey,” she said with a slight nod as she approached him. She was wearing a black dress with a blue-and-white design, and her long white hair was somewhat more organized than was usual, swept entirely behind her instead of partially hanging over and before her shoulders. He also noticed that her hair was tied partially into a bun. Ning winked as a drone equipped with a camera came up behind her and flew up to him, then did two laps around him as Ning got into position beside him. Ning put a small microphone onto his shirt collar as the drone stopped between them, with the camera pointed directly between their shoulders, which put Ning’s above and Chester’s below the camera’s focus point. A small red light on the side of the camera flickered on. “Hello everybody and welcome to Transformation Track!” Ning said into the camera. Her own microphone blended almost perfectly with her dress, and it took Chester a few seconds to spot it. “I am here with my hus- I mean, with Chester Cadwallader. Say hi to everyone, Chester.” Clearly, she was trying to seem professional, but was having some trouble with not referring to the fox as her husband.
	“Hello, world,” he said with a nod.
	“What do you think of Transformation Track?” Ning questioned.
	The fox shrugged. “Quite an interesting idea, honestly.”
	“What are your interests?”
	“Oh, plenty of things. Art, writing, music, restoring old vehicles, and, of course, transformation, both being the cause and recipient thereof.” Ning already knew all of this, of course, but whoever was watching this didn’t.
	“Do you think you’ll win?”
	Again, Chester shrugged. “Maybe, maybe not. We’ll see how it goes.”
	“In which case, good luck out there!” Ning nodded and put a hand on his shoulder, and a life jacket appeared around it, with a small camera attached to the chest. Following that, the tigress gestured to a second path that led around the bleachers. Chester followed it all the way to another platform, this one placed just before a shallow slope, at the bottom of which was the beginning of the obstacle course. Behind him, he heard the decorative bushes rustling, and he turned to see his brown bat friend Cyrus poke his face through them.
	“Hey, Chester,” he said quietly. “I don’t have much time, so, I just wanted to stop in and say hello, and wish you luck.” He winked, and then disappeared.
	“Here comes today’s second contestant, Chester Cadwallader!” boomed the voice of Felgar. “His run begins in three… two… one… now!” An airhorn sounded, and Chester dashed down the slope, which, like the rest of the course, was made of foam and rubber to prevent injury, another camera drone tracking him all the way.
	“He’s now coming up to the Bothersome Bridge,” the demon said as Chester came up to a bridge made from nylon, and it looked unstable. He steeled himself and went into a full sprint across the bridge, which instantly began to roll this way and that with each step, quickly throwing him into the water below with a very loud splash. “And there he goes!” When he surfaced, it took him mere moments to realize that his body had become more feliform, his tail smaller and his ears much larger - he’d been turned into a hyena! So, that’s how it works, he thought as he reached the ladder that brought him up to the obstacle’s end platform. The water is enchanted, too. Go figure. He was greeted with the next obstacle, whose walls reached high enough over him that he couldn’t see over it, but the show’s hosts could still see him.
	“My hu- err, Chester,” he heard Ning’s magically-amplified voice say, “has recovered very well, and is moving on to the second part of the course. He has now reached the Twisty Road, and it looks like he’s taking the right-hand entrance.” The Twisty Road was a maze with curving walls that quite quickly disoriented Chester, and the inconsistent curvature did not help things. The transformation traps didn’t help much either, especially the one he just stepped on, sending a puff of thick, white smoke from the floor that engulfed him at once. He involuntarily reached up as his ears began to grow and become round, and the hairs on his tail vanished. He kept moving forward as his snout shortened and widened where it connected to his face, and his teeth changed to fit an herbivore, while the hairs on his feetpaws and hands disappeared.
	“The current contestant Chester has turned into a mouse!” Felgar announced as Chester stepped clear of the smoke. And a girl, she thought, taking note of her very different frame and lower center of mass. “No, wait, perhaps I should call her Catheine now!” He added through a stifled laugh. “Now that is a cute form.”
	“She’s about halfway through the maze now,” Ning remarked. “I see some very good progress, but now she’s at a junction. Hesitating now, deciding, and it looks like she has chosen to go right.”
	“Is that it?” Catherine asked herself, sure she was very close to the exit - and she was! Of course, there was no wrong way in the maze, just a shorter and a longer way. She had no time to speculate which was which, for the last obstacle of the first course was in sight: the Great Round Ones.
“And there she goes!” Ning called out, “Catherine is now taking on the Great Round Ones, and we’ll see very soon whether she’ll make it!” She steeled herself, and sprinted onto the conveyor belt that would have swept the feet from under anyone who hesitated. At the last possible second, she jumped with all the momentum she had, hitting the first of the five enormous inflated vinyl spheres at its top. She bounced off of it, and began to tumble forwards. She belly-flopped onto the second ball, and then hit the third on its side with her back, to a loud BWOMP. She fell head-first into the pool as some sort of membrane grew between the sides of her chest and her arms, while her ears became more pointed and her tail much smaller. “She did not, in fact, make it.”
“That sounded rather painful,” Felgar remarked, “but look, she just surfaced and shook it right off, and it would appear that she is now a bat of some kind.”
	Gasping, Catherine dragged herself out of the pool and onto the finishing platform while the hosts explained that she had two different names, depending on whether she was in a male or female form, at which point the airhorn sounded once more, and Felgar announced her finishing time as “seven minutes and thirty-one seconds!” She - no, he - sank to his knees as his male fox form returned, and stayed there for a moment to catch his breath before heading back up to the auditorium’s bleachers.

