Chapter 3 - Shopping at all the right places
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It was early in the day and already the downtown streets were alive with people walking up and down them in small throngs. Several young women clustered around one shop window chatting on cell phones to other friends while nearby a harried mother dragged a screaming child into a store that sold children's clothes. All in all, a fairly routine day for the people going about their business on a warm summer day.
For one person walking briskly down the street, it was anything but a pleasant day. Storming down the street with her thigh high green boots clattering as they hit the cement sidewalks, Sersi was a woman on a mission and not in the mood for anyone to interfere with it. Her brown eyes glanced from building to building looking for the number that was written on the receipt she was clutching in her hand. The heroine was determined to retrieve her guests in whatever form she had put them in ASAP before something more happened to them.
She stopped in front of a mid-sized red-bricked storefront which had FRAN'S FAMILY FASHIONS written on its signage. Glancing at the receipt in her hand, it read the buyer as being from the store which she now stood in front of . The store had purchased "1 female lifesized mature mannequin (disassembly possible )" from her for a sum of $5,000. Puzzled, Sersi looked over the receipt for a clue as to which guest it might be.
Suddenly, it hit her like the proverbial ton of bricks as she recalled a bit of what happened the night before. She remembered at the party last night she was showing the heroine known as the Scarlet Witch (Wanda to her friends) the vast wardrobe she had collected over the years. The two were more than a little tipsy from drinking heavily that evening and it was quite a sight to see Wanda stumbling from closet to closet peeking at the array of outfits that ranged from formal Elizabethan wardrobe to erotic outfits that seemed straight out of the local adult shop.
Wanda blathered on about she was captured in her latest mission and only through her probability altering magic was she able to get free, defeat the bad guys and so on. Sersi had leaned up against a closet door sipping on a glass of fine Lemurian wine wishing Wanda would stop yapping so she could get them both back to her party when there was a loud CRASSHH!!
Sersi peered around the corner to see a huge pile of her clothes were now strewn on the floor. Worse still, Wanda's clumsy attempts to pick them up resulted in many of the outfits being torn or ripped. Sersi lurched towards the crimson clad heroine with a mounting sense of rage that, combined with her current inebriated state, overwhelmed her normal reactions to this situation. Wanda was muttering how she'd make things right so the clothes could be back on display.
Enraged, Sersi picked up Wanda and hurled the crimson clad heroine out of the closet area and into the middle of her master bedroom. Her eyes sparkled with raw energy as she stalked a tad unsteadily on the stunned sorceress looking for more than just a simple spell to fix things up. A surge of energy shot out from Sersi's outstretched fingertips knocking Wanda backward next to the bed where she laid slumped for a second before pulling herself to her knees.
Sersi bent down just as the sorceress was twitching her fingers in preparations for a spell and slapped a brain neutralizing mine on the back of the witch's neck. Almost immediately, Wanda's eyes went blank and her hands hung loosely by her sides. After a few seconds, Sersi wrapped her arms around Wanda's supple waist and set her down in front of a large wall mirror .
Standing her straight up, Sersi stripped off the costume, cowl and boots of the beautiful woman leaving the heroine nude with a blank look on her face. With a mischievous look, Sersi then pulled out a hand razor and shaved Wanda's pubic area completely smooth . She then took the heroine's left arm and placed it on her waist and then moving the right arm so that it was bent slightly with the hand just hovering above her mid section. After shifting her legs just slightly so that the weight was shifted slightly more on the right foot, the transmuting heroine then stood back and smiled at the sight before her.
Sersi stood before the woman and, while muttering about "putting her on display", waved her hands towards the immobile woman. A surge of glowing energy enveloped the sexy spell caster as flesh began to change to cold hard plastic. Wanda's breathing ceased almost immediately as the effect spread throughout her body. Her sex, already fairly smooth from Sersi's shaving in the area, completely smoothed over and became flawless plastic much like the rest of her body. Her breasts became rigid with only the smallest of nipples still visible on them. The transformation engulfed her face turning her eyes into lifeless beads of glass with a slight smile frozen on her face. The final phase of the sorceress's change was the appearance of a metal plate between her plastic legs for the insertion of a display rod if wanted.
