Comm: The Malleable Mansion (Halloween '22)

Summary: Two twin sisters with potent shapeshifting abilities team up for their greatest challenge yet: successfully hosting a profitable haunted house experience to raise some dosh and save their sorority house. Commissioned by Somebody Anonymous. 

[Story Listing]

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Rachel and Terri Webhurst were sisters, and they were basically inseparable. As it had been throughout their childhoods, they went to the same schools... even now, they were both enrolled in the same university, Muumuu U, and ended up in many of the same classes.

They had a reputation for being once-in-a-generation talents; Terri enrolled with a full athletic scholarship to pursue the sport of tennis, and Rachel was an unparalleled genius in whatever science she chose to dabble in. She was even promised grant money along with the use of Muumuu U's most advanced facilities.

Of course, Terri being a perfect specimen of peak human performance made her a compelling test subject for Rachel's experiments; they weren't even a month into their freshman semester before they unlocked the secret to human immortality and, using their own bodies as the Guinea pigs, transformed the inner workings of their body into self-replicating biomass resembling plasticine. What exactly was their amazing breakthrough? That's a closely-guarded secret until the patent gets through the approval process...

Gifted with unending lifespans, incredible physical abilities, and even the power to shapeshift into whatever form they pleased, even the ideal version of themselves, they found themselves pondering their most challenging assignment yet...

How to raise funds for a renovation of the Digamma Digamma Digamma sorority house. It really had seen better days, and it needed a make over, and a new science wing. This was Rachel's pet project, and it proved to be especially troubling consider she wasn't... especially familiar with handling matters that didn't involve dissecting the human condition down to their fundamental building blocks.

She had become used to the government funding whatever projects they desired. But not this time: there wasn't much point in bankrolling a whole other science wing when there was a perfectly good one right across campus.

They'd have to find another source of income. But how...?

"Think, think, think!" Rachel thunked her head repeated against the dining room table. "There has to be something that can be done!" Her Muumuu U hoodie hugged her figure, doing little to obfuscate her pronounced cleavage and chest—a little accentuation she gave to herself following her transformation to be as beautiful as she was bright. Her long blonde hair pooled around her in messy piles on the table.

"You seriously don't have any ideas?" Terri massaged her forehead. "You're supposed to be the super genius of both of us..." Terri was always gifted with good looks, and she didn't see a need to improve on her already lithe figure. She had enough reservations about going around, accessorizing herself as if she was checking in with a plastic surgeon every other day.

"I have MANY ideas, but they're all too risky!" Rachel groaned, literally peeling her face from the table; she massaged her flattened facial feature with both her hands. "Invent a gold-bar reproducer and selling bullions is pointless if they aren't regulated, and moving the mansion underground would surely hiit a fault line-"

"Ughhhh, can we have some more grounded ideas on the table here?" Terri leaned back in her chair, slipping her hands back into her track suit. She ran a hand through her short blonde hair, the same hue as Rachel's. "If we can't raise some funds, they're gonna condemn the whole building, and the last thing I want to do is share an apartment room with you..."

"Ugh, will you get over that snafu with the injection, it was one time!" Rachel reached for her glasses to slip them on.  She kept her glasses around as a fashion accessory, even if she didn't really need them anymore. She rose from her chair, pacing towards the fridge.

"You souped me up with super stretchy steroids! I can't play anymore!" Terri shouted. "Performance enhancers are banned, Rachel!"

"Well, at least you don't have to pound back all those vile protein and vitamin supplements anymore..." Rachel dug around in the fridge. "And you can't tell me for a moment that you don't enjoy it. I hear the noises coming from your room, do you understand the decibel readings of your-"

"Sh-shut up!" Terri sputtered. "Ugh, you make me... rgh, okay, screw you, I'm gonna get my reps in."

Terri reached towards one of the wooden support beams running along the ceiling, her arms lashing out as they wrapped around them. She tugged herself up and down, allowing her taut arms to retract slightly to lift her off the ground. Her body didn't really need the exercise anymore, but the sensation of her body being stretched out made for a suitable substitute.

