The Taming of the Shrewd Fox

Chapter 1: The Potion and the Predator

The air in the moonlit lab tasted of ozone and crushed wormwood. A single beam of silver light cut through the high window, illuminating the swirl of iridescent vapor inside the crystal vial Bunny held with both hands. Her knuckles were white.

“Steady, little rabbit.” My voice was a low purr that vibrated in the stone-lined space. I watched her, my shadow engulfing hers on the rune-etched floor. At eight feet tall, I was used to looking down at everything, but with Bunny, it felt particularly right. Her wide, liquid eyes gazed up at me, a mix of terror and devotion that never failed to heat my blood. “Drink up. Let’s see if you can handle what comes next.”

She gave a tiny, almost imperceptible nod. The nervous twitch of her nose made me smile. With a shuddering breath, she brought the vial to her lips and tipped it back. The glow traveled down her throat, painting her pale skin from within with pulses of auroral light. A gasp escaped her, sharp and sweet.

Her form began to warp. It was beautiful. Soft, grey-flecked fur sprouted from her skin. Her ears lengthened, peeling back through her pastel-pink hair to stand tall and quivering. A fluffy cotton tail pushed out from the back of her ruffled skirt. She shrank, compacting, until she stood a perfect, plush anthro bunny, just over three feet of trembling, eager submission. She looked up at me, her new whiskers twitching.

“Perfect,” I breathed, my own desire a solid, heavy ache. I snatched my own vial from the obsidian slab. My potion was the color of smoldering embers. I didn’t hesitate. I threw it back.

The change wasn’t gentle. It was an eruption. My bones cracked and lengthened, a surge of power that made me arch my back and cry out—not in pain, but in raw, soaring triumph. Crimson fur, sleek and hot to the touch, raced over my skin. My clothes tore as my body expanded, my height shooting past ten, then twelve feet. Nine tails, each thicker than Bunny’s waist, burst from my spine with a sound like cracking whips. They lashed out, smashing a wooden table and sending glassware flying in a spectacular crash. The room was suddenly far too small. I looked down, my vision sharpened to preternatural clarity, at my tiny, transformed pet.

Her scent— fear, arousal, wet earth—flooded my enhanced senses. A low, possessive growl rumbled from my chest. “Run, pet,” I commanded, my voice a seismic vibration. “I love the chase before I fuck you senseless.”

She squeaked, a deliciously helpless sound, and scampered behind a large alembic. I took a step, the floor shaking. I could taste her panic. It was exquisite. I prowled forward, one tail coiling to sweep the glass obstruction aside. She darted again, a blur of grey and pink.

I pounced.

My hands, now massive and clawed, came down on either side of her, caging her against the cold stone floor. She froze, her little body heaving. I lowered my muzzle, inhaling her scent deeply, ready to nuzzle, to bite, to claim.

That’s when I noticed it.

Something was off. The scale was wrong. My hands weren’t framing a three-foot-tall bunny. The space between my palms felt… wider. The top of her head was closer to my wrists than it should have been. I blinked, thinking my kitsune sight was tricking me. It wasn’t.

Bunny wasn’t 4’1” anymore. She was bigger. As I watched, stunned into stillness, I saw the fur on her back ripple. A subtle expansion. She was maybe four and a half feet now, and slowly getting bigger. Her delicate bunny frame was filling out, the curves of her hips and chest swelling against her tattered clothes with a soft, audible strain of fabric.

“What…?” The word left my muzzle, a confusion that felt utterly alien.

Bunny turned her head. The look of terrified submission was gone. In its place was a slow, knowing smirk. Her whiskers quivered, but not with nerves. With amusement. She pushed herself up onto her elbows, the movement strong, effortless. The growth was accelerating. She was five feet now, her eyes level with my lowered throat.

“Care for a role reversal, hun?” she whispered. Her voice wasn’t her timid squeak. It was a low, honeyed, and deeply confident purr.