Sersi's memories grew cloudy at that point. She remembered having a cardboard box out in the room and making a phone call but beyond that everything was too fuzzy. Judging by the receipt in her hand, it didn't take a wild guess what happened next.
Glancing at the store signs advertising "30-60 % off on most merchandise", Sersi opened the glass and wooden door and strolled inside the spacious store. She figured that rather than going around to each and every mannequin in the store, she would approach the store manager directly and get back Wanda swiftly with little delay.
However, Sersi's planned expediency didn't go as planned as the manager proved far more tenacious than she had thought. Glancing at the receipt, the late 20's woman looked at the heroine, puzzled. "I don't understand. Our check is perfectly good and we are more than satisfied with the display dummy you provided," she said with no sign in her voice of understanding Sersi's request.
"Look, it's very simple. There was a mistake made in the sale which I only just found out. The mannequin wasn't mine to sell to begin with and I have to return it as soon as possible. If you could show me where the display figure in question is, I'll take it with me now and not only return your check but add a little more to compensate you for the inconvenience," Sersi said with a trace of annoyance creeping into her voice.
The manager shook her head. "I'd really like to help you but if you sold the mannequin in error, perhaps you should send the owner of it here tomorrow and I'm sure we can work something out. Right now, though, we're in the middle of of our big annual clearance sale and I simply don't have the time to figure out which mannequin might be yours," the young woman said with a dismissive tone.
Sersi's eyes crackled with fire and energy and her fingers fidgeted in the air for a few seconds "Are you quite certain you can't help me right now, miss? This isn't really something I can put off until tomorrow at all," she said, looking behind the manager at the same time.
"As I just told you, I'm extremely busy today. Now, if you'll excuse me, I must put out some new items for sale..." the manager said curtly and started to turn away before she stopped in her tracks in shock at the sight before her.
One of the nearby female mannequins was clambering down off its pedestal moving its arms back and forth as it did so. Clad in a yellow sun dress and obviously nothing underneath, the living mannequin inhaled deeply causing her breasts that a few minutes ago were rigid domes of hard plastic to rise and fall with each breath taken in. She looked first at Sersi and then squarely at the store manager. "Why don't you help this nice woman out? Heck, you haven't changed my outfit here in 3 months but I'm not complaining," the mannequin woman said, while running her hands down her legs that were just unblemished plastic.
The manager's mouth hung open in shock as she stood speechless next to a smirking Sersi. After about thirty seconds or so, the manager recovered enough to go to her desk and pick up a phone. Speaking quickly and with a voice that was trembling from the shock of seeing a plastic dummy spring to life, she asked an assistant to bring out the mannequin the store had just acquired the day before.
She had just put the phone down and was just about to speak to Sersi when yet again she was rooted to the spot in stunned silence. She saw the previously living mannequin once again standing on the display platform, flesh changed quickly back into the plastic it had always been before. The display dummy had swiftly assumed the same pose it had held since it was first brought into the store with its left hand arched upwards and its right hand just brushing the mannequin's hip. A few seconds later, it once again was just another display figure that looked no different than any other in the store.
The manager looked at Sersi, who was still wearing the same smirk as before. Moving towards the figure, the immortal heroine briefly ran her hand down one side of the mannequin before turning back to the manager. "Shall we go and retrieve my mannequin now, my dear?" she said with a voice dripping in artificial sweetness.
Several minutes later, a partly dressed mannequin was wheeled out from the storeroom by a female sales clerk and brought before Sersi who instantly recognized it as the transformed Wanda, now wearing a very sexy push up black satin bra and matching panties. However, instead of the fiery red tresses of hair Sersi expected to see atop the mannequin's head, she saw a blonde wig sitting there instead with the strands ending well below the shoulders. Sersi turned to the two women standing near hear and arching a questioning eyebrow.
