Half things to make one full (Manticore-/Umbrellataur- TF)

Muelsyse hadn’t even planned to stop by the little lottery stall. She only meant to take a short break from her paperwork, stretch her legs, and maybe get a cup of coffee. Yet somehow, the brightly colored wheel and the bored-looking vendor caught her attention. Out of curiosity more than anything else, she gave it a spin.

The click-click-click of the wheel slowed. Muelsyse expected nothing. Maybe a keychain, maybe nothing at all.

Instead, the needle stopped on the golden square.

“Congratulations!” the vendor declared, voice brightening with the promise of ceremony. He handed her a small envelope embossed with sea waves. “Winner’s prize!”

Muelsyse blinked, accepting it gingerly. “...I won something?”

Ptilopsis tilted her head, her eyes narrowing with a faint glow. “Statistical probability of you winning anything of measurable value was approximately 0.4 percent. This outcome qualifies as an anomaly.”

Muelsyse sighed, tucking the envelope open. “Yeah, thanks for the reminder. Don’t ask me to replicate it in the lab.”

Inside was a ticket. A neat rectangle of polished paper, stamped with the logo of Siesta Resort.

“Wait… Siesta?” Muelsyse’s voice actually pitched up in surprise. “Trip and entry both included?”

The vendor nodded, clearly satisfied at having delivered the good news.

“That’s… unusually relevant. I would’ve expected discount cookware or something useless.” Muelsyse let out a short laugh, half disbelief and half delight. “But no, I actually want this.”

She flipped the ticket over, scanning it with a researcher’s scrutiny. A detail caught her eye. “Huh. Says here, ‘valid for one person, trip and entry included.’ Singular.”

Her mood dipped a little. “That kinda sucks. Going to Siesta alone… doesn’t sound half as exciting.”

Ptilopsis blinked with a blank expression. “Solution analysis: if the condition of the prize diminishes its enjoyment, you may choose to nullify and decline usage.”

Muelsyse frowned thoughtfully. “Before I do that, I’d rather just bring you along. Cover the cost of your ticket myself.”

It was at that moment a new voice rang out from behind them. Smooth, lilting, and mocking all at once.

“Ah, two people, yet only one ticket for one person between you two. What a dilemma, what a dilemma.”

Muelsyse froze, ears flicking slightly at the tone. She turned, narrowing her eyes. “...Who are you?”

The two of them turned around to see a dark-skinned girl with vivid orange hair approaching at a casual pace. Her expression was somewhere between mischievous smirk and veiled danger, as if every word she might say could be either a joke or a threat.

Muelsyse didn’t really know what to think of her.

“Oh, pardon my rudeness.” The girl dipped her head with mock grace. “You may call me Nagisa, Goddess of Darkness. A pleasure to meet you both.”

Ptilopsis tilted her head, her eye glinting faintly as she thought. “Designation Goddess of Darkness seemed very excessive, if not most unlikely true. If anything, it’s either greatly exaggerated or fake entirely.”

Nagisa chuckled, clearly entertained. “Whether my title is real or not doesn’t matter much, does it? What matters is that I can help fix your little problem.”

Muelsyse raised a brow. “Already? We literally just got the ticket. How could you possibly know about it?”

Nagisa tapped her temple with a lazy finger, grin widening. “Chalk it up to good old fashion Godly intuition.”

Muelsyse exhaled through her nose. “Of course.”

Ptilopsis’s voice cut in flatly. “Again, highly unlikely.”

Nagisa placed her hands on her hips, leaning forward slightly. “How about you hear me out first before you pass judgment?” Her grin sharpened, a flash of teeth that was more predator than polite.

Muelsyse folded her arms. “Fine. Let’s hear it.”

Ptilopsis’s sighed. “Let’s accept your input then. Continue.”

“Simple, really,” Nagisa purred. “You can’t be two full people, not with only one ticket. So the easiest way to make it work… is to become half a person.”

Muelsyse’s ears twitched. “Half a person?”

Nagisa’s grin widened. “Exactly. If half of you isn’t a person, then what remains counts as just half. Like so.”

She lifted a hand, pointing lazily at Muelsyse.

A sudden jolt of energy surged through Muelsyse’s legs like a shockwave. She gasped, stumbling back a step. “What the—?”

Her balance felt wrong, her lower body strangely heavy. A prickling sensation spread down her thighs, and then she saw it: fur, short and dense, sprouting across her skin.

Her shoes dissolved into nothing as her feet stretched, cracked, and reshaped, flattening into broad leonine paws tipped with curved claws that scraped the ground. Her calves thickened, muscle bunching unnaturally, and her stance widened as if she suddenly needed more ground to support herself.