* * * * * *

	“There you are,” a tired Trev said. Chester turned away from watching the latest contestant.
	“Hi, Trev,” he responded. “That was a good run you had.”
	“Thanks,” Trev sat down beside him. “The Great Round Ones are a lot harder than they seem,” he added, rubbing a hand against his snout.
	Ning’s voice called out, “Albert, now coming up on the Twisty Road.” Chester and Trev watched as the human woman entered the maze. 
	“I think that’s about where I got turned into a mouse,” Chester pointed out. A moment later, Albert stepped on a transformation trap, and a black-furred horse anthro emerged from the smoke, continuing through the maze.
	“So, it wasn’t just me?” Questioned Trev. “That part of the course feels really slow.”
	“Well, we’ll only have to go through it one time. The next courses shouldn’t be too bad.” Chester stood. “I’m going to get a snack. I’ll be back in a minute.” He went down the stairs, occasionally glancing towards the course.
	“Albert is out of the maze!” Ning announced as Chester got to the bottom of the stairs and turned. The contestant currently on the course was now a rabbit, he noted. “Coming up on the Great Round Ones!” The audience held its breath for a few moments, and Chester looked up as it gasped. Albert made it to the fourth ball, and slammed her face into it, causing her back to curl, her legs to come up, and both feet to meet the back of her head. Much of the audience groaned, and he winced from seeing that, then turned away and headed down another flight of stairs, perpendicular to the main ones, that led to an empty space beneath the bleachers, where the concessions were, and where two more familiar faces were waiting.
	The fox’s eyes lit up as he saw the back of the head of a familiar person - that pink-and-purple fur with blond human-like hair could only have been the husky Dominic! “Dom!” he called out, turning his snout up slightly when he turned around. Dom’s eyes lit up and the two got close enough to hear each other without having to shout over the background drone of numerous conversations.
	“Hey, Chester,” Dom said excitedly. “It’s good to see you!”
	“Same to you,” Chester replied. He looked over Dom’s shoulder to see that no food vendor line was shorter than twelve people. “I’ve noticed that you aren’t here as a contestant. That’s quite surprising, considering Felgar is nearby, and you’re always transformed when that happens.”
	Dom shrugged. “Hey, I’m not complaining.” Outside, the airhorn sounded. “It feels a bit exciting, to be near Felgar without being transformed by him, actually. I thought that would happen, since he just brought all of us here. I assume you were teleported straight to the waiting room while the audience went right into the auditorium?”
	“That is correct,” Chester answered. “I’ll be getting something from the concessions. Do you want something, too?” he nodded to the hot dog vendor, whose line had gone down to nine people.
	“Oh, no thanks. I am going back upstairs now; good luck, Chester.”
	“Thanks, Dom, and take care to not get Mister Demon Ducky’s attention.”

