Words.
The other bipedal form spoke them, a steady stream of them, so many they threatened to slip past "new" Jacob's comprehension. As the other similar form spoke, he learned quickly and helpfully that the "words" began to make sense.
"Oh, bother, where did it go?" Emily asked in exasperation, bound and determined to send the Toroid-whatever home with Jacob so she and her family could get some peace and quiet from her weird sister.
"Is that it?" As he formed the words, he knew they "felt" right as he formed them, manipulated muscles and musculature to produce the vocal sounds of the word. He bent his two legs — now, that was an odd feeling — and reached toward the ground with one of his other appendages. His "hand" plucked the Toroid of Transformation off the lawn where it had dropped after putting the young ladybug into this strange, wondrous new form.
"Yea," Emily said. "Not even proper jewelry. Just take it, throw it in the trash, flush it down the toilet, I don't care. I don't want to see it or hear of it again!"
"I will be glad to do as you ask, Emily," the "new" Jacob said, proud of his rapid mastery of the language.
Emily stared at him. "Why are you talking like such a dork?"
"I was not aware," he said. His pale face colored as red as one of the buried vegetables in the garden plot where the young ladybug had spent most of its life. "I will not talk dork to you, Emily."
"Oh god, the weirdness is contagious," she said.
As Jacob, perplexed, stared at her, a tiny bug buzzed toward the fingers that had deftly picked up the metal ring. The little insect landed on the curved metal band and clicked at him. New Jacob understood perfectly. After all, it spoke the language of his former kind.
"Give me back my body," the tiny insect demanded, followed by an unjustified insult.
"I am not a stupid bug," the new Jacob retorted tartly. "You are now the bug, And you call me stupid?"
Taken aback, the new ladybug realized he had been heard and understood.
"I want to trade back," he said. "Do you hear me?"
"Of course I hear you," the teenager told the tiny insect perched on the ring. "Despite your atrocious accent."
The transformed adolescent seethed. "I don't want to be a ladybug," he raged. "Stop pretending to be me."
"I am sorry you do not like it," Jacob spoke honestly. "But I am doing the best I can. May I suggest you do the same?"
"No!" The ladybug ranted in a frantic storm of staccato ticks and clicks. "Help! Do you hear me? Help?”
Jacob had heard enough. He drew back a finger and then flicked the tiny creature off the ring, which he then slipped deep into his pocket. He would do as his Emily friend had requested and dispose of it at his first convenience. He turned and walked away from the lawn at Emily's home.
"I will return to my home," the new Jacob decided.