Trent picked up the plastic sphere. In no rush to open, he just stood there, scowling at the grapefruit-sized orange ball in his hands.
"Well go on," prompted Alice, "open it! It says to use them as soon as possible."
"Tch. Fine..."
Taking a good grip on it, he gave it a good twist and it popped open in his hands. He blinked down at the item. Gloves? No, not just any gloves... he knew these gloves! White, with an orange band around the wrist... these were the gloves of one of his favourite video game characters!
Specifically, Nardo the Fox, sidekick of Hyper the Hedgehog, eponymous mascot of the franchise. Nardo -- short for Leonardo, after the ingenious Italian polymath -- was a golden orange fox with two tails. Like his namesake he was a genius and inventor of many gadgets and vehicles used by the other characters. it was also hinted that he had latent magical abilities too -- after all, he was inspired by the "kitsune" of Japanese myth.
Trent stared at them in awe. Nardo's gloves? If I put them on... will I turn into him? Would that really be a bad thing?
"Gloves?" Alice asked, interrupting his rumination. She sounded disappointed. "Well, put them on, I guess."
"R-right." A dare was a dare, after all. Bracing himself, Trent slipped the silken gloves on. At least they have five fingers. Depictions of Nardo varied in that regard. But he was more worried about the fact that Hyper characters were routinely depicted without clothes. That'll be embarrassing...
He didn't have to wait long. As soon as the second glove was snug over his hand, he saw the orange fur emerging from beneath the edges, advancing steadily up his arms. Inside the gloves, he could feel changes to his hands as well -- his nails pinching into claws, pads forming on his palms and fingertips, soft brown fur covering them. Nardo never took his gloves or his shoes off, but once Trent had learned about real fox coloration he had always imagined this to be the case -- and perhaps the magic was reflecting that.
"What the --?" exclaimed Alice as soon as she noticed. "Oh wow, are you turning into an animal person?"
"Yeah," he replied curtly, not wanting to explain. He wished she wasn't here; if he had to transform (especially into a mostly-naked anthro), he'd rather do it in private. But he was too bashful -- and boggled by what was happening -- to ask her to leave, or go find a changing room (which the store had for precisely this purpose).
"What kind of animal?"
He ignored her completely this time, just looking at his arms. They seemed to be getting a bit slimmer, although Trent wasn't sure -- he was rather a scrawny teen anyway. But his heart sank as the fur reached the sleeves of his t-shirt and they began to disappear. Oh boy... But to his surprise, they stopped disappearing on his shoulders, the fur spreading under them, becoming visible again as the upper area of his shirt began to fade away, leaving him with two ribbon-like straps over his shoulders, white edged in orange.
"Huh?"
"C'mon, Trent, I know you know what you're turning into! Tell me!"
He continued to ignore Alice's whining. For a few seconds he wasn't sure himself any more, watching as best he could as his collarbone became visible as a delicate ridge, and the fur shifted to a brilliant white as it crawled down his exposed chest. He began to ache around his nipples; He could feel them growing, pressing against his shirt. And then, as the fur passed beneath the new border of his top, his confusion began to clear as he watched his chest push out.
"Ohhhhh..." He blushed at how that sounded; he coudln't help it as the ache morphed into something pleasant as his shirt filled out and the print on it changed to a pink cherry blossom pattern. "Oh no."
"Whaaaat!" demanded Alice, increasingly incensed that she was being left out of the loop.
"I'm not turning into Nardo," he realised aloud, staring at what were definitely breasts. He felt it as a plain white B-cup bra formed around his chest. "I'm turning into..."
Naroko! A gender-swapped fan version of Nardo that he'd come across a few times. She was pretty, but... it was weird. The idea of a character he kind of identified with being portrayed as a female made him feel things he... didn't understand. It wasn't sexual desire, he was pretty sure; but something he didn't have a name for.
"Into what!?" Alice nearly screamed, but then she paused, looking at his torso as his waist drew in and his shirt became more and more feminine. "You... you look like a girl!" She snickered, not really caring about the specifics any more, just pleased that -- as she assumed -- her schoolmate would be embarrassed.
And Trent was, but... As he drew in a breath, feeling his crotch begin to tingle as the fur neared, he felt... oddly calm? Like, this was wrong, surely; why would the gloves turn him into a crazy fan version of the characters? And yet... he shuddered as he felt his male organs pull in. It felt... good? No, not just good; it felt right. He shifted his legs, adjusting his stance half-consciously as his hips widened and his twiggy thighs filled with fat and muscle. He was blushing, but if he was embarrassed it wasn't for the reasons Alice thought.