* * * * * *

	Chester was in the half of the contestants selected for advancement to round 2. As for the other half, they found themselves transformed into various Felgar-related objects, mainly statues of himself. For this round, all eight of the remaining contestants were standing on the same platform in the midday sun, overlooking the course. “Welcome to round two, everybody!” Felgar announced as the course behind him, that of round one, finished reconfiguring into that of the second, prompted by a snap of the duck’s fingers. Chester glanced at the announcer’s booth just as his wife took over.
	“We’re following a different formula this time, with all remaining contestants having a go at the course all at once! The pool has gone down from sixteen to eight the last round, and only four will move on from this!”
	“That’s right,” Felgar stated. “That number will be halved after this, but another will double!” The camera filming him and Ning cut out for a moment while a camera in another place - another dimension took over. “Both of these objects you see were two of the eliminated contestants, while everyone else is now either clothing or a whole different species, and their transformations will last for two days. Those transformed after this round will remain that way for four days! Now, let’s get on with the track.”
	Ning took over as the camera in Felgar’s lair cut out, and another camera drone took over. “Right off the bat, we have the Taffymaker, its contra-rotating bars sure to sweep away anyone who gets careless. Following that, it’s time to Pick a Door! Three options to choose from, and only one is correct. As soon as a contestant gets it right, this obstacle will reset and reshuffle, and which door is the right one will change.” She waited for the drone to pass the Pick a Door section and start hovering over the third obstacle. “And this is the Dodgy Dash. Contestants must charge up a literal slippery slope while dodgeballs are randomly thrown at them, sure to hit them in the legs and knock them back to the start if they fail to avoid them.”
	“With the introduction out of the way, let’s get started!” Felgar said with a dramatic snap of the fingers.
	Chester looked at the others on the platform. Trev, Karina, his other fox friend Lehua, two humans, Philip and Alex, and two other anthros; a lion known as Victor and a llama named Manfred.
	“Three!” Felgar called out. “Two! One! Go!” The airhorn blasted, and the contestants began their run. Chester sprinted with all his might and took a right where the path split. The Taffymaker was now a single unit, but rather two identical obstacles placed side-by-side. He glanced to his left, seeing that Karina was keeping pace with him. He stopped just before the first sweeper bar, watching how fast it rotated. Its axis of rotation was off to the side of the path to not block it, of course. He steeled himself, and then, “Chester has leapt through the first bar! It clipped his foot but he’s alright! It doesn’t look like Karina made it through.” Off to his left, the fox heard a loud splash, between the two paths. He clenched his teeth and pounced into the gap between the second and third bars, the former of which nearly caught his tail. With a deep breath, he jumped past the second sweeper, and made it clear to the second gap.
	“Chester is making good progress,” Ning announced. “But so is Trev, who is now neck-and-neck with him!” The fox looked to his left, and saw Trev glance back at him and flash a big, toothy smile. At the same time, they both jumped through their respective final sweeper bar, and dashed for the next obstacle. Trev lost his footing somehow, just before the two paths merged into one, and so the fox got ahead, where he came face-to-face with Pick a Door. He went with his gut feeling and opened the middle door.
	“Chester made it through on his first try!” Felgar bellowed as Pick a Door reset. “Here comes Trev, he’s going with the door on the right, oh, look at that! Right guess on the first try, too! And here comes Victor going left- oh, wrong door!” A giant boxing glove shot out from the door that Victor tried, hurtling him into the pool as his fur turned to curly, snow-white wool.
Chester looked back for a moment, took a deep breath, and charged up the Slippery Slope. His feetpaws almost lost traction under whatever lubrication was used on the slope, and the first ball to be thrown grazed his shin. He dared not look anywhere other than towards his destination, and assumed from the sudden uptick in cheering that Trev was now climbing the slope as well. Another ball was thrown just before he reached the halfway point, and the fox had no time to react. It knocked his right leg out from under him, and he slid down on his belly, nearly taking his German shepherd friend with him. He stopped himself from falling into the pool, and overheard Ning saying that another contestant, Karina, made it past Pick a Door. He scrambled back up, and charged uphill in time for Trev to slide right past him and into the water. He nearly slipped back down just trying to dodge the next ball, which hit Karina right in the gut and sent her down. “Here comes Trev again!” Chester heard Ning call out. He didn’t look back, though, not when he was now past the halfway mark, and the rate at which dodgeballs were being thrown at him had suddenly increased. He grit his teeth and put all the energy he had into his uphill run. A ball struck him in the ankle, and that began to topple him, but he was too close now. With what momentum he had, he jumped forward, just making it over the finish line.
“Chester Cadwallader, first place in round two!” Felgar said. It couldn’t have been more than twelve seconds when he added, “And Trev Kipling - or perhaps I should say Treva Kipling, has landed herself second place!” Chester saw a pink, furless hand, and he took it. Treva pulled him up, and it was then that he realized that her fall into the pool had turned her into a mouse lady. The two went to clear the finishing platform, as there was barely enough room for one person, never mind two.

