"Not so fast!" Max approached his friend, shaking his head. "I was only helping my brother activate the ring. You agreed, or rather, did not object to me getting a turn."
Luke did remember his friend making that comment before slipping on the half-ring. "Fine," he conceded. "Just be quicker about making your decision than Mark."
Max had a smug smile as he went over to the box of rings. There were now 33 rings in the box, with two having been from the first column and one from the second. "The rings appear to be arranged in some kind of order, but I'm not quite sure how just yet. You have any ideas?" He turned to his twin, who shrugged his shoulders in response. Max looked back at the ring and said more to himself than the group, "We'll just need more data points." Not feeling adventurous, he decided to grab a ring from the second column.
This ring was obsidian black and wrapped around a large egg-shaped and dark, purple gem. As Max held the ring in his palm, it felt unusually heavy for its size. A shiver ran down his spine. The ring felt to him, as if it had seen many centuries pass. For a brief moment, he considered choosing a different ring. Max took a deep breathe and held it for a few moments, steeling himself. "Okay, I'll try this one on, but I need some privacy first."
"Huh?" Zack questioned. "We all changed in front of each other before."
"Yeah, but I have a feeling that this ring transforms the wearer like Hydra one. Luke's clothes did not survive the change." Max said as he motioned towards the shredded shirt and pants still on the ground. "I like my clothes as they are."
The teens all agreed, and turned around so Max could change out of his clothes. Mark would have brought up the fact that their bodies are nearly identical, so he's probably seen everything that his brother had. And when they were toddlers their parents had them take baths together. But he decided better of it. "Okay, we're not peeking."
Max quickly undressed and pushed his clothes away. He was still embarrassed about his nakedness, but decided to get the transformation over with and slipped the ring onto his right pointer finger. Max immediately felt the effects as the ring began to reshape his body. His bones cracked loudly throughout his body, forcing him to all fours. Pain fired through his spine, making his head feel like it was leaving his body. Max then realized that his head was getting further from his body; his neck had grown by several feet.
Max winced as his torso and limbs thickened with muscle. His skin tingled as a yellow, orange fur began to grow on his face, head, and back; strangely, his chest and underbelly began to grow scales of a snake. On his hands and feet, his nails turned into sharp, black claws. A long, flexible tale erupted from the back of his hips. Max opened his mouth and let his forked tongue taste the air. He felt his ears rise nearer the top of his head and take rounded triangular shapes, greatly increasing his hearing. His mouth and nose pulled forward and whiskers grew. It had seemed the changes had finally ended. His brothers and friend were already gawking at what he had become, having turned around at some point during his transformation.
"What are you?" Zack was the first to speak. "You look like some reptile-cat hybrid."
Max took a moment to look over his body; his younger brother's explanation was not that far off. "I'm not sure what I am." Max said, though he noted that speaking was harder. He wondered if Luke also had difficulty talking as a Hydra. "But, I am glad to have taken off my clothes."
Mark had taken out his phone and was hurriedly searching the internet for answers. "Wow, this is interesting. I think your a Serpopard."
"A what?" Luke and Zack asked at the same time.
"A Serpopard." Mark repeated. "I searched cat-snake hybrid and this was one of the first hits. Its a half-serpent and half-leopard creature from Egyptian mythology." He also added, "You also seem to be able to spit an acid like substance."
"Please don't." Luke asked his friend.
"Don't worry." Max then looked back and forth between all of them. "I'm going to change back, so can you guys turn around again?"
When they were all facing away, Max worked the ring off his finger. The transformation became undone faster than it had taken to turn into the Serponpard. Max wondered if that was important or just a coincidence. When he was fully human again, he quickly redressed. He placed the ring on Luke's bed and attached a note, "Serpopard."
"Uh guys, seeing as the rings do seem to have some order, we should probably keep the rings in roughly that pattern." Max quickly rearranged the rings they had used, with their notes, into two columns.
"So we have two rings that do weird myth-like transformations, one that fuses two people together, and another than makes your body parts float independent of each other. I see the pattern with the myths but not the other two." Luke commented.
Mark tried to explain his brother's reasoning, "I think that first column of rings alters your body some how, but you seem to pretty much stay human." He shrugged his shoulders, "Its not a perfect description, but based on those two rings, it seems to fit." He then pointed to the second column, "And these seem to be mythical transformations. Though, I do wonder..." He and Max shared a glance.
Luke looked back and forth between them. His twin friends did that often, and he sometimes he wondered if that had whole conversations just by staring at each other. "You wonder..."
Max answered this time. "The mythical transformations are oddly specific. Maybe the creature you turn into depends on the wearer? But then again, we only have two rings in both columns."
"So in any case, we still need to try more rings?" Luke asked.
"Yeah, and for at least the Hydra and Serpopard rings, someone else should put those rings on to see if the effect is different." Mark finished.
"Okay, well since it is MY turn now. I'll think about it." Luke said as he stood in the middle between the box of rings and the rings laid out on his bed.