Muelsyse staggered, looking down in disbelief. “This… this is not possible. And yet…”

Her lab coat, as if alive, adjusted itself to her altered proportions, but could not hide the fact that her new limbs left her standing a head taller than before.

Ptilopsis’s eyes dilated, gasping as she tried to make sense of what she just saw. “This is… The system has confirmed an anomaly. Biological restructuring detected. Processing possible explanation…”

Muelsyse swallowed hard, still staring at her furred legs. “I… don’t even have a hypothesis for this yet.”

Nagisa clasped her hands together, clearly delighted. “Well then, what do you think?”

“How did you do that?” Muelsyse asked, carefully shifting her new paws against the ground. The muscles in her altered legs flexed with startling strength, every step humming with power she wasn’t used to. “They feel… stable, but too strong. Not human.”

“I am a Goddess of Darkness, remember?” Nagisa declared flatly, raising her chin.

Muelsyse gave her a long, unimpressed look. “…Right. Still don’t believe it. Again, how does this help…?”

Nagisa’s smirk sharpened. “Isn’t it obvious? Your lower half is that of a beast, your upper half still human. Therefore, you are not one full person, but half. A monster girl. Perfectly legal workaround.” She delivered this as if it were the most airtight scientific theorem in existence.

Muelsyse blinked at her. “No. It doesn’t work that way.”

Ptilopsis tilted her head slightly, making you almost hear her head whirring. “According to rough computation, the probability this argument is accepted at the Siesta checkpoint is approximately zero point two percent. This logic will not fly at the gate.”

Nagisa only grinned wider, leaning closer as her orange hair caught the light. “That’s because you’re simply not monstrous enough. Yet.”

Her fingers twitched playfully, like a puppeteer about to tug a new string. “Allow me to demonstrate… on you.”

And then… puff! 

Nagisa vanished in a swirl of black smoke.

Muelsyse’s ears shot up. “Where…?”

“Here.”

The voice came from behind. Nagisa reappeared in a flicker of shadow, crouched low and pointing a single finger directly at Muelsyse’s rear. A crackling spark leapt forth, zapping her squarely.

“Y-yeow!” Muelsyse yelped, jolting forward with an undignified leap.

She barely had time to spin around when the sensation hit her: a strange pressure building just above where Nagisa had struck. It was heavy, insistent, like something trying to force its way out from inside her spine.

And then… she felt it. A sharp tearing noise as her lab coat ripped outward. Something hard and chitinous pushed free.

Her breath caught. “No, no, no, that’s—”

The pressure swelled again, and another segment shoved itself out, clicking into place like a living chain. Then another. Then another.

Each release came with a pulse of relief, followed by renewed strain, until at last the series of armored sections ended in a curved, wicked-looking barb.

Muelsyse froze, her entire body trembling with adrenaline. Slowly, she turned her head just enough to glimpse behind her.

There it was: a massive scorpion tail, thick and segmented, arching up over her back like it belonged there all along. The tip twitched, gleaming faintly as if itching to strike.

She blinked once. Twice. “…You’ve got to be kidding me.”

Ptilopsis lowered herself into a squat, eyes glowing faintly as she leaned in. Without a word, she prodded the segmented tail with two fingers, running a cautious tap along the armor. Her expression didn’t change, but the way she lingered there spoke of pure intrigue.

Muelsyse flinched. “D-Don’t just poke it like that—!”

“Touch confirmed,” Ptilopsis murmured. “Texture consistent with keratinized chitin. Segment articulation… remarkable. Recording data.”

“Still not enough? I can do even more~,” Nagisa sang out. She already had her hand raised, finger pointed.

“W-Wait!” Muelsyse cried, ears flattening. “Don’t you dare…”

Too late. Another zap lanced out, this time striking her from behind. Electricity rippled down her legs and straight into her hips.

Muelsyse gasped, staggering as the strange swelling sensation returned, this time far stronger. Her butt felt like it was growing, pressing outward, pushing with relentless force. Each pulse added more mass, more thickness, more distance between her upper torso and the ground.

“Wh-what is this supposed to—!?” she stammered, clenching her fists.

Her expanding backside shoved backward again and again, until it collided squarely with Ptilopsis, who had been crouched too close in her examination.

Bonk!

Ptilopsis’s face disappeared into the growing wall of furred muscle and swelling curves. Her vision briefly only became the backside of a labcoat, her balance failing as the unstoppable expansion kept shoving. With one final push, the mass of Muelsyse’s backside flung her clean off her feet.

She toppled over onto the ground in a surprisingly glorious undignified sprawl.

Muelsyse’s face flushed red, tail swishing in agitation. “Oh for…! Hey, You’re doing this on purpose!”

