Army of Cuteness Part 6
#6 of Army of Cuteness
Army of Cuteness Part 6
a short story by Relee the Squirrel
Sunshine and I skipped through the halls together like old friends. It was a strange yet familiar experience each time we did so. To my altered body it seemed the natural way to move, yet I knew in my mind that it was not how I normally went about. As a child I had occasionally skipped from place to place, but only privately. I was too shy before this transformation to do so with anyone else present.
The two of us skipped all the way from the classroom to a blank wall, so we were also the first to arrive. The wall opened like the others before, a round hole expanding from a point that was completely solid a moment before. The familiar bell chime accompanied the opening door, and the two of us entered the room.
The cutie salon was much larger than my own room, despite having a similar door. I estimated the foyer alone as being at least a fourty foot square, with a good ten foot high ceiling. Along each side was four styling chairs in front of four mirrors a side. Attending a desk in the middle was a tall plastic doll. Tall by Cutopian standards at least, she was four feet high. Her body was a pale tan plastic that shimmered in the ambient light of the Cutie Salon. Her eyes were easily four times larger than a human of her size, and they shimmered like green crystals. A huge fountain of shimmering pink hair rose a foot above the doll's already imposing height before cascading down to her shoulders. The doll's cheeks bore pink circles emulating a blush, but they were quite solid. Though cute, this doll was very toy-like. Unlike the plushies I had seen so much thus-far, this doll wore clothes; she had on a pinkish, off-white lace blouse and a sarong skirt of the same material, only slightly darker pink. For shoes she wore a pair of pink flip-flop sandals.
"Well hi there sweetheart!" said the doll, her voice as high and full of energy as any Cutopian.
"Hi Candy!" said Sunshine, "This is Miss Relee, one of the new students coming in for their appointments!"
The doll, Candy, approached me and gave me a hug. I hugged back, and we smiled at each-other. "Well aren't you an adorable little thing already! My name is Candy Cutiepants and I run the Cutie Salon! We have an appointment all set up for you, and you'll be going into styling room one! Isn't that super? Could you take her around back Sunshine?"
Sunshine quickly said, "You got it Candy!" and darted towards the arched doorway at the far side of the salon, pulling me along with her. I turned my head for a quick peek at the mirrors, and they confirmed what I had worried about earlier. Sitting on the end of my muzzle was a glossy, candy-pink heart-shaped nose. I sniffed, and wondered how I could still smell, and then the mirrors were gone and Sunshine and I were in a hallway in the back. There were marked doors there, sheets of plastic. We went to the first one, and the sheets slid apart into the surrounding plush wall.
The first thing that took my attention was the room's attendant. A six foot tall dragon plush towered over me, her two-toned body a mix of light and dark pink. Her thick paw-like feet had three blunt white plastic claws each, while her mitten-like hands had four. Her face was done up like she was wearing heavy makeup, but it was actually the way her face was built. Her eyes were white plastic disks with painted-on green irises. Thick, dark purple eyelids with long felt eyelashes emulated heavy mascara and eye-shadow. A puckered-up image of red lips was pasted onto her round dragon-snout, even though it didn't cover nearly her whole mouth. It looked silly more than cute, but somehow it was appealing. In front of her was a complicated chair, done in pink plastic with red upholstery. It looked more like a gynaecologist's chair than anything that belonged on a salon.
"You behave now Relee. It can be a little intimidating for a new friend, but I'm sure you'll look and feel so cute when it's done!" said Sunshine, stepping back through the door. "I'll be waiting out here for you, so have fun!" The door shut behind her.
I looked up at the dragon towering over me, and waved my little paw. She immediately clasped her hands together against her head and gushed. "Oh you are just darling! They gave me the easy job today. My name is Floralina; you can call me Flora if you want though. I'll be your stylist today!"
I swallowed my anxiety and took a deep breath before speaking. "You're a lot bigger than the others... Um, what are we going to be doing?" I asked.
