As Mary thumbed through the vials, glad to have thumbs again, she tried to quell her growing discomfort at the fact that she could find no vials to help her with her current predicament. While she had thought about just taking the dog vial again and replacing Max herself, she wasn't eager to give up control of her form again, especially since if she did replace Max, it was likely she would never see the vials again, and never be human (or anything else for that matter) again. She just couldn't take that chance, not without some kind of failsafe to return her to herself if things went bad. Mary was so desperate she even began looking through the mythical vials.
"Ugh, why couldn't there be a potion for 'shapeshifter' or 'witch' or something?" Mary grumbled in frustration. She was just about to give up when she saw it.
"Doppelganger? Isn't that supposed to be someone's double..." Mary trailed off as a crazy, brilliant idea struck her. At first, she shook her head and started to put the vial back, fairly certain that it wouldn't do what she wanted it to. However, she hesitated. If there was even a chance...it really could work...
Tensing herself, Mary decided to take one more wild chance, and chugged the contents of the vial, hoping it would accomplish what she wanted. For a few minutes, Mary sat waiting for some indication, some sign, but nothing changed. Sighing heavily, Mary was just about to renew her vial search when suddenly, her head felt like it was shifting and her shoulder began getting heavier. Once the sensation ended, Mary turned her head to the right...and looked at her own head.
"Wow!" Both heads gasped in tandem. By this point, Mary's torso was widening enough to tear through her clothes, and two shoulders, then arms began to form between the two heads. By the time half an hour had gone by, Mary's lower body was connected to two completely separate torsos, each having its own pair of arms, and each having its own head. Each Mary was a bit nervous that they could not tell what the other was thinking, but they both calmed down slightly when they realized they were both the same person, and therefore could be assumed to have the same way of thinking. Therefore, they didn't have to explain anything to each other, but just wait for the transformation to complete. However, by this point they had the sense ot remove what was left of their clothing, although it was somewhat awkward with four hands.
After an hour, the vial had taken full effect, and two completely identical Mary's sat on Mary's couch.
"So which one of us..." Both Mary's paused as they both started saying the same thing, then both smiled a bit, realizing there was no real need to even speak. Left Mary leaned over and picked up a coin and a marker which she had placed on the end table before taking the vial. Right Mary stretched out her hand, and Left Mary drew an "X" in it, then put an "X" on one side of the coin and flipped it. Both Mary's watched as the coin landed on the floor and rolled a bit, before coming to a rest with the "X" side facing up, then looked at each other.
"I guess that means I'm the one," Right Mary half grimaced, half smiled.
"Well, it does have some perks, and we can switch off when ever you want," Left Mary stated, rather pointlessly, as they had decided on this course of action when they were both one person. Right Mary nodded, and Left Mary pulled out two vials and handed them to her: Male and Dog.
Right Mary paused a second, then downed both vials in quick succession. Perhaps because it was more than one vial this time, Left Mary could see the changes visibly taking place in Right Mary, and was fascinated at having the chance to view the changes she herself had gone through earlier from a different perspective.
"Well? Is it the right brrrreed?" Right Mary asked, her reshaping face already affecting her speech.
"Definitely, we were right, Max is still in our system," Left Mary responded, excited. By the time half an hour had passed, Right Mary had fully transformed into a male Doberman, the exact replica of Max.
"You're going to have to go by Max now, like we decided," Left Mary reiterated. "And I'll go by Mary so we don't arouse suspicion. This way we get exactly what we want...to be with John and to not have to worry about how to change, since one of us will always have the vials, and we can switch back and forth whenever we want." The new Max nodded affirmatively. Mary found Max's torn collar, and with a bit of tape, fixed it enough to put it around the new Max's neck. She then went to her closet and dressed herself, finally looking forward to seeing John again.
About two hours later, Mary, with "Max" on leash, was standing in front of John's apartment. As John rounded the corner of the building, Max's ears perked forward and his nub of a tail started wagging. When John came close, Max jumped up on him, licking his face and wriggling in delightful abandon, excited at the prospect of being around John all the time, even though it was as a dog.
"All right, boy, down," John laughed in spite of himself and ruffled Max's fur, much to Max's enjoyment. Max quickly dropped down into a sit, looking up at John expectantly. John gave him a surprised and slightly quizzical look. "That's funny, he's never been that obedient before..."
"He must be really happy to see you," Mary smiled coyly. "What about you? Are you happy to see me?"