* * * * * *

	“We now have the winners of round 2!” The demon duck boomed.”Chester Cadwallader, Trev Kipling, Karina Dakota, and Victor Fedorov!” Chester sighed, knowing that the four who didn’t pass round two had already been transformed.
	“And now, we will have our intermission,” Ning added. Before the fox could do anything, he suddenly found himself in some large hall decorated with pillars, a high vaulted ceiling, and floating torches.
	“I figured that the remaining contestants were hungry!” Felgar said at the end of a banquet table that had suddenly appeared. “Have a seat, everyone, there’s plenty to go around!” The blue-feathered duck with the light gleaming from his short L-shaped horns and shiny black hair snapped his fingers. The sound echoed throughout the chamber as food appeared before the table, and the contestants sat down. At the other end of the table, Ning abruptly appeared and took her own seat. She grinned at her husband, who had ended up beside her. Across the table from Chester was Karina, with Trev beside him, and the seat across from Trev was taken by Victor. “How have you all been holding up so far?”
	“Very well,” Trev said, biting into a stuffing sandwich.
	“I’m no worse for wear,” Chester remarked.
	“I’ve been havin’ a lotta fun,” Karina drawled as she put some turkey onto her plate. Victor said nothing, already digging into his food.
	Ning chimed in. “You have all performed very well so far. Only two more rounds to go, and I’m sure you’re all up for it.”
	“And don’t forget the prize!”
	Trev and Karina both nodded. The former said, “the prize is that we get to choose what Felgar turns us into, right?”
	“For ten days, yes,” the duck replied. “You can pick what happens to the second-place contestant, too.”
	“Right,” Trev said.
	Felgar pulled a watch from, quite literally, nowhere; it simply appeared in his hand. “Round three will begin in forty minutes.”

