Blake got to class a little earlier than usual. Attempting to make up for lost time from having fallen off his bike he pressed himself to go faster and ended up with a few extra minutes. Getting to his desk he unpacked his bag and prepared for class. His teacher, Mrs. Rouchard excused herself to the restroom before class and since the first bell hadn't rung yet he had at least 5 minutes.
Finding extra time and unexpected privacy Blake's curiosity overpowered his caution. Pulling the thin silver case from his bag he noted its moderate weight. Though the outside of the case looked metallic it didn't feel like cold metal. Unlatching the case, noting the latch's odd design, Blake opened the case and a more closely examined the dark blue stick.
It was entirely unfamiliar and gently Blake pulled it from the case's cradle. Blake didn't notice the first bell ring, his mind engrossed with the strange device. He gently cradled it feeling its weight and texture. It did look and feel like a wand, slightly tapered at one end. He gripped it in his hand and placed his thumb on the button. An odd tingling sensation ran through him and he paused a moment trying to identify it ultimately landing on excitement.
Unbeknownst to Blake, the device was attempting to familiarize itself with human brains and how to read them. The case could read that there was biologic life on the planet in several seconds, but identifying biologic intelligence, will, and intent was a bit more challenging for the alien technology, but not by too much. Humans usually only have one brain after all and they are based on DNA having not yet unlocked quantum crystal data storage.
Blake was curious what the button would do but activating an unidentified device in his school was something stupid that an impulsive freshmen would do. He removed his thumb from the button and repositioned the... tool (he assumed) in both hands looking closer for any familiar branding or markings. Staring intently, Blake barely registered that students were around him, until, of course, the wand was ripped from his hand.
"What you got, nerd?" Nate asked.
Blake was completely caught off guard. He had to blink several times to refocus his eyes on things more than an inch from his face and take stock of his surroundings. "Hey, that's not yours, give it back."
"What is this, your Harry Potter/Lightsaber crossover nerd-ghasm?" Nate teased looking the device over.
"No!" Blake accidentally blurted out defensively.
"Hey, I've got a spell for you." Nate cooed. With a flourish he chanted, "Abra-ka-Doo-zer, don't be a loser!" and he pressed the button.
The wand came to life with a flash, a steady blue beam exploded from the wand hitting Blake square in the chest, where Nate had been aimed. Initially, Blake thought he was getting squirted with something, but after trying to block the wand he realized it was light. Then he was scared it was a cutting laser or something and quickly noticed he wasn't in any pain.
A second later Blake mustered the courage to speak condescendingly to Nate, in hopes Nate would realize he's risking getting in trouble over a flashlight and return the property everyone else can confirm was Blake's... As Blake looked at Nate's face Blake was rendered speechless to notice Nates eyes were rolled in the back of his head.
The wand's AI had passively tried to connect to Blake's brain and had begun gently downloading data it needed about the language, culture, traits considered important to humans and so on. It... didn't finish... so when Nate grabbed the device and held it correctly, it tried the same gentle connection. When Nate activated the device, it had to more aggressively search for what it was supposed to be doing.
Nate's mind flashed violently from concept to concept, the less concrete the idea the more painful the process... the wand only found a concept of the target, not the end result so it resorted to attempting to process the verbal command. "Abra ka doo zer" was actually pretty fast to identify as throw away commands, so was a. "don't" quickly identified the program mode as trait removal. "be" was immediately identified as the word defining the concept to apply the program mode to... "Loser" however was was vague and was associated with many synonyms and antonyms and the program attempted to identify traits to remove and because of the negation, other traits to give...
Blake reached out and removed Nate's thumb from the device then pulling it from his grasp. Mrs. Rouchard entered and Blake put the wand in its case and placed it back in his bag... several students noticed the commotion and were watching what would happen next. The final bell hadn't rung and Nate's eyes were now closed as if in pain or concentration.
Slowly Nate raised his hand from the wand holding position to rub his head and opened his eyes. Blake noticed Nate seemed disoriented but neither realized Nate had essentially just suffered a traumatic brain injury and will forever be slower mentally than he was 2 minutes ago. Nate sat down without a word and shortly fell asleep on his closed book.
The device would have keep prodding Nate's brain until it was mush if not for Blake's intervention. Neither of them knew that. The device did not find a definitive concept of physical traits to add to or take away from Blake. It did find some themes tied to not being a loser and loaded them into Blake's body... The instant matter construction/metabolism hyperactivation process would have filled Blakes body with the molecules it needed, when and where it needed them so the transformation would have taken seconds, but was stopped prematurely. As it stands, Blake will be very different by nightfall but as of now the only person acting weird is Nate.
What happened next.