Flora pivoted the chair around to face me and said, "Well for starters why don't you sit down, honey? We've had our eyes on all of our new friends, and we've got the perfect look for you all planned out!"
I stepped towards the chair and sat down quietly. I didn't think it would be appropriate to resist, though I was worried about what they had in store for me. My legs dangled over the edge of the chair, and from my new vantage point I could see tools resting on shelves all around the room. Combs, brushes, make-up kits, scissors, aerosol cans, as well as far stranger tools. There was a sewing kit on one shelf, next to a closed basket with bits of cloth hanging out. There were some other tools that looked more like they belonged in a sculptor's workshop than a salon. Trowels, pallets, gouges and mallets were lined up on a shelf just like the combs and brushes. All of the tools shared a stylistic similarity, however. They were all done in pink and red high gloss plastic, with heart-shaped details, decals, emblems and engravements. The most populous and strangest of the tools were things I didn't recognise. They were stylistically like a makeup compact, though they came in many sizes from tiny as a penny to as large as Floralina's head. They were heart shaped completely, not merely heart-themed, and they each had straps or belts on the underside to hold them onto something, similar to a watch.
Floralina gave me time to look around, and I was able to see her reflected in a large mirror right across from the chair. She seemed to be enjoying herself watching me look around at all the tools and wonder what they were for. I looked up above me on the chair at the attached helmet. It resembled a hair-dryer that you would see at a normal salon, though it was heart-shaped instead of spherical. The plastic was opaque rather than transparent, but sitting in the chair I could see up into it. It didn't seem threatening, but there was an iridescent heart-shaped indentation on the top of the inside that covered most of the helmet. When I was done looking around I looked into the mirror again, to get a good look at myself. I really just stared at my transformed nose, however, and Floralina must have noticed that since she finally spoke up again.
"You're already very cute sweetie, so we won't have to do very much today. I'm going to put some of these devices on you though, alright?" Floralina asked me, holding up one of the belted devices. I could see that they also had an iridescent heart-shaped indentation on the bottom, which would be held against whoever wore it.
"I've never seen anything like that, Flora. What are those?" I asked, turning up to look at her head high above me as I spoke.
Floralina slid the belt of the one she was holding open, it was about the size of my hand, just a little smaller. She smiled wider and said, "Well we Cutopians have ways of doing things and changing things using special energy. These focusers help that energy do the right thing we want."
I gulped as my eyes turned back down to the device. They were some kind of magical focusers the Cutopians use in their transformations. There was no telling what they were going to do with me now, but once again I didn't feel prudent trying to escape. If anything this room was probably one of their best protected, since announcing such a dramatic change would cause many people to panic.
Swallowing again to give myself confidence, I looked up at Floralina and asked, "So where do we put it?"
Floralina's smile grew ever larger as I said that, and she said, "This one goes on your palm. Let me just strap it on." Then she put the belt loop over my hand with the iridescent indentation right in the center of my palm. The heart was facing with the point towards my wrist, and the device only covered my palm from the fingers to the wrist, and left some room between my thumb and the edge of my paw. Floralina tightened the belt so that the device was firmly held against me, then she reached over to the shelf to get another one. Her arms were relatively short for her body, which added to her cutesy dragon appearance, but made it look particularly awkward when her whole body bent forward to reach at something.
Floralina put several of the devices on me. One device was placed on each palm and one on the sole of each of my footpaws. A large one was belted around my waist that went from my chest down to just above my crotch. The last one went on the bottom of my muzzle, and the strap made it difficult to open my mouth. Without warning Floralina dabbed a bit of gel on my nose. I looked up at her a little harshly, though you wouldn't know it from my permanent smile. She giggled and said to me, "That's to help the shine deary. Doesn't everybody want a cute shiny nose?" but before I could respond she continued to speak, saying "Now hold still and let me rub this powder into your fur. It'll help to get your look just right!"
