ROYAL REWARD: The Big Yellow Balloon (Balloonification, Inflation, Madoka)

The Witch died with a scream and a crash, its bullet-riddled corpse smashed through the barrier of the Labyrinth. As the magical space cracked and collapsed, shattering back into bland, mundane reality, Mami strolled quite confidently across the rooftop, stooped, and picked up the Witch’s Grief Seed with a smile. Tossing it, she caught it and pocketed it, and, her mission accomplished, turned to go. 

As she swung down from the apartment block with her ribbons, however, she felt a strange tension in her gut, as if she’d swallowed something that didn’t agree with her. Slipping into an alley and out of sight, she found her belly swollen and taut, as bloated as if she’d gorged herself on a bucket of raw yogurt. When she pressed her fingers into her flesh, it squeaked, loudly, like she was squeezing a balloon. Blushing, she rubbed her gut and wondered what was happening to her. Too much tea and biscuits, perhaps? 

Hopping back up to the rooftops, she threw out a fresh ribbon and swung off, hoping to get home before it grew much worse, but she made it barely fifty meters before she had to stop.

Discarding her ribbons, she dropped, landing with a gasp on a rooftop, and stood there for a second doubled-over and panting. Clutching her belly, she groaned, slick with sweat, as the growing pressure in her gut spread slowly through the rest of her, leaving her chest and her thighs feeling equally swollen too. 

“Wh-what is happening to me?” Through chattering teeth, Mami strained to resist the pleasure flowing through her. When she squeezed her gut again, a particularly strong blast rolled through her, and with a scream she dropped to her knees, her heart pounding and sweat flying from her face. 

When she managed to open her eyes again, she found her gut looking practically gravid, as fat and as round as it would have to be to hold triplets. All she could do was stare at it in shock. 

A fresh bulge of growth snapped her out of her silence. What was happening to her? Was it some lingering curse from the Witch? She’d never seen anything like it. 

Struggling to her feet, she looked around, trying to figure out what to do next. She had to find help, that was obvious, but who was she supposed to ask? Homura? Madoka? And how was she supposed to get to them when her belly was the size of a beachball?! 

Even as she wrestled with this conundrum, it swelled again, drawing her clothing tight around her gut. Her corset audibly strained, on the very edge of popping–Mami could only presume it was the spell that was preventing it.

Swallowing, she wiped the sweat from her face and stumbled forward, her locomotion a little more awkward with the second. As her gut grew, it stretched the rest of her body around it, lifting her breasts like boats on a rising tide and spreading her legs as if she really were pregnant. Flushing red with embarrassment, she wobbled on like a clown, unable to bear the thought of someone seeing her. 

By the time she reached the edge of the rooftop, her belly had doubled in size again, grown so large and round it practically assimilated her thighs. Her lower legs, spread so far apart she couldn’t have touched her toes even if she’d tried, were little use for movement now. She made one feeble attempt to walk anyway, and, caught in the wind, bounced back and landed on her butt. Despite her best efforts, she could no longer get up. 

“Nn~!” Lying there, flailing her stubby arms and kicking her legs, Mami screwed up her arms and moaned, as embarrassed as she was horrified. The larger her belly, the more ovoid, egg-shaped, her body as a whole seemed to become. Her clothes, stretched tight around her, hadn’t torn as she’d expected: instead, they seemed to be growing flatter, smaller, as if they were slowly turning from cloth to plastic. Staring at them, she trembled in terror. 

With the swelling of her gut came something far worse than any physical change of the body: a sense of terrible emptiness, as if she’d been hollowed out and pumped full of gas. Spreading through her form, it sapped her breath and what strength she had to resist and, spreading to her mind, left her staring woozily at the sky, barely able to think. The larger she swelled, the greater the emptiness.

As the swelling reached her neck, her thoughts misted and blurred, becoming impossible to recognize. She struggled to think, to remember who she was or what she’d been doing, but no matter how hard she tried, the answers refused to come to her mind. Soon even the effort of trying became impossible. 

Now, as she lay there, her limbs all but sucked into the ovoid of her former, and her head close to joining them, she felt a strange sense of peace, as if all her worries had been sucked out and replaced by pure contentness. The fact she no longer remembered her name or face or anything else about who she was was irrelevant. The old her was gone, and the new one was an improvement. 

With a pop, her head finished swelling, and her growth came to an end. For a few more moments, she remained there on her back, rolling softly from side to side and enjoying the warmth of the late afternoon sun as it made her glossy new skin shine. 

Finally, she sucked in a breath and rolled onto her front. Empty of self as she was, she still had a purpose of sorts in her strange new head. 

Time to show everyone else how good being Mistress’s big balloon felt.