“Marinaaaa!! Are you thereeee?? Please let me innn!”


A cheery voice called out towards the locked gates of  the property belonging to the famous duo “Off the Hook” composed of Pearl, a short (in both height and temper) inkling, and Marina, a tall yet fairly reserved octoling.


“It’s me, Callieeee! Your totally favorite idooool”


As soon as she finished yelling, the gates unlocked and she was given access to the premises.
“Wow, that was super quick! Pearl usually shouts “Release the hounds!” or something before throwing bread at me, so I guess Marina’s the only one in the house right now.”


“Callie! It’s good to see you!” said Marina. “What brings you here?”
“Hi Marina! I’m looking to see if you can help me find something related to the Octarian army.”


Both Callie and Marina served the Octarian army in the past, albeit Callie was hypnotized to do so by wearing a pair of shades called the “Hypnoshades” (Callie can be a bit airheaded sometimes) while Marina herself used to be a top engineer within the army, albeit she had left her homeland behind after hearing “Calamari Inkantation” and making her way towards the surface before Pearl found her.


“Oh, uh sure! Although, I got rid of some of the stuff to prevent them from falling into the wrong hands, but I'm sure I have whatever you need!”
“I’m uhh… looking for the thing we used to make the balloons scattered around the multiple areas in the underground… do you have that?
“I think I do, but I'm fairly sure it’s just a prototype. You ok with that?”
“S-sure! Anything’s fine!”


After a bit of digging around the basement, Marina came back with a device that looked like an amalgamation of several vacuum cleaners with some levers and a screen.
“...alrighty! Here you go! Although a warning: since this is a prototype, it cannot generate balloons by itself. You need to feed it something and said “something” will become a balloon!”
“Oh this will work just fine! Thanks Marina!”
“Say, why do you need this? Are you putting on a show all by yourself?”
“Y-yeah? I guess you could say that?”
“So cool! I can’t wait to see it!”
“T-thanks! Enjoy the rest of the day!“
“Will do! Take care!”


Callie, with her heart pounding really fast, made her way into her car, put the device in the trunk and drove towards her apartment. At last, she had the prototype. 
Truth is, Callie always knew of the prototype and how it worked. She even knew of a quirk this device has that Marina didn’t know:
Objects put inside are permanently turned into balloons.


Callie has a bit of a hidden hobby. Some might say she even has a fetish. 


Inflation.


Ever since Callie learnt it was possible for the inkling and octoling bodies to retain air and other gasses inside of them like balloons and having tried it herself, her life was given a new meaning. Being the biggest and cutest idol wasn’t enough in a metaphorical sense. She wanted to be that in a literal sense. 


Despite inflating herself in a multitude of ways in the past with regular air, helium and sulfur hexafluoride, she felt something wasn’t clicking with her completely. 


“Inflating parts of my body is very fun and all, but it’s not enough. I want- no. I MUST become an actual balloon!”


.


Going back to her apartment, Callie prepared everything for this big moment. Helium tanks? Check. Her webcam recording the whole moment? Check. All doors locked? Also checked.
With the machine laying on the floor in the middle of her room, she turned on the machine, took a deep breath, turned into a squid and jumped right in. 


The process was fairly simple as the machine wasn’t that big, no larger than a microwave. You feed it objects from one side, it heats up for a bit and melts the object into a fluid, mixes it with another substance so the end result is rubbery and finally molds the object into shape before spitting them back out as a deflated balloon with a string attached to the end of the balloon. However, it wasn’t tested with living creatures… until now.


After 5 minutes, a short melody came from the machine as it spewed out a small, deflated balloon with 4 extra balloons attached to its back and one weirdly shaped and smaller balloon attached to the front of the balloon in the center which used to be her bang. 
She had done it, Callie was now a balloon. 


As the once-squid balloon regained her senses, she discovered she could move the 4 balloons on her back (which used to be her tentacles) as well as the string attached to her end and started dragging herself towards the nearest tank.
“No time to celebrate yet! I must.. Get.. FULL!”
After several attempts, the balloon managed to plug herself into the helium tank and turn it on, quickly filling her tiny rubber body with the gas.
Stopping the flow of helium as her “body” reached the size of what would use to be her head, she, somehow, tied her end shut so no helium could escape and her string let go of the tank to which she immediately flew to the ceiling.
After a little bit of effort to “fly” back down, she decided to look at herself in the mirror and admire her new form.


“OMG!!! IT WORKED! I’M AN ACTUAL BALLOON FOR REAL!”
Indeed, her experiment had worked and she was no longer a squid nor humanoid, but rather an inflated rubber balloon. 


She had noticed that her tentacles had also filled with helium and were pretty much the same size as her. She tried moving them, but all that she could do was flap them a tiny bit while they creaked intensely. Her bang was also now a balloon, albeit not shaped spherical like the rest of her.
Her face was now painted on the rubber that made up her body and was a little, but noticeably distended to the sides, yet she could still move her eyes and mouth well enough. Her vision, however, could be described as “wide”. 
Her clothes somehow remained on, but no longer had the sleeves for the arms nor legs as she now lacked them entirely. 


“Hold on… is that my voice!? IT’S SO CUTE OMG!!! This definitely makes me the cutest idol for sure!”
Callie had never felt so ecstatic in her life. She felt so free as she floated around her room, so full and warm as she was filled with helium and most of all, so adorable.


“Man, am I a cutie patootie or what!? EVERYONE will want to see me like this! I should give them more! I MUST give them more! I’m the cutest idol there is and now it’s time to be the biggest as well!”
Feeling a rush of energy and desire overwhelm her, Callie held the tank tightly with her string, undid her tie and quickly plugged herself back into the tank. 
Turning it back on, the gas filled her body and her tentacles once again. 
More and more she grew as she went from the size of what used to be her head to the size of a beach ball before stopping the tank and tying herself back up.
The balloon quickly floated up to the ceiling and could barely fly back down. Callie managed to stabilize herself in front of the mirror, opened her mouth and…


“OH MY GOD!!! I’M SO BIG AND ROUND!!”
“AND MY VOICE!! IT’S EVEN MORE PITCHED UP!! UWAAAAAA~ SO CUTE!!!!”


Callie’s voice was nearly unintelligible at this point, but she paid no mind as for her, this was the cutest she’s ever been. 
Any kind of moment from her was now slow due to her size and filled in hundreds of creaks and high-pitched giggles. 
Her face and vision were even more distended than before, but she again paid no mind because it was cute. 






As she was admiring herself in the mirror and giggling to herself, a thought came across her mind.
“Hold on… if I’ve used most of the helium in the tank… why don’t I just use the rest? Actually be the biggest and cutest idol Inkopolis has ever seen!”
Perhaps it was her libido speaking and less of an actual thought, but she was too deep into it and too turned on by the idea that it was too late. Gliding as fast as she could, she again held tight to the tank with her string, undid the tie on her end, plugged herself back into the tank and took the rest of the gas in. 
“All eyes will be on me after this! More people will discover what I have found! Soon I’ll have my own group of balloon fans and friends” She thought to herself, completely overcome with happiness and delight. As her train of thought chugged along, so did her body taking the last of the helium in the tank until it was completely empty. 
She could feel she was very, VERY full, but kept her eyes shut as she wanted to look at herself in the mirror first and foremost. 


The balloon tied herself back up and let go of the tank, immediately bumping against the ceiling at a fast speed due to the helium she had inside. 
This time, however, she couldn’t fly back down at all. No matter how hard she tried, she was now stuck to the ceiling unless she managed to attach herself to something with her string. 


As she felt her way through the room from the ceiling, she opened her eyes in front of the mirror and…
“OH. MY. GOD!?!? I’M EVEN LARGER AND CUTER!!!!! AND MY VOICE IS SO HIGH PITCHED YOU CAN BARELY MAKE OUT SOME WORDS I SAY!!! I’M THE BEST IDOL EVER!!!”
Callie was now so large that her diameter would be that of her height when she had a humanoid form. Of course, the same was true for her tentacles and now the room was mostly filled by 5 giant balloons. Her bang also became nearly spherical and was about to cover one of her eyes had it not reached its limit. 
Her face and vision were extremely distended as a result of her gargantuan size, but again, she thought it was the cutest thing ever. 
Every minuscule movement by her was met with an orchestra of a thousand creaks that made her feel like she was in heaven. 
“I… I did it! I’m the cutest AND biggest idol the world has ever seen!! Oh I’m so happy I could fly…! Wait, I CAN fly!”
“The perfect form…! The ocean of tranquility and happiness that fills my body…! THIS IS SO GOOD!!”


After spending an hour straight gushing about her and her new form, exhaustion caught up with her after all the energy she had used. The used-to-be squid stopped the recording, having successfully documented her transformation, uploaded it online, got under several blankets so she wouldn’t float to the ceiling and started falling drifting to sleep.
Her last words before succumbing to her drowsiness were:
“I can’t wait for others to experience this…!”


And thus, Callie became the biggest and cutest idol in all of inkopolis.