Nagisa simply clasped her hands behind her back, tilting her head with a foxlike grin. “Maaaybe.”

Muelsyse grit her teeth, but her body wasn’t done changing. Her rear kept pushing outward, her hips and backside stretching farther and farther back. Her midsection elongated unnaturally, thickening until it felt like her entire lower half was being inflated with muscle and fur.

Her lab coat strained, riding higher as tawny fur spread down over her widening haunches. Each inch made her more unbalanced, her center of gravity shifting dangerously backward. Muelsyse wobbled forward, arms flailing slightly as she fought to keep her balance.

Then came the pressure again. This time in the middle of her expanding torso. Two hard little knots pushing out on either side.

She gasped. “Wait, not more—!”

The nubs lengthened, shaping themselves into limbs, joints locking into place as fur sprouted in a rush. In moments, what had been little stubs became fully formed forelegs, powerful lion-like paws flexing against the ground.

Her knees buckled. Standing upright was no longer possible. Muelsyse toppled forward, bracing herself for the fall, only to land solidly on her new front legs, claws digging into the floor.

Her breath came ragged as she processed the weight beneath her. She looked down, then back, realizing the truth: four leonine legs now carried a massive quadrupedal body, her long scorpion tail arched menacingly above it.

And yet, her upper half remained intact. Her clean hair, her arms even her lab coat, that seemingly magically repaired itself to fit over both her normal upper body and her very abnormal lower body. A human torso perched on a beast’s frame.

She stared at herself in disbelief. “…Okay. Uhm. This is a lot.”

Nagisa leaned on one hand, giving her a smug wink. “A lot of monster, not a lot of person, right?”

“Right…” Muelsyse sighed, ears flicking back as she tried not to collapse under the absurdity.

Ptilopsis, still adjusting her clothes after recovering from the booty blast, spoke in her calm monotone. “Once again, calculations continue to indicate a low probability this strategy will succeed. As it stands now, Muelsyse is more likely to be classified as a monster than a reduced fraction of a person.”

“That’s because she simply isn’t looking refined enough,” Nagisa said breezily, tapping her chin. Her grin widened. “Say… what could our dear little manticore lady do to look more refined?”

“…So I am a manticore now?” Muelsyse muttered, glancing back at her scorpiontail as it swayed menacingly. “I… guess I see it.”

“My memory bank lacks comprehensive data on refined ladies,” Ptilopsis admitted. Her eyes flickered like a loading screen. “Database entries are sparse. Parameters unknown to me.”

“Oh, yeah, I don’t know much either,” Muelsyse added, shrugging her human shoulders. “I’m a researcher, not some fancy noblewoman strolling through the city all high and mighty with a parasol and powdered face.”

Nagisa clapped her hands together, eyes flashing with delight. “Ha! That’s already workable.”

Muelsyse blinked. “…It is?”

“Yes, it is.” Nagisa’s smirk deepened, the same wicked curve that had heralded Muelsyse’s earlier transformation. “Let me prove it.”

Her fingers began to spark again.

The bolt struck Ptilopsis squarely, making her body jolt like a machine short-circuiting. Her legs immediately stiffened, joints locking rigid. 

“Stability compromised,” Ptilopsis reported in monotone, her voice strangely calm even as she barely managed to keep standing. “Motor control… error. Uwa!” She stumbled, teetered, and then dropped unceremoniously onto her backside with a flat thump.

Before she could rise, the transformation began pulsing through her. Her skirt shuddered, its fabric thickening unnaturally, stiff as if starch had been poured over every fold. With each rhythmic pulse, it stretched lower, lengthening around her stiffened legs until it seemed to swallow them whole.

Muelsyse leaned forward on her leonine paws, blinking in disbelief. “…Her skirt’s eating her legs?”

The fabric’s hue deepened, shifting into a glossy shade of green. Lines of raised ridges crept across it, pleat by pleat, until the texture resembled the folded canopy of a parasol drawn tight by hidden ribs.

Nagisa laughed lightly, tilting her head. “Oh, this is going to look perfect.”

From the folded parasol shape that had swallowed Ptilopsis’s lower half, something began to extend. At first, it looked like her legs were reemerging. But no, the shape was wrong. Instead of two limbs, a single, stiff rod pushed downward, smooth and narrowing as it elongated.

The “feet” at the bottom twisted unnaturally, curling into a hooked end like the crook of a parasol handle. With every pulse, the material hardened, its texture shifting into a polished, woody sheen.

Muelsyse’s ears twitched as she tilted her head. “…That’s… disturbingly literal.”

Nagisa strolled forward, humming to herself. Without effort, she reached down and wrapped her fingers around the new wooden handle. With a single tug, she lifted Ptilopsis clean off the ground as though she really were nothing more than an oversized umbrella.

