Jessica had been listening to moos and clucks for over half an hour now. After managing to coax the two unusual farm animals into the fenced-in back yard, Scott the cow (whose face had since finished transforming) and Nikki the chicken (who had seemed to exhaust her supply of eggs) had been making the worst racket Jessica had ever heard.
Jessica managed to calm down enough to first find, and then to call up the Chronivac's help menu. She was confident that her friends wouldn't try to escape, and hopeful that they would not want to kill her. Assuming they retained memories of this experience, that is.
The Chronivac had pages upon pages of alteration information, details about how to change memories or people's perception of reality, and Jessica even found suggestions on what not to do. Her actions thus far seemed to violate about half of the bullets in the list.
A few minutes later, Jessica found reversal information. She was relieved to learn that there was a safety built in that would reverse the changes automatically after about an hour, but Jessica did not want to put her friends through any more torture. She tapped a few commands, and hoped for the best as a second electronic wave radiated from the machine.
***
Immediately after being hit by the wave pulse, Nikki and Scott stopped what they were doing, suddenly fully aware of their surroundings. Their animal instincts were gone.
"How DARE she do this to me!" Nikki thought.
"Hey!" replied Scott, "Nikki, is that you?"
"Scott! You can hear me thinking?"
"Yeah! What's going on here... and why are you a chicken?"
"Jessica got this weird machine in the mail, and she said it could change people into other things. I didn't believe her, but..."
"Well that does explain a few things." Scott thought angrily. "You know, I never liked Jessica and now I'm not afraid to tell you so."
Nikki's feathers began to fall out, leaving her with normal, human looking skin again.
Nikki clucked. "That's completely understandable." Her feathers were completely gone, and her comb was beginning to split into her normal hair again.
"Hey, you're changing back into... you!" Scott spoke this time.
"So are you, Scott!" Nikki was able to speak as well. Scott's fuzz receded into his body and his face flattened out. His black nose narrowed and pointed out once again. He lay on his side to lessen the strain on his legs (now arms again!) as his fingers and toes paled and re-separated. His tail receded into his spine.
Nikki's feet thickened and her joints popped back into human position. Her breasts perked out again and her arms shortened. Nikki regained her fingers and mouth; her comb melted away as her eyebrows and lashes rapidly grew back.
Scott's bulk receded, and his udders reverted back to his usual manhood. Nikki's pointy butt rounded out and her tail feathers fell off. Her scaly, sharp toes softened into human feet.
Scott's clothes reappeared with a *pop*, but since Nikki had stepped out of hers, she was left naked by the Chronivac. Scott ran over and gave her his coat to stop her from shivering.
"I can't believe I laid five eggs, Scott. That was the most humiliating experience of my entire life." Nikki would have started to cry, but she was far, far too furious.
"Tell me about it, I grew an UDDER and had to EAT GRASS. Jessica is going to pay dearly for this..."
Back to normal, Scott and Nikki began to plot against their former friend Jessica.
***
Jessica was greatly relieved when Scott and Nikki walked into the room. She noticed Nikki was wearing one of her shirts, but decided to play dumb, just in case the two had not retained their memories.
"Hey, what's going on Jessica? Did you ever get that video game thing hooked up?" Nikki entered the room with Scott and sat in an empty chair next to the Chronivac.
"Hi Jessica." said Scott.
"Oh hi guys!" Jessica chuckled nervously. "Nope, I guess it just doesn't work".
"Oh, that's too bad." Nikki sighed. "Hey, I'm kind of hungry. Do you have anything to eat around here?"
"Nikki, you went to get a sandwich, remember?" Jessica asked.
"Huh. Must have forgotten about it. In fact, the last thing I remember, I was naked in the yard with Scott..." Nikki blushed as she said this. Scott, playing along, grinned and pulled playfully at her fiery hair.
Jessica, fueled by adrenaline and relief, almost ran out of the room in an effort to get her friends some food. She stopped cold when she heard Scott lock the door behind her. She suddenly realized that they had just been playing dumb, and dread filled her as various scenarios of revenge drifted across her mind.
"Nikki, Scott, I didn't mean to do any of it! It was a mistake!"
"Shut up, Jessica". It was Scott.
Those were the last words Jessica got out before her clothes disappeared and she was rendered mute. She could hear furious typing and whispering. Jessica watched her legs re-shape into chicken legs, just like Nikki's. The rest of her body became covered in white cow fuzz, an eighth of an inch long, just like Scott's had.
She went to yell out, but a donkey's bray came out of her mouth instead.
She heard Nikki and Scott whispering, and she thought she could make out the words "giraffe... donkey..." and "ostrich". Worm, turtle, spider, bat, and fish also seemed to be popular suggestions. No! They were going to turn her into a horrible freak monster! Jessica's mind panicked. What she did had been a mistake (well, two mistakes really). This was just malicious!
Jessica's horrible mutation sped up. Scott always did have a knack for electronic gizmos, no wonder she was changing so quickly. Jessica's fingers fused together into cow hooves. Her ears and face lengthened, giving her vaguely donkey features to match her new voice. Buck teeth stuck out from her leathery lips. And her neck... It started to stretch. It grew six inches, a foot, before slowing down and stopping at three feet. Jessica had to concentrate to hold her head up straight. Black spots in the shape of giraffe spots filled in her white fuzzy neck.
Jessica's chicken legs morphed to be thicker, more meaty. Her five toes merged into two, and her legs turned a very light grey. Jessica had obtained the legs of an ostrich. Jessica's back began to itch horribly. She ran out of the house, afraid of what damage she could cause inside, to the house or to herself.
As she reached the outdoors, two hideous bat wings split off from her back skin and unfurled. Her furry chest became flatter. She could feel her skin developing into a hard shell underneath the cow fuzz, giving her an armor of sorts. Jessica's butt lengthened and a long, sinewy tail grew out. It had a pointed spur on the end. The hair on her fuzzy head became a short mohawk, running all the way down her back, as though it were an especially long horse's mane.
Almost as if Nikki and Scott could not make up their minds as to what Jessica would become, her ostrich feet hardened into cloven hooves. Her buck teeth turned into fangs, then reverted back to buck teeth once more. The armor shell softened and was replaced by thicker white fuzz. Her hoof hands split into fingers with webbing joining them. Large, moist, sickly white frog's hands.
The changes stopped.
Nikki was standing in the door way, wheeling out a full length mirror. Jessica went to charge her former friend, but stopped when she saw Nikki pointing to Scott in the computer room, hands hovering over the computer keyboard like some kind of mad scientist.
"Take a good look at yourself, Jessica. We left you your human eyes so you'll always remember what you lost. What you took away from Scott and me! You humiliated us, horrified us. Now you get to see what it feels like! Over and over again."
Jessica looