The two girls wandered towards the footwear section of the store, trying their best to avoid being distracted by any more goodies on the shelves they passed.
Soon enough, the aisles opened up into an area of the store filled with different foot-based products. Shoes, socks, stockings, even things like nail polish, lotions, and ointments were on adjoining shelves.
Samantha started scanning the area, chewing her double dose of gum absentmindedly, looking for a sign of Lina. Try as she might though, her short height meant that her vision was blocked by some of the shelves and other shoppers.
Unconsciously, she pouted, twisting one ankle idly back and forth in annoyance.
Amy fared better, her horse-enhanced height paying off, letting her scan the area. Relatively quickly, she spotted the thick blonde mane of her monkey-fied best friend. Lina was examining a rack of socks that looked a lot more like gloves, clearly designed for more simian feet.
"She's over theeigghhre." Amy whinnied to Sam, pointing a hoof-like hand in Lina's direction.
Samantha said nothing, but merely nodded as she blew a small bubble with her gum. She popped it quickly, dropping another inch in height while her ruffled yellow socks climbed two inches higher up her legs. As Sam pulled the popped gum back into her mouth with her tongue, Amy could see some light blush had appeared on her pale cheeks, and her lips glistened with fresh gloss.
Tearing her eyes away from the pastel beauty, Amy turned and walked over to where Lina was standing. The monkey girl was comparing two pairs of "socks" in her hands, a blue and white striped pair that would go to about calf-length, and black pair of yoga-style ones with rubber on the soles and holes to let her longer toes through.
She looked up as they approached, her eyes passing over Amy and widening as she took in Samantha's new appearance. "Whoa, you've changed so much!" she said, looking up and down the pastel girl's form, "I've oooh-ooonly been here for like 15 minutes! You look amazing! How?"
"Popped a real big bubble", said Sam matter-of-factly, though she was clearly pleased that Lina's reaction was more vocally positive than Amy's had been. "Which of those are you going to pick?" Sam said, pointing a dainty finger at the socks in Lina's hands.
"Honestly I might just get both" said Lina, casting her gaze upon each of pairs again, "they're both pretty nice, and everything here is surprisingly chee-ee-eeap."
"What's in theighose?" said Amy, gesturing towards a couple boxes that were sitting by Lina's feet.
"Oooh-ooohh!" said the devolved girl, bending down to pick them up. Her tail instinctively stuck out behind her to provide balance. "Check them out!"
She opened each, lifting them up closer to Amy's height. Inside one was a pair of brown sandals, styled like Birkenstocks, that appeared to have been shaped to better fit her monkey-like feet. In the other was a pair of electric blue running shoes with individual toes, almost looking like thick gloves with rubberized bits on the bottoms.
"Shheeighhure they'll fit?" said Amy.
"Oh yeah," replied Lina excitedly, casting a thumb over her shoulder, "I measured them with the scale."
Amy looked over at a bench and saw next to it two different devices for measuring feet. One was clearly the standard one you'd see at any shoe department, while the other appeared to measure near-human or non-human feet.
"Weeigghhlll." she whinnied, before stopping to clear her throat slightly, "Aheeighmm, I think I've grabbed enough magic stuff for us to handle for a while. Ready to head out?"
Lina nodded, tossing the monkey socks into the basket Amy had before stuffing the shoeboxes under an arm.
"What about you, Sam?" said Amy, turning away from Lina.
She saw Sam was no longer with them, but was about 10 feet away eyeing a rack of yet more socks.
Amy and Lina walked over to where Samantha was standing. As she got closer, Amy saw that Sam's hair had gained a bit more volume and lengthened another two inches, but her bangs had shifted and shortened to sit just above her eyebrows. Looking past this fresh bit of change, Amy saw a sign above the rack that read, "unNatural Socks: walk in the comfort and style of your species of choice! 3 for $10!"
She looked at the packaged socks on the rack. As far as she could see they looked like completely normal, mundane socks and stockings, though some did have animal print patterns on them, and colored sections where pads might be.
Samantha reached up towards a pair of royal blue toe socks on the top row of the rack that had the label "DragonToe - Blue". Her increasingly diminished height making her have to go up onto the tips of her new platforms to reach. The pink haired girl wobbled dangerously for a moment, and Amy almost stuck out an arm to grab her, before she deftly snatched the socks and settled back down flatly on the platforms.
"I'm gonna try these" she said, "then I should be good."
Sam hurried over to the nearest bench and sat down on it. She bent over, undoing the laces on her pink platform sneakers before sliding them and her yellow socks off her small feet. She grabbed the DragonToe socks and pulled them out of the clear packaging they were stored in. She stuck it in Amy's basket so she could pay for it later.
She extended her slender right leg, wiggling her toes cutely and briefly admiring the pastel yellow polish on them that matched her fingers, before grabbing one of the blue toe socks and sliding it up to its full height, just below her knee.
"It's so comfortable" she said as she adjusted the end so each toe fit snugly. Samantha repeated the process with the other sock and then sat there, placing her feet flat on the ground, carefully scrutinizing the blue material.
Nothing happened at first, and Amy was about to say that they might be defective, before all three girls notice the surface of the socks began shifting, pulling themselves more tightly against Sam's legs. They soon were form-fitting, looking almost like a second skin.
The texture of her legs began to shift, the fabric of the socks growing shinier and more leathery looking. Thin lines and indentations began appearing all along her feet and legs, and Amy quickly realized what the fabric was becoming.
"Scales" she said in astonishment. Somehow this store kept finding new ways to amaze her, even after all they'd experienced.
"Ooo-oo-oohh!" exclaimed Lina, "Pretty!"
The scales weren't content to stay along the hemline of the socks, and crept up a few inches to encompass the cute girl's knees. Eventually the shape of the socks themselves disappeared, and from the knee down Samantha's skin looked like it naturally was comprised of soft, royal blue scales.
Shifting, popping, groaning began to occur around Samantha's feet. Sam closed her eyes and mumbled something about it feeling like a massage. Her feet started to lengthen by a few inches, her arches growing and shifting, and Samantha's scaly knees rose slightly as she was forced onto the balls of her feet. The girl's toes popped and bubbled into new forms, becoming thicker and more monstrous even as her pinkies slowly slid back and shrunk out of existence.
Nearly complete, Samantha flexed her toes with apparent relish before claws, the same pastel yellow as her nails had been, erupted from the ends. A couple of pastel yellow spines shot out around her knees as well, curving upwards.
The changes appeared to stop, and Samantha reached out a trembling hand to feel her new scales, freezing when she saw her hands.
The pastel yellow nails on her hands had changed minutely. They weren't full claws but looked thicker and stronger, and had extended slightly to form a defined point. After looking at them for a second, she ran her hands along her new legs, enjoying the smooth, cool sensations of her scaly skin.
Samantha stood up abruptly on her draconic feet. Their growth and altered shape put her at about the height she would have been with her platforms on. She strutted about proudly, apparently having no difficulty walking around on them.
"This place is awesome!" she said finally, once she had finished her test walk and sat back down on the bench.
"Heeighoww long do they last?" said Amy, marveling as the store's light shone off the blue contours of Samantha's calves.
"I don't know," said Samantha, a hint of concern on her face, "kinda got too excited to read the package."
Lina reached into the shopping basket and pulled out the package for the socks. She flipped it over and read off the back.
"Loo-ooks like you can take them off whenever you want." She then read some of the instructions aloud, "reach to the edges of the transformed area and pull downwards, mentally visualizing removing a pair of socks."
Samantha wiggled the draconic toes of her left foot once more before doing what Lina said. She closed her eyes, placing her hands along the area where her skin met the blue scales, and pulled downwards. The effect was immediate, the surface of Sam's legs shifted and pulled along with her fingers, the edge of the scales pulling down and away as a fabric hem materialized.
Samantha goggled at this as she slid it lower, the yellow spines quickly shrinking out of existence as the scales pulled away from her leg, shifting cleanly back into blue cotton. Sam peered underneath the fabric, seeing pale skin where she had slid it down to. Steeling herself, in one smooth motion she pulled the rest of the sock off, the scales shifting back into cotton while the shape of her foot warped rapidly. Five very human toes with the familiar pastel yellow polish slid out, capping off the dainty foot that had entered the sock originally.
The blue toe sock hung limp in her left hand, looking as innocuous as it had before she'd put them both on.
Samantha placed her human leg next to her still draconic right one, comparing them. The knee on her right leg sat a bit higher thanks to the altered shape, and her claws looked strange next to wiggling human toes.
Quickly, she pulled off the right sock, her leg shifting back into its girly shape.
Samantha threw the socks back into the package before sliding her yellow socks and pink shoes back on.
She stood up, looking back at the rack of socks. "3 for $10 huh?" she said. She grabbed two more pairs, one labelled "FrogToe - Green", and the other "CatToe - White."
She returned to the other two girls and said, "Alright, now I'm ready to go."
Amy and Lina smiled, and the three transformed girls started heading in the direction they instinctively knew led to the front counter.