It was when she was exercising that Terri could clear her head, and filter out the mutterings of her eccentric sister. It was also when Terri did her best thinking, and an idea came to her, as her eyes wandered around the old-fashioned architecture, the wood-working and the creaking of the beams under her hands. .

"Hey sis, if you're serious about saving the house..." Terri lowered herself, her elasticine arms squeaking as she released the tension. "This place has an old-fashioned vibe to it. You think it'd make for a good haunted house?"

"Terri, there's no scientific precedent for the existence of ghosts..." Rachel tutted. "And I have better things to invent than a way to communicate with-"

"I mean a Halloween attraction, genius." Terri lowered herself, allowing her arms to lash back into shape. "I know you don't got a pulse for what the rest of the student body gets up to this time of year, so I'll spell it out for you."

Terri brought her hand in front of her, moving to count her fingers.

"There's prancing, there's costume parties,horror movies, making out to horror movies during the scary parts, having sex during the scary parts, there's pumpkin carving contests and some celebrity auctions, not that we know any of those, apple bobbing..."

Terri was trying to think of more things, but her train of thought was derailed by the sight of her hand sprouting extra fingers to count. She scowled, clasping her hands behind her, smooshing her hands back into shape.

"...And there's haunted houses. You sell tickets to get inside and you scare the crap out of freshmen." Terri suggested. "This place has got dark corners out the wazoo, we'd prolly make a killing."

"Ugh, really? Childish parlour tricks?" Rachel rolled her eyes. "That sounds so blase, so far beneath my station..."

"You get the Dino nuggies at the cafeteria every Friday!" Terri blurted. "C'mon, you're so smart, do something different! Wow people!"

"...Do something different, hm..." Rachel tilted her head as she pondered. "Something no one has seen before... a transcendent terror experience, hmmmm... I think I'm onto something..."

"Great! My work here is done, so I'll just, uh, go on a jog or something-"

As Terri turned around to make herself scarce, she felt a hand press firmly on her shoulder. Rachel had extended her arm ten feet across the room to stop her.

"I'll be needing you to assist me~" Rachel beamed, her glasses doing the flashy evil anime thingy.

"Really? Cuz usually you kinda just fuck around and go off on your own for a week." Terri grimaced. "If you're locking yourself up again, I'll get you food, but-"

"No no no, nothing so trivial. You're the only one who can help me... redecorate the place." Rachel explained, with an odd emphasis in her words.

"Oh, they got a Spirit Halloween up the road, you wanna check in there?" Terri gestured for the front door. "We can take a gander for inspiration-"

"Spiders!" Rachel exclaimed.

"...Yeah they got those too." Terri groaned. When Rachel got like this, she got in the habit of talking past Terri. "Plastic spiders, at least, and the web, but-"

"Too expensive. Not real enough." Rachel rose from her desk, approaching Terri. There was a shuffling of movement as she stepped out from behind the counter.

Rachel had let her long hair down, and it was growing rapidly, spreading across the floor. It seemed to writhe on its own, clambering up the furniture, clinging to it posessively as it shimmered in the light.

Terri squinted. The hair looked very... sticky. Then she realized.

"You're gonna make spider webs... out of your hair?" Terri blinked.

"We are." Terri beamed. "Our bodies are flexible, molecularly speaking, so altering their properties on a whim is a triviality. No, but that's mere set decor... to fulfill the promise of a monstrous mansion, we need a true monster..."

"...And you want me to play the monster?" Terri tapped her chin. "Gee, I haven't taken drama in a while... I guess I can jump out and yell at people, but-"

"No, we'll be the monster." Rachel hissed with glee, accentuating with a serpentine lisp. "Web comes from a spider... There are eight limbs between the two of us... I know you can do the math, dear sister~"

"...Guh? ...H-hey, wait a sec-"

Rachel was already moving in, her arms wrapping around her sister in a possessive embracing, her arms stretching as they looped around, over and over. Terri could feel her soft body yielding to Rachel's powerful grip. She could feel her diminutive sister's skin flaring up in heat.