* * * * * *

	“Welcome back to Transformation Track everybody! I am Felgar, and this is Ning,” the duck said into the camera.
	The tigress nodded. “We will begin the third round very shortly! To recap, four contestants remain: a wolf, a fox, a German shepherd, and a lion. Now, let’s get to the course!” Felgar snapped his fingers, and the second round course suddenly became that for the third round. Again, the camera in the hosts’ booth cut out, the feed overridden by that of another drone that flew over the course. “To start, we have the Lateral Ladder. Watch those bars, because they move - up and down, side to side! After that, here come the Stairs that Fight Back! One stair, randomized each time someone reaches this obstacle, will pivot up and down as the contestant steps on it, while another triggers a bar that will pop out from the wall to which the stairs are fixed, and the slightest hesitation means going into the water!” He paused for effect. “Finally, there’s the Discombobulating Disks: four platforms with three spinning, circular platforms in between.”
	“With the course introduced, let’s get the third round started!” Ning declared.
	Felgar began the countdown, with the contestants waiting in the light of the afternoon. “Three! Two! One! Go!” The airhorn blasted again, and the four anthros ran for the Lateral Ladder. Victor reached it first, dropping to all fours and beginning his run across the obstacle. The instant he laid a hand on the sixth rung, the one that was under his left foot suddenly rotated, flipping from horizontal to vertical. The sudden movement threw his lower half over the side, and the rungs that he was holding onto began to move side-to-side quickly shaking him off. Chester was next to reach the thing, looking down to see Victor, who was now a falcon anthro, swimming to the ladder. The fox dropped to all fours, and began his own run, which was almost stopped immediately. The obstacle tried to throw him off in the same way it did Victor, but Chester held on, and even pulled himself back onto the course.
	“Good recovery by my hus-” Ning shook her head. “Good recovery by Chester. Halfway across the Lateral Ladder now.”
	“He’s almost been launched!” Felgar called out. “Chester is now displaying some amazing grip strength, and he’s still going despite the violent movements in all directions - and there he goes, he’s clear of the Lateral Ladder!”
	“As Chester moves on to the Stairs that Fight Back,” Ning added, “Karina is approaching the halfway point of the Lateral- oh, no, into the water she goes!” The heavy splash from Karina landing in the pool punctuated Ning’s comment. Chester wasted no time getting back to his feetpaws and running up to the next obstacle, and the Stairs that Fight Back immediately lived up to their name: the very first step tilted under him in an attempt to dump him into the pool, but he reacted quickly enough to hop up to the next step, only for that to trigger the blocker bar, which met his face and sent him tumbling backwards into the water as his tail shortened significantly and his fur became a lot shorter and thinner.
	“That one looked like it hurt,” Felgar said as Chester surfaced, having been turned into a hog. There was another splash. “Karina’s attempt on the Lateral Ladder just failed.” Chester reached the ladder and hoisted himself back up.
	“Trev is making his run across the Lateral Ladder, and Chester is making another attempt on the Stairs that Fight Back!” Ning’s focus was totally on her husband now. “First step, second, oh, the third tried to throw him off - fourth step, he’s at the apex, fifth step - there’s the bar, and he just barely dodged it! Six, seven, and he’s clear!” The fox-turned-hog had so much forward-downward momentum that he collapsed into a pile upon reaching the platform between the second and third obstacles.
	“All contestants are now clear of the second obstacle, and Trev is traversing the Stairs that Fight Back!” Chester stared down the third round’s third obstacle for a few moments, and as Felgar called out that Trev was halfway across the stairs, Chester went for it. He dashed as fast as he could, jumping at the last moment onto the first disc. “There goes Chester, first platform already - and he’s clear of it!” He dropped to one knee to catch his breath and stared down the finishing platform with gritted teeth. 
	“Trev is catching up, about to get onto the Discombobulating Disks,” Ning said, almost breathless. “Chester and Trev are super close now, Chester just made it onto the second disc, with Trev on the first!”
	“And Karina has just cleared the Stairs that Fight Back,” Felgar added. “But will she be able to make it when two contestants are already so far ahead? Here we go, Chester is now at the third disk, and Trev just reached the second platform! Will there be an upset this round?”
	The announcers and audience all held their breath at the sight of what happened next. Trev, now a rabbit, had indeed caught up with Chester, and the silence was broken with a gasp as both of them jumped for the finishing platform at exactly the same time - and Trev landed on the platform just half a second before Chester. Applause broke out as the airhorn sounded again.
	“What a wonderful ending to round three!” Felgar crowed. “Congratulations to Trev and Chester, you two are moving on to the final round!” Victor and Karina were whisked away to somewhere or other to be transformed as the two anthros Felgar had addressed good back to their feet, their course-induced transformations undone. Before either of the remaining contestants could utter another word, they were themselves teleported, straight to the announcer’s booth. “Now,” said the duck. “Let’s take a little dinner break. The final round is scheduled in one hour!”