His boy underwear turned to plain panties, matching his bra, while his pants fused to his shirt, the legs pulling up and puffing out into a skirt, leaving him wearing white sundress with range edging and decorated with cherry blossoms. With his pockets disappearing, he felt a tug on his shoulder as a cute white, pink and orange purse appeared, now holding his wallet and phone.
His tailbone felt weird, pressure mounting above his backside, and he gasped as he tried to turn and look down to see what was happening. He slipped a hand back there as well, blushing at how his spine now curved inward, emphasising the new roundness of his bottom; and found a hole in the back of his dress with two small fuzzy appendages wriggling through it. They pressed through his fingers, and soon fluffed out into two long, plush orange fox tails, ending in white tips. Alice didn't notice, but they were wagging ever so slightly.
The fur reached his feet, disappearing under his socks which grew up a little and became softer. His shoes turned into feminine versions of Nardo's signature sneakers, white with orange knot designs on the sides (another nod to the Italian). Fortunately they were of normal size -- in fact Trent realised in a grateful rush that he had maintained normal size and proportions, more in line (again) with anthro fanart than with the stylised cartoon look of the franchise.
Finally the fur began to spread up his neck, where it had paused while the rest of his body changed. The white fur started at his throat, leaving a thick orange band on his shoulders and upper chest; growing into fluff on his cheeks and then turning orange as it covered his upper face and temples. As it grew towards his mouth, it seemed to pulled his face out with it, and he moved his tongue around as he felt his jaws lengthen into a muzzle, feeling his teeth sharpen.
As a wet black pad formed over his nose, smells became much stronger, and a sweet, earthy smell settled in his mind as belonging to her. He smiled tentatively. It was a good smell, a girl smell, and brought with it a wash of femininity through his being.
I'm... I'm... His eyes turned blue and his hair shifted to the same orange as his fur, fluffling out into poofy bangs and falls down around his neck and shoulders. His ears were pushed up his head, growing into large triangular cups, flicking as the store suddenly seemed to explode with sound. A shiver ran through Trent as the physical changes finished... He felt dizzy -- giddy with a feeling of... discovery? Like he was receiving a revelation; finding something he had long needed without knowing it. His identity was changing, and she was no longer Trent.
"I'm Naroko!" she exclaimed. Her smile widened as she embraced it. She suddenly felt a lot smarter, with a little bubble of confidence swelling in her chest. She was still shy about being teased for her tails and for being a nerd, but she knew she was pretty, she had lots of fans, and she could do just about anything given time and a workspace.
"Who?" Alice blinked, non-plussed at the reaction. She would have expected Trent to freak out at turning into a fox girl, not be all happy.
"Naroko! A genderbent version of Nardo from Hyper the Hedgehog." She explained patiently, trying to figure out why she felt self-conscious about her tails specifically when she knew that her whole appearance was going to be weird to those around her. But she supposed that was how Nardo was written, and she still had that mindset despite not being quite the canon character."
"...Uh-huh..." Alice looked at her skeptically. "So... do you remember who you actually are?"
Naroko opened her mouth to respond, nettled, but then paused. She did remember that she used to be a boy named Trent, and... well she remembered her family and friends, she didn't really seem to have some form of Naroko's memories. But she definitely was Naroko and not Trent?
"Hmmmm..." She put her hand to her chin, enjoying the feel of the glove rubbing between her fingers and her chin fluff. "I remember who I was if that's what you mean. Anyway, I've fulfilled the dare, so... I'm going."
"Huh?" Alice stood there for a minute, stunned at the change in her friend's attitude even more than the physical transformation. Then she realised that Trent -- Naroko? -- was in fact leaving without her. "W-wait!" Naroko looked over her shoulder.
"I'm going home, Alice. I've got to talk to my family and do some thinking. I'll... see you around, I guess?"
"Oh... okay?" Alice stood there, watching the sway of the yellow-orange tails as her transformed schoolmate walk off. Things had not gone according to plan, and she wasn't sure how to process it.
Meanwhile Naroko strolled down the aisles. She felt some trepidation about what awaited her outside the store, but it wasn't enough to suppress the spring in her step. Seeing the lady who had directed them to the capsule machine, she waved and shouted "Thanks!" Then she pulled her phone from her purse like it was an established habit, and called an uber. She now knew how to drive (and pilot an airplane, a submarine, and a tank), but was legally still too young. As she waited for her ride, she leaned on one of the pillars of the store's front, blushing under her fur as passersby gawked at her.