A cold shock, sharp and bright as lightning, stabbed through my gut. It wasn’t fear. It was the first tremble of something far more profound: a loss of control so absolute it stole my breath.

Then the sensation hit me. A sinking. A contracting pull deep in my core, as if my very essence was being siphoned downwards. It was exactly like the stomach-dropping plunge of an elevator descending too fast. I gasped, my nine tails slumping.

I was shrinking.

I could feel it in every joint, every vertebra. The majestic twelve-foot height bled away. Eleven feet. Ten. My perspective, which had been a god’s-eye view for so long, began to crater. My crimson fur didn’t recede, but my body compacted beneath it. The powerful, sinuous muscle of my arms and legs tightened, drawing inwards.

While I contracted, Bunny swelled with a terrifying, vivacious energy.

She rose to her knees, then to her feet, a languid, unstoppable ascent. Six feet tall. Her bunny ears now brushed the bottom of the overturned table. The torn remnants of her blouse strained over breasts that were now each the size of my head—and my head was getting smaller by the second. I was nine feet now, staring up at the underside of her jaw.

“No,” I growled, the sound weaker, higher-pitched than my commanding boom. I tried to summon my power, to assert my will over the magic. It slipped through my fingers like smoke.

Seven feet for her. Her fluffy tail was now a large, soft pillow behind her. My own body felt cramped, compressed. Eight feet. I was now looking directly at the swell of her stomach, which curved out like a ripe moon. The scent in the air had changed. Her fear was gone, replaced by a dizzying, potent aroma of dominance and blissful power.

“That’s it,” Bunny murmured, looking down at her own hands as they grew, her paws becoming powerful, long-fingered hands with a gentle grey pad where her palm was. “Oh, this is nice.”

My elevator descent continued. Seven feet. I was now shorter than my original height. Dread, cold and liquid, pooled in my shrunken stomach. The emotion was a torrent—confusion, betrayal, a frantic, scrabbling panic. This was my domain. My magic. My pet. This wasn’t how the story went. The lab, which I had dominated moments before, now felt cavernous and threatening. A rolling boil from a forgotten cauldron sounded like a distant avalanche.

Bunny stretched, a movement of sheer, voluptuous enjoyment. Her shoulders broadened. Eight feet tall. Her thigh, as she shifted her weight, was thicker than my entire torso. I was six feet now, the size of a mere mortal man, drowning in the fabric of my own torn clothes. My magnificent tails felt heavy and ridiculous, dragging on the floor like discarded carpets.

She took a single step forward. The floor trembled. Not from my power, but from hers. Her foot, in its ruined ballet flat, was a massive, graceful thing. I stumbled back, my back hitting the leg of the stone worktable. I was eye-level with the breathtaking, awe-inspiring curve of her hip. It was a vast, gentle slope of soft grey fur. I could have curled up in its shadow.

Her smirk widened. She leaned down, bringing her face, now the size of a shield, close to mine. Her breath was warm and smelled of clover and something inexplicably fierce. “What’s the matter, Vix?” she cooed, the nickname a condescending slap. “You look… small.”

Her hand came up. A single finger, now as long as my forearm, tipped with a neat, dark claw, approached my face. I flinched. I, Vixen Valerius, flinched. The shame of it burned hotter than any magic. She didn’t touch me. She just hovered that immense digit before my eyes, letting me comprehend the sheer, utter scale of my diminishment.

I was five feet tall. My world was shrinking to the details of the cobblestones, the smell of dust, the overwhelming, crushing presence of her. She was nine feet of lush, powerful anthro bunny, a goddess of softness and terrifying strength. My head would fit between her breasts. My entire body could be cradled in one of her palms.

The contraction inside me finally, mercifully, stopped. I stood there, a five-foot-tall kitsune, my nine tails a puddle of red around my feet, staring up at a paradise and a prison made of gentle grey fur and amused pink eyes. The chase was over. The rules were gone. And for the first time in my long, commanding life, I had absolutely no idea what came next.