Ty felt kinda shitty about starting a transformation on Thomas out of malice, especially now that he was choosing not to leave apologies unsaid before graduating. Sure, Thomas could be rude when he thought he needed to be to impress his older friends, but Thomas was still one of Ty's older friends. They'd gone to games together, gone to movies together, and even gone on double dates together. They also probably wouldn't be able to do things together for most of the year after Thomas went away to college in a few months. Surely Thomas didn't deserve to be turned into a dog as one of the first use's of Ty's new power?
Ty scratched his chin as he watched Thomas's ears start to get pointy. Thomas opened his mouth to let his tongue out so he could pant in the May heat, and it was hard for Ty not to laugh. Ty thought about the fact that dogs can be really fun animals, and about the fact that his foster parents never let him have a dog. He decided that Thomas's transformation didn't have to be a punishment. It was a really fun test of his powers--it was amazing to watch someone become an animal just because he willed it! And how bad could it really be to become a dog, especially Ty's dog? Ty mentally wished that Thomas's transformation would only be for the afternoon and that they could have fun playing together.
"Ty? Why are you looking at me like that?" asked Thomas with a couple of canine whimpers mixed in. "Is something wrong with my face? It feels like something's happening to me. I can't seem to catch my breath in this heat, and I can feel some kind of swelling at the end of my back."
Ty petted Thomas's head. "It's okay, boy," he said with a wink. "Consider it an early graduation present." Ty wished the change would become more pleasant and less questionable to Thomas as it neared its conclusion.
Thomas looked down and gasped at the sight of brown fur covering his arms. He thought it actually looked and felt somewhat nice, but not what he was normally supposed to look like. He fidgeted his newly clawed fingers and found it was getting rather harder to do so. His fingers and palms were starting to feel very puffy on the bottom, he thought. Ty was impressed by how much smaller Thomas was getting: not tiny by any means, but smaller than he was before. His stance seemed a bit wobbly as he shifted up on his tiptoes. Thomas scratched at his increasingly uncomfortable T-shirt and finally just took the darn thing off. Aside from being baggy, the previously tight-fitting garment had become too rough and itchy against his chest hair. It was strange and mildly challenging to lift it off over his large black ears and his brown-and-grey snout, but he managed. He flattened his ears and whimpered at the sight of the shaggy fur he'd grown down there. However, running his changing hands through the speckled, faintly bluish forest of luxurious black-and-white hair made him smile and groan a little. Ty heard something thumping against the back of Thomas's loosening pants and snickered.
The pants finally fell down off of Thomas's shrunken waist, revealing a pair of blue-gray canine haunches and collecting themselves in a heap around Thomas's lanky brown hocks. Feeling a newfound freedom behind him, Thomas looked back at the long, bushy tail he had grown and waved it around on purpose. Turning forward again to look at Ty, he garbled some jumbled-up sounds out of his muzzle and finally managed to emit one word in in an inquisitive tone: "Dog?"
"Someone's been a bad boy," said Ty to his changing friend. "But only sometimes. Whaddaya say we go the tog park together, Tommy? Spend some of our free time together while we've still got it?" Ty pulled out a tennis ball from his pocket and waved it in front of Thomas, who followed it carefully with his eyes. Thomas barked. A snap in Thomas's neck and back rang out, startling both of them, but all it did was finally force Thomas to plop down on all fours, clicking his front claws against the sidewalk as he did so. Thomas stepped out of his pile of clothes and paced around in a circle, trying to look over at his changed body, while Ty admired the beautiful cattle dog his fellow high-schooler had become. Thomas barked at Ty again and wagged his tail, staring at the ball.
"Go get it, boy!" yelled Ty, watching Thomas chase after the ball and hold it up proudly in his slobbery mouth for a moment before bringing it back. Ty ran toward the dog park, with Thomas chasing him, thinking about what a wonderful afternoon it could possibly turn out to be.