Floralina began to rub a strange blue powder into my fur, and my skin underneath tingled as it was applied. It sparkled slightly but I put up with it like everything else. When she was done rubbing the powder everywhere that wasn't covered, she went around to stand behind the chair.
"Alright sweetie! It's time for the magic to begin." said Floralina, "Hold still while I lower the helmet please." There were belts on the chair to restrain me if I resisted, but I'd been so gentle so far that they probably didn't think they were necessary. The helmet lowered on a mechanical arm until it was resting against the top of my head. My ears splayed out to accommodate it, and I waited for whatever was going to happen.
It took at least a minute to warm up, whatever was happening. I couldn't see through the helmet so my only view was a plate of pink plastic. I started to feel some tingling at last, a sensation that waved through my whole body. The sensation waved like a helix through my body, spinning around slowly. Smaller, almost drill-like, the devices strapped to me sent their own energy into my body. I closed my eyes and concentrated on the energy, trying to analyse it without disrupting it or revealing my ability.
It was startling to discover that the energy flowing through me shared the same resonance with the Cutopians themselves. It was pure Cutopian energy, drawn from whatever world they originated on. If I wasn't hiding my ability, I would try tracing it, but for now I just tried to figure out what it was doing to my body. The powder reacted to the energy after the first few minutes and vanished. I believe it was consumed somehow, rather than vaporised. As I watched internally, clumps of the energy were building up and clinging to my spirit. They were covering me and enveloping me in spirit, though not completely. Like a mask, or a cage, I was enshrouded in this alien energy. Carefully I maintained my own self even as the energy threatened to subsume me entirely. Then suddenly it was over, and without new energy to add to the mass it merely clung to me within my dreamscape. Drawing my focus out to the world, I felt Floralina removing the devices from my body before lifting the helmet. The suspense was killing me, and I'm sure Floralina got some sort of pleasure from that despite her cutesy personality. Naked once again, I heard Floralina manipulating the arm, and the helmet was raised off my head.
I expected quite the shift, but I was still surprised by the dramatically different looking me reflected in the mirror. The most obvious change was my fur, the colours were different now. My fur was a bright blue everywhere but the spots that were covered by the heart-shaped devices. In those places my fur was bright white instead, so bright that it almost hurt my eyes to look directly at it. My palms and soles had white hearts, while my tummy was covered in a white oval. My muzzle was also bathed in white, and my nose, formerly pink, had changed to a blue heart. It was even shinier than before, thanks to that gel no doubt. My eyes still looked normal, though the whites were even whiter and the irises seemed deeper and bluer than before. My body looked absolutely like a teddy bear now, just like the proportions of the Cutopians. Only my eyes, mouth, and the separate digits on my hands made me look different anymore. I wondered how long that would last as my eyes were drawn up the mirror to look at Floralina's reflection as she placed a large blue ribbon bow on top of my head. I don't know how it stuck there, but it did. She leaned forward and kissed my forehead with that puckered-up mouth drawn on her face before saying, "Oh you look just perfect darling! You should be proud!"
I was something, but not proud... It's true that I actually like looking adorable, but the way they were going about it seemed absolutely unwholesome. Floralina helped me out of the chair and I noticed that my sense of touch was different. The floor felt more comfortable, less like alien terrain and more like proper ground. I took a deep breath and looked up to Floralina, asking "Is that all? Should I go out to Sunshine now?"
Floralina nodded, smiling. "You go along and see Sunshine. I hope I see you again sweetheart." She said while giving me a gentle push towards the door, then waving until the door shut behind me.
Sunshine was still waiting just outside the door, and she squealed excitedly when she saw me. "You look perfect!" She said, throwing her arms around me in a tight hug. I hugged her back, and the two of us stayed that way for at least three minutes. Soon it was time to return to my room though, and Sunshine led me past Candy and through the halls to my room.
Finally alone again I looked down my arms and legs, so bright, so blue. I liked the colour; it was a good colour for me. But would I ever be... wait, what colour was I before? I gulped as I drew a blank, and sat on my bed.