"Excuse me, ladies, but this figure isn't quite in the same condition when it was sold to your store. Where's the original wig that came with this mannequin?" the heroine inquired of the women who noticeably shrank back from her.
"Well..uhh...you see, when we were preparing the figure to be displayed on the floor, we noticed the wig reeked of alcohol and wine so it went into the trash and we replaced it with a new blonde one we had in stock. The trash went out first this morning so I'm afraid the wig on it will have to do for now," the manager said with a touch of fear creeping into her voice.
"Blonde?....well, Wanda can always dye her hair her back to its original color or change her costume to match the hair... " thought Sersi to herself as she waved away the two women before hoisting the mannequin up with ease and strolling towards the exit.
Just before she reached to open the door, she could hear the manager talking to the staff member in an excited tone to get back to serving customers now that the "weird heroine bitch" was gone. Sersi's face darkened for just a second when she heard the last part and she stopped just before reaching for the door handle. She twisted around to peer back into the store and energy crackled around her eyes and fingertips for no more than second or two. She then smiled and pulled the door to open leave the store for home.
Suddenly, there was a loud shriek emanating from the back of the store which sounded like the voice of the store manager. As Sersi peered through the storefront's window , she could see the woman surrounded in a semi circle by a group of figures that looked very familiar. In fact they were the other mannequins and display figures of the store, now very alive and animated as they waved their limbs around the distraught staff and customers. Sersi could hear the shrieks of customers and staff alike as the inside of the store became a scene of total chaos and saw the manager running frantically around trying without much success to calm things down.
"That should teach that store manager to be a little more considerate in her dealings with the general public...." thought Sersi as she walked down the sidewalk with her transformed friend while shrieking customers exited quickly from Fran's. Stopping briefly to gesture towards the store and revert the figures back to their inanimate status, the smug heroine quickly headed home with another party guest recovered under her arm.
Once inside her house, Sersi stood Wanda over next to where Rainmaker and Vampirella were positioned still in the poses they had been left in. Pulling off the tarp that had been wrapped around the mannequin, Sersi briefly admired Wanda's nude body and how beautiful she looked standing there with a look of bliss on her face. Smiling sadly to herself, Sersi waved her hands dramatically at her friend and almost immediately the transformation from plastic to flesh began.
Smooth plastic limbs became ones made of blood and tissue once again as Wanda's body became human once again. Her chest once again rose and fell with the resumption of her breathing with her nipples once again prominent on each breast and inexplicably looking quite erect. Her eyes seemed to soften simultaneously with the rest of her features and once again an occasional eye blink could be made. If not for the device on the back of the sorceress' neck that effectively blanked out her mind, Sersi could see her fellow heroine stepping forward to speak with her and react to her embarrassing state of nudity.
"I'll explain to Wanda how she wound up with shoulder length blonde hair later on. For now, I'll leave her with the other two while I go and recover my other guests..." mused Sersi to herself as she turned to depart on another quest. However, she had only traveled a few feet before she stopped dead in her tracks.
"Wait a second..if I remove the neutralizer from Wanda and calm her down sufficiently, she can use her hex magic to undo all these other transformations from here and save me all the trouble of running around . It's certainly worth a try." Sersi muttered to herself as she walked back to the transfixed spell caster, still in her mannequin pose. Reaching around the lithe woman's neck, the buxom immortal gently removed the metal device that was adhered to the back of Wanda's neck.
However, much to Sersi's disappointment, Wanda didn't move or give the slightest indication that she was once again thinking on her own. " That darned hex magic..she must have interfered with the neutralizer with the spell she was about to cast when I put it on her.." Sersi grumbled to herself "This is probably going to require more work after I retrieve everybody..sigh.."
Sersi scooped up the pile of receipts and headed out once again to retrieve a guest wondering out loud if her day could get any worse...
If only she knew...
Next: Oh the weather outside is frightful..