"Allright, everyone!" Ms. Santos announced to the class, making her voice heard. "This year, you all will be visiting an aquarium to see the animals and learn about the conversation efforts done there, specifically how animals are involved in their environment."
An idea suddenly sparked in Edwin's head, a mischievous smile on his face as he took the Chronivac emitter out and selected the Reality Change option, inputting his conditions.
"This should make things interesting...." He mumured to himself as he began to enter them in.
"The aquarium trip will happen this afternoon. For the occasion, the administration gave the teacher an inferior version of the chronivac able to turn her students into diverse sea animals. Indeed, the goal of the trip is to have us being the animals and she will turn each one of us students into a sea animal of her choice. The students will keep their memories and most of their human thoughts, but a sizable portion of their minds shall be adjusted to be more like the animal they become. Once transformed, the students shall either be allowed within a set section of ocean or be put in spacious tanks. Of course, that is all still unknown to the students..."
Edwin paused for a second, thinking on what else he wanted to put in, then continued to input conditions.
"...but their parents are completely aware of what's going to happen, and they have cleared it with the teacher. The parents may visit their transformed children every so often, although the children are required to spend some time on their own, in order to have a full oceanic animal experience."
That sounded good to him, he decided, as he pressed enter. The Chronivac Emitter analyzed the change, then asked him;
"Do you want this change to be permanent?"
Edwin frowned slightly, still using the emitter under his desktop. Unsure, he answered the following;
"The duration of each student's transformation shall be for as long as the experiment goes on, which shall be for 3 weeks exactly, unless the students become pregnant in breeding, in which case they will remain an animal until they give birth to their offspring and wean them."
The Chronivac analyzed the answer, taking a few seconds to enact it. When the loading process was done, it emitted a white light, and Edwin felt a strange tingling wave go throughout the school. The emitter then displayed; "Change applied."
Edwin then turned his attention back to the teacher, eager to see the results of his changes.
"... So I assume all of you are ready for the trip to the aquarium this afternoon?" Ms. Santos was saying, with a slight grin on her face.
The class nodded, all of them having a permission slip signed by their parents. Ediwn quickly checked in his pocket, finding that he had one as well.
"Good, then I'll find you all next to the bus after class!" Ms. Santos said, before continuing with the lesson on animals.
And so, at the beginning of the afternoon, all the children and their teacher took the bus to the aquarium. The ride was long and pretty much boring, although Edwin still felt a childlike excitement trembling through him, wondering how they would be transformed upon arriving.
Would they be turned into animals all at once, or would the teacher transform them one by one? And if she did, how would she prevent the others from freaking out? He also wondered what he would be transformed into, realizing that he'd have to be stuck in that form for as long as the others, as he had dropped off the emitter at his bedroom at his house before going on the bus.
Edwin soon found that he wouldn't have to wonder for too long, as the aquarium was in sight. After the bus stopped the students and the teacher descended, and the school bus drove away, leaving Ms. Santos with the students. A group of marine conservationists came out to them, effectively acting as welcomers.
The children were quite excited, however, and didn't really listen to the greeting speech of the researchers. Soon after they were done, they were led into the aquarium, led to a special pool on the roof that was empty, showing the children a wide view of the ocean before them.
"Allright, I'm going to begin the roll call!" Ms. Santos announced, taking out a thin white rod, which Edwin recognized as a more basic version of the Chronivac. The rest of the class didn't really think much of that, as they began to line up on the edge of the pool, but Edwin pretty much guessed that they would be transformed now. His guess was even more supported by the fact that the pool before them was currently empty. Indeed, it was strange that the teacher would wait for the bus to leave to make the first calling, but Edwin brushed that aside.
"Andrea?" Ms. Santos asked, twisting a dial on her Chronivac as she gestured to the student to stand on a plank just over the pool.
"Present!" A girl called, eagerly bouncing up and down, happy to be near the ocean.
Ms. Santos quickly pressed something on the device, and pointed it at Andrea. Suddenly, Andrea saw her body rapidly transform. Her skin turned black, her hands and feet began to turn into fins, her skin becoming sleek and smooth, and her body quickly growing in size.
Soon enough, where a little girl had once stood was an orca, confused and wailing frantically. The class began to freak out, some kids on the verge of tears, until Ms. Santos spoke up.
"Quiet now, class." She said, attempting to soothe the class. "I know this may look strange to you, but the goal of this trip is not to see the animals, but to have you be them. Not only will this raise funds for our school, but I'm sure this will be a learning experience for all of you as you will experience marine life from a firsthand perspective. Don't worry though, this all thing temporary, and it will all be over within three weeks."
This seemed to soothe the class somewhat, as Ms. Santos began to speak again, gesturing to a section of the pool, where one of the conversationists stood. "Andrea, please leave the rest of the students and move over there."
Seeing as, even though Andrea came out fine, the class was still far from completely calm, Ms. Santos added, "And if you all don't calm down, I'll give you an F for this trip and you'll have a punishment assignment that your parents will have to sign."
Surprisingly that worked for the other kids. Edwin didn't remember the fear of punishment to be that convincing in his time, but maybe the Chronivac was very accommodating with his fantasy, or maybe he didn't remember well enough. It had been a while since he had been this young.
"Now let's continue the role call." Ms. Santos said, pleased the children had calmed down a bit. "Benjamin?"
"Err... h-here." A boy said, shyly raising his hand up.
Ms. Santos adjusted her Chronivac, and pointed it once again, turning Benjamin quickly into a dolphin rather quickly. However, as the changes finished, Benjamin squealed in terror, learning that he was now a female.
"When you are done examining yourself, Benjamin, please join Andrea." Ms. Santos said, dismissing the now female child. "Kevin, you're next!"
The role call continued, with all the students being transformed into diverse marine animals, each moving to one of the researchers. They were lucky that this institution had one for each species, having this many researchers made organization fairly easy for Ms. Santos.
At this point, however, there were 3 seals, 2 otters, 4 turtles, 2 walruses, 5 dolphins, 3 sharks, 3 orcas, 7 tropical fish, 3 stingrays, 3 seahorses, 4 whales, and 3 octopi. Edwin had noticed that Benjamin wasn't the only one to change gender, as a boy named Thomas had been turned into a female humpback whale, similar to others. Soon, it was his turn, being the last student left.
"Edwin?" Ms. Santos asked, clutching the Chronivac in her hands.
"Present!" Edwin said, the mystery of what Ms. Santos would decide to turn him into exciting him, as he flashed her a childish smile.
Smiling back, Ms. Santos adjusted the Chronivac and pointed it and him, causing a tingling feeling to spread throughout his body. As the feeling intensified, Edwin felt himself being turned into a...