Terri's eyes shot wide open. She knew what this meant. She tried to get away, lashing her arms towards the support beams above in an attempt to get away, but Rachel held her tight, disappearing to the ceiling with her. Their overstretched bodies wrapped around a support beam, rubbing against each other, skin flaring up as the girls could feel the space between them ebb away, their forms sinking into each other.

"At least give me some warning before you pull this stunt!" Terri blurted, moments before her head shifted forward, pressing against Rachel's as they pressed and shlorped together, sinking into a pulsating mass of supple, soft flesh that writhed where light did not shine.

The ooze contracted into a bulbous, blob like mass, pulsing. And then, there was giggling, echoing as if in chorus, before spindly limbs began to sprout from the mass...

There's a lot of work to do...~

—-

Halloween night had come in a hurry, and the campus, along with the rest of the close knit university town, was abuzz with news of an elaborate haunted mansion experience at the Digamma Digamma Digamma Sorority house. The concept wasn't anything out of the ordinary—an arachnid monster conjured by a mad scientist has made his estate its own—but the fact that Rachel Webhurst was running the show drew attention. Though patrons initially balked at the high admission fees, early previews for campus influences had rave reviews for its realistic, terrifying special effects, and tickets sold out in a hurry.

It promised to be the scariest experience on campus, and student athletes in particular were eager to take their lovers to show off how brave they could be. They certainly weren't offput by the seemingly-standard liability waivers signed prior to their adventures...

But it would soon be made apparent why this was no ordinary haunted house experience. It started typically enough, with dimly lit surroundings, fog machines, and eerie ambient noise. But there was the distinct vibe that the place had been abandoned for a long time, claimed by something else.

Cobwebs were everywhere, yellowish and streaking. It didn't look like the unconvincing stuff decorating every landing and porch; some enterprising folk tried to touch it, finding it dreadfully sticky to the touch. Yet it was smooth, like touching hair.

It would vibrate on its own, constantly shifting and pulsing. It seemed alive, though no one was sure how. No one could surmise that the web was more like a fungal network, all connected as a single organism... the slightest tremor would be known throughout the mansion.

The way the web moved was unsettling enough. But as the unease built, it would crescendo as members of the group would disappear one by one. Some would be snatched away by a sudden strand of web, pulled into the darkness; others would walk into an invisible web within a door frame, struggle to break free, and be pulled into the abyss. Even the toughest football players struggled to break free from the hair-like webbing, which shifted around them, coiling around their ankles and legs, wrapping them up independent of the monster that made it. They would be joined by tattered skeletons, each one decapitated in turn, a foreboding indication of the person's terrible fate...

It was the feeling of powerlessness in the mansion that really terrified people. Typically you could walk through and experience things as they came, but an unseen horror pulled you into its webs, restraining you in complete darkness. As you struggled to free yourself of your restraints, the web, seemingly alive, would hold you still, facing you towards the darkness...

Towards the glowing red eyes that penetrated the darkness. And the nature of the monster would be revealed.

Through the veil of darkness, upon spindly legs that narrowed to points, an enormous spider-like creature loomed above her victims, the deformed visage of a woman that, from the torso downwards, mutated into more and more of a monstrous thing. She was enormous, ten feet tall and wide, with a large, bulbous abdomen. Her too-long hair draped down her shoulders, across the seams of a torn up labcoat, and melded with the webbing all around her. Her skin was slick and shiny, patterned with patterns that alternated between pale flesh. Her arms, deformed to another pair of arachnid legs, joined her legs in a deliberate approach, stalking her prey with a form that didn't seem constructed right, yet scuttled with a terrifying agility.

"Another insect caught in my web...~" The arachnid monster hissed, drool trickling down her elongated fangs. Her mouth opened wide, a serpentine tongue lashing about. Her jaw seemed to unhinge, wide enough to fit someone's entire head in its mouth.