* * * * * *

	“You two must be quite eager to see which one of you will win!” Felgar said as Chester and Trev finished their dinners.
	“And everyone who participated today will have some interesting stories to tell. Once they all turn back, that is,” Ning added, gesturing to the life-sized animate plushie of Karina that actually was Karina, who was sitting against one of the columns. “I’m sure quite a few people will watch this when it’s aired in nine days’ time, too.”
	“May the best man win,” Trev said, standing up and offering his hand across the table. Chester took it and shook it.
	“You, too, Trev.”
	“Just one more thing,” Ning said, also standing up. She gave her husband a quick kiss. “Good luck.”
	“And with that, dinner break is over! Let’s get back into it!” Felgar held his hand high above his head, and again, his fingers were snapped.

* * * * * *

	The sun had just touched the horizon when Felgar’s announcement of the final round was given. “This is it, everyone! The fourth and final round of Transformation Track! Two contestants remain, and the winner shall pick his own transformation and that of the loser for this round! Without further ado, let us introduce the final course!”
	Ning took over. “First off, it’s the Oversized Pachinko Machine! A giant rotating circle, dotted with a grid of pegs. Watch your footing, or you’ll hit everything on the way down!”
	Felgar resumed. “And the final obstacle, the Last Ride! Our finalists must hold on with all of their strength to a trapeze as they are assaulted by sweeper bars. Whoever finishes with the fastest time will be the winner!” Felgar’s gaze shifted away from the camera that was on him and Ning, to something beyond it. “Oh, dear reader, did you expect this course to have three obstacles like all the others? Well, it’s ultimately my course, and I can set it up how I wish!”
	“Now, let’s cut to the chase and get started with the final round! First up, My husb- Chester!”
	The aforementioned fox waited at the start point, ready to sprint. Felgar began the countdown. “Three, two, one, go!” The airhorn went off, and the fox bolted across the narrow path that held him a few meters above the surface of the pool. He leapt onto the first obstacle, wrapping his arms and torso around the nearest peg, allowing it to carry him down and around. “That’s a good strategy,” Felgar remarked. “He’s letting the obstacle convey him to the next platform. He’s getting ready to jump,” everyone watched as Chester got on top of the peg, waiting for the right moment, but he misjudged it. His mid-torso met the platform with a heavy whump, and he fell in a slow tumble into the pool, landing with a loud splash and transforming into a wyvern.
	“So close,” Ning remarked, “yet so far.”
	“Very immediate recovery, though,” Felgar added, watching Chester butterfly stroke his way to the ladder, which had started an instant after he broke the surface. He reached the ladder and climbed back up the ladder, stopping again at the end of the platform, watching the obstacle for the right moment. “He’s making his second attempt,” the duck continued as Chester again jumped onto a peg and wrapped himself around it. Again, he let himself be taken around by it, slowly and carefully putting himself on top of it, and he waited.
	“He’s going to try to jump,” Ning said. “He’s looking, judging, there he goes!” The fox-turned-wyvern got barely enough traction on the platform between the two obstacles to stop himself from falling into the pool again, and he slowly pulled himself up.
	“And there he goes, onto the next obstacle!” Chester got to his feet and ran the few meters of the platform’s length, then stopped, surveying the scene before him. A trapeze hung before him, waiting to be taken. He pulled a deep breath, grabbed it, and let him pull him forward and off of the platform. “There he goes, taking on the final obstacle!” Felgar exclaimed. With the timing with which he started the Last Ride, the first sweeper bar hit him before he could brace himself for it. The muscles on the sides of his chest, beneath the arms, screamed as he tightened his grip, swinging back and forth from the impact. He curled his abdomen and tucked in his knees, holding his draconic feetpaws out to cushion the blow of the second sweeper, which sort of worked, but still set him rocking again - and then the third bar hit him, setting him into a severe spin.
	“He’s in a bit of trouble,” Ning called out. “His grip seems to be weakening, but the finishing platform is right there! Is he going to make it?”
	He did, in fact, make it, with a timing of five minutes and seventeen seconds.

