"Darren!" Hannah cried out, interrupting Crystal's stream-of-consciousness banter about what her wild, combination-creature would be like. "Stop!" She rushed to the lunch-room table the two had been eating at.
Darren and Crystal looked up at her, confused. "Stop what?" Crystal asked.
"Er, can I talk to Darren in private for a second?"
"We're all friends here," Crystal said, "what's so-"
Darren interrupted her. "Sorry, Crystal, I think I know what she's talking about. It's supposed to be a surprise, and she doesn't want to have anyone overhearing."
Crystal didn't seem bothered. "Oh, then I can come with you."
"We want it to be a surprise for you too!" Hannah said, trying to cut off any more objections. "In fact, we've probably said too much already. Would you mind just staying there for now?"
Crystal looked off to the side. "...Okay then."
Hannah led Darren over to outside the restrooms, away from the crowds.
"So..." Darren looked around. "What's this about?"
"You can't just turn Crystal into whatever insane Mary-Sue hybrid thing she cooks up!"
"Mary-Sue?" Darren cocked an eyebrow. "Oh... didn't know you were into fan-fic too. But really-"
"No, I'm not into fan-fic," Hannah mumbled. "The point is, it'd be crazy to have something that's that overpowered, crossing up with that many species at once!"
"Why?" Darren fiddled idly with the ring.
"Because it's unrealistic! You'd be twisting reality into pretzels to make it work!" The green slime girl twisted her arms into a pretzel shape for emphasis.
"How?"
"Think about what would need to happen for a three way-hybrid like that to come about," Hannah groaned, a little bit of a canine whimper mixing into the golden retriever antho's voice. "You'd need at least two generations of creatures to love species that are incredibly different from each other."
Darren shrank back. "I get you..." He paused. "Still... It's a little more likely a kid'll be open to that if their parents were... and if they're all magical creatures, that might make some parts easier..."
Hannah the spider facepalmed with all four of her arms, her eight eyes closing in frustration. "Yeah, but it's incredibly unlikely to begin with."
"Just like some metal, plastic and computer chips getting a soul?"
"Steph's a different situation," Hannah pointed out. She would know about life starting in unusual places, being an energy-based alien visitor herself. She idly blew back a "strand" of her crackling lightening "mane." "Especially since you changed her to start with; the soul was already there."
"Well, kinda. But now there's a soul that just came about because of something someone did in a lab, with the history re-writing the ring did. Who's to say a couple creatures falling in love and magically making themselves able to have kids is that much weirder?"
"A hybrid like that would still be overpowered, just from the magic associated with those three species alone!" Hannah the kitsune complained, her two tails swishing back and forth tensely. "Something like that could turn the world on its head! It would be a mess!"
"Like a kid with a ring that changes when people were born, or what they are, and alters history to match, just by thinking about it?" Darren grinned.
"And who doesn't even know what he wants to make it into? Exactly!" Hannah huffed, her mermaid tail curling beneath her in the floating sphere of water she used to explore land.
"Are you saying I should try to get rid of this ring, and leave the world as it is?"
"No!" She shook her head, as human as she remembered being this morning. "Look, I'm just asking you to think about this before you do something stupid and make Crystal something over-the-top, okay?"
"Is what she's asking for REALLY over the top? I mean, 'overpowered' changes a lot from story to story. A lot of superheroes would be OP in normal cop shows. 'OP' is on a scale." He paused, suddenly beaming. "If she's NOT the only one, if EVERYONE was OP, nobody would be!"
Hannah did her best not to scream. Darren was clearly too lovestruck to listen to reason, and was just rationalizing away every point she made. She had to find a way to stop this before things went horribly wrong. Though, giving it some thought, knowing he could turn her into anything at any time, without even knowing she'd ever been any different, while completely altering her personality, meant trying to actually restrain him probably wasn't going to work. Now that she thought about it, he could have completely changed her species, sex, age, and life, multiple times throughout the conversation, and she'd never know.
Darren was already turning around and walking back toward Crystal. "That's it, I'll figure out a little bit more about what she wants to be, and start spreading it around! Hey! Crystal!"
Hannah followed after him, as he and Crystal starting chatting again, Darren asking Crystal what her species would look like, and how it would be combined. Hannah tried to listen in to chime in with ideas to tone it down, but she couldn't hear their quieter chatter over the rest of the lunchroom conversation.
Crystal's body began to shimmer, starting in her shoes, which vanished as her feet joined together into thick, somewhat translucent, purple crystal hooves. Her legs slimmed down as they hardened into animate crystal, retaining every bit of flexibility she had before, while altering to a digitigrade stance to match her hooves. Her hips smoothed over as her clothes disappeared, revealing a petite figure that lacked any visible sex or nipples. A tail, made from hundreds of long, shimmering navy-blue threads, fell back over her rear, tied with a little violet ribbon.
Her arms took the same violet shimmer, little grooves appearing on the forearms to suggest scales, while her fingers grew to points, gaining little claws on the tips. Her face stretched out into a long, equine muzzle, nostrils widening, ears pointing up, eyes turning a deeper purple shade. Her hair was combed back into a navy-blue, shimmering mane, traveling down the back of her neck. And out from that, slowly, steadily, a horn spiraled out, glittering like a diamond and glowing softly. On her back, two thin crystal sheets sprouted, growing wider and wider, taking the shape of butterfly wings, with intricate, intermingling navy and violet patterns.
The change completed, a single article of clothing appeared on the new hybrid's head; a golden tiara encrusted with sapphires.
Darren was beaming with pride. Hannah finally opened her mouth to speak her mind.