The victim, inverted upside down, would feel their cheeks flush in a mixture of emotions, peaked by terror. The raspy breath of the spider-like monster as she made her true form known could be felt on their neck, her spindly legs navigating the web with ease. This was the horrifying truth of the occupant of this manor; the former occupant still resided there, their mody warped beyond reckoning as a foul beast, preying upon the minds of those who dared wandered inside.

Though haunted houses were known for putting on a show for its guests, this one blurred the lines of fiction and reality. There were no strings on this beast, save for the strands of sticky hair that fanned across the ceiling, ensnaring its victims, seeping into every part. This was a real monster.

The realization reduced many minds to sheer panic, and, as if a rope was cut, their terror would be accentuated by their sudden release, a clattering to the floor. Adrenaline would grip their bodies, their terrified minds conjuring primal memories of preservation and, under the buxom of a terrible, half-naked spider monster, they scrambled to safety, barrelling down the stairs, clearing out through the foyer and out the door... often breaking it down from the hinges.

...Well, not exactly. The masterminds had enough foresight to remove the hinges early, adhering and sealing the door with webbing. The door would reel back into place, before closing up tight again, after the last of the latest group had fled the scene.

"Hoo! That was exciting!~" The spider monster exclaimed, her voice taking on the familiar tenor of the excitable nerd Rachel.

Her abdomen rumbled and stirred, a head poking out at the top where a black widow's hourglass had been emblazoned. It was Terri, fused to Rachel and taking up the rear.

"Hey, I think that last group pissed themselves on the way out..." Terri muttered. "We're gonna have to clean that up."

"Ugh, again??" Rachel groaned. "Some people can't keep it inside of them, I swear... we should've had a volunteer for that."

"No kidding... gonna get a Red Bull, you want one?" Terri suggested; one of the rear legs of the spider shifted into a wobble arm, snaking through the house and into the kitchen.

"Might as well. Have to put that sponsorship to good use." Rachel smirked. "With the guest list we got, we'll be at this little shindig all night..."

"Yyyyyup, Red Bull will sponsor anything..." Terri chuckled. The hybrid spider monster relaxed, spindly spider limbs softening into boneless human appendages. The hair shifted around into a makeshift hammock, big enough for the two of them.

Terri's arm came back with two cool energy drinks in hand; she tossed one to Rachel, who comprised the arachnid's torso.

"Cheers!" They clinked their cans in unison, before taking a big swig. The buzz of carbonation was nice on their lips.

"...Thank you, Terri." Rachel lowered the can. "For being such a good sport about... well, all of this."

"Heh. Mom said we were inseparable since we left the womb." Rachel shrugged, her torso rising a little more out of the abdomen. "I guess not much has changed since then."

"You're not still mad about the serum?" Rachel turned to her. "I really thought I was giving you the placebo, but something must've-"

"Nah, don't worry about it, I'm over it." Terri grinned. "I could try a whole circus act, maybe. Or join the Globetrotters." Terri leaned back. "Got a long time to figure something out. Can't stay mad at my little sister."

"Still feel kinda bad though... even if we did turn into shapeshifting immortal demigods." Rachel clutched her can close to her chest.

"...You wanna make it up to me?" Terri turned her head. "How about you let me pilot the spider for the next group? You can be the asshole next round~"

"Th-they're called spinnerets, but, well, okay, point taken..." Rachel sighed. She took a final swig of her can, before crushing it flat between her palms. "Let's switch."

The torsos lurched around the amorphous spider body, the flailing arms and legs shifting around with them in all directions. Some of them started getting wrapped up with each other, and the girls got caught on one another.

"Hey, that's my foot, let go!"

"Where's your arm going!? Don't touch me th- o-oh!"

"Do we really need to swap limbs too, we're sharing the same body!"

"I like my limbs! They're exactly where they need to be!"

"Then keep track of them better! Mrrggrr..."

As the girls mixed together, arms and legs sprouting and sinking into the burbling, claylike flesh, their argument was muffled as they wrapped around each other inextricably. If they were feeling fatigue before, their little scuffle certainly woke them right back up. There would be lots of business at the sorority house tonight...