“Eep!” Ptilopsis’s yelped in surprise, her voice still flat despite the squeak.

Nagisa’s fingers brushed a small button embedded where the skirt and torso met. She pressed it with a playful click.

Fwump!

The skirt flared outward in a perfect circle, panels unfolding into taut fabric struts. In an instant, it was obvious: Ptilopsis’s lower body had become a fully functional parasol, ribs stretching out, canopy wide and green.

Nagisa twirled her with a delighted laugh. “Here you go~ For you!” She held the parasol-bodied girl out toward Muelsyse like a gift.

“…Thanks?” Muelsyse blinked, her tail swishing uneasily. She had no idea how else to respond.

“Hey! Cease passing me around like an object!” Ptilopsis protested, her monotone somehow managing to sound both indignant and resigned.

“Still not happy?” Nagisa winked. “I guess I can put one extra in, just for you!”

Before either of them could react, she spun on her heel, leveled a finger at Muelsyse’s massive back, and zapped her again.

Muelsyse barely had time to yelp before her spine arched, pressure exploding outward from between her shoulders. With a ripping shhrrrk, two enormous shapes burst free, unfurling in a storm of leathery membrane and sinew.

Within seconds, colossal dragonlike wings spread wide, flexing instinctively with terrifying strength. The sheer span of them made her already monstrous manticore body look even more absurd, like some stitched-together myth out of a bestiary.

Muelsyse plastered on the fakest smile she could manage. “We are eternally grateful for what you have done today, Lady Nagisa!” she declared in a tone far too bright to be sincere. “Your strategy is naturally flawless, and we will make our way to Siesta immediately. Ahaha…”

Her laugh cracked under the weight of her own sarcasm.

“…My calculations still indicate—” Ptilopsis began from her perch above Muelsyse’s parasol canopy.

But Muelsyse whipped her head around, cutting her off sharply. “We are satisfied and will go now, okay?” Then, lowering her voice to a whisper meant only for Ptilopsis: “…Or do you want to be transformed further?”

Ptilopsis froze. “…Negative.”

“Good.”

Nagisa clapped her hands together like a delighted teacher. “I see! Glad to hear it! I’m convinced you two will have so much fun in Siesta together.” She rose gracefully into the air, her orange hair whipping about as shadows coiled beneath her feet. “Whenever another problem arises, just give me a call. You know how to find me.”

“Of course,” Muelsyse said smoothly, lying through her teeth. She had no idea how the goddess had even shown up in the first place.

“See ya around~”

With a snap of her fingers, Nagisa vanished into a wisp of black smoke, leaving the two girls alone in stunned silence.

They stood there, flabbergasted. Muelsyse, now a scorpion-tailed, winged manticore taur, and Ptilopsis, perched like some unwilling noble’s parasol, could only stare at each other.

“…This is not at all how I thought today would go,” Muelsyse muttered.

—

What a sight it was. A massive manticore stood at the gate to Siesta: leonine lower body planted solidly on the cobblestones, wings arched high like storm sails, a venomous scorpion tail twitching lazily above it all. And perched atop this monstrous frame, a girl in a neatly fitting lab coat, clutching a parasol that, on closer inspection, was clearly also alive.

Ptilopsis did her best to sit primly, expression neutral, canopy spread wide as if she were merely an accessory for a refined lady. Somehow, against all reason, the image worked. The beast below and the parasol above combined into something that looked… well… almost elegant.

“You may go in,” the guard said, stamping the ticket without hesitation. He didn’t even look twice.

“…Really?” Muelsyse asked, ears perking in disbelief. “With just one ticket?”

The guard shrugged. “I mean, you’re half a person, and she’s half a person. Two halves make a whole. Perfectly valid.”

Muelsyse opened her mouth, then closed it again. “…Understood.” She stepped forward, deciding not to question her good fortune.

Even Ptilopsis was silent as if her brain had simply given up.

The last thing either of them had expected was for Nagisa’s ridiculous, nonsensical logic to actually fly at the gate. Yet here they were, strolling into Siesta without issue.

Muelsyse exhaled a long breath, her tail flicking. “…I guess next time we see her, we owe Nagisa both an apology and a thank you.”

“Correction,” Ptilopsis murmured at last. “An apology, a thank you… and perhaps a request for clarification.”

Muelsyse laughed under her breath. “Fair enough.”

Absurd or not, Nagisa’s “solution” had worked. And, monstrous or not, their little trip to Siesta could finally begin.

Two half people can use a ticket for one person. Right? RIGHT?!?

Image source: https://www.pixiv.net/en/artworks/123789220