* * * * * *

	“We have a winner!” Felgar declared, with Ning standing beside him on a platform about where the Oversized Pachinko Machine was earlier. Chester and Trev were on either side of them. “By a very close shave of three seconds, the winner is…” The fox turned to look as Felgar raised one hand, palm-up and fingers splayed. Trev’s hand shot into the air. “Trev Kipling!” Cheering and applause erupted. “And, for your prize, you get to pick what I turn you into and what I turn Chester over there into!”
	Trev’s eyes went wide as he took in what had just been said. “For how long?” he asked.
	“Fourteen days! Take your time to consider my… generosity.” He spotted Dom up in the audience and winked at him.
	And then Trev, with a glance at Chester, blurted out his answer. “M-maybe make Chester a fox princess? A-and me a hyena punk?”
	“Done and done!” Felgar replied, snapping a finger with each “done.” With the first snap, Trev abruptly turned into a woman again, and her semi-organized tuft of brown human-like hair became longer and very messy as all of her clothes turned to tight, black-deyed leather, and her shirt raised to show the midriff and her pants turned to shorts. Next, her ears became wider and rounder, with her snout becoming shorter and broader, while her tail shrank somewhat, and the heart-shaped black spots that were on his legs not only stayed, but appeared all over his arms, too. A little bit of bright-pink dye appeared in her hair for a finishing touch.
	The second snap started Chester’s transformation. She winced slightly at the feeling of also being turned into a woman almost instantly, and then her fur softened. The furs on her scalp grew into dark-brown humanoid hair that lengthened to the middle of her back, then tied itself into a braid. Following that, everything she was wearing except for her underclothes fused into a single piece, and the seam of her pants dropped all the way to the bottom, turning it into a blue skirt with a white front and large pads over the hips, which then ballooned out from the appearance of multiple undercoats. After that, what was her shirt changed to show a small amount of cleavage, while the shortened sleeves puffed out. The last change to her outfit was the skirt lengthening to touch the floor.
	“And that wraps things up for tonight!” Ning said, waving to the audience. “Thank you all for coming, everybody!”

* * * * * *

	Ning had gathered Catherine’s friends who were present at the competition in her mansion as soon as all but Treva and Catherine, who were there as well, had turned back. The airing of Transformation Track would begin in just a few minutes. “Come over here, love,” the tigress called, gesturing for her to sit beside her on the largest couch in the mansion’s living room. The vixen, in a more casual outfit, sat beside her.
	“Want to join us, Treva?”
	“You bet!” was the hyena punk girl’s reply, hopping onto the couch with Catherine between her and Ning. She had picked up a couple of black cuffs and had her hair dye changed from bright pink to dark green.
	The voice of Felgar issued from the large TV as Lehua entered the room, taking one more bag of popcorn with him, that being his. Karina, Treva, Ning and Catherine had popcorn of their own as well. “Sixteen contestants, eleven wacky obstacles over four courses, transformations a-plenty!” The demon duck’s voice was heard over some of the more hilarious moments of that day, such as two Great Round Ones runs, the first of which was Catherine’s. “Welcome, one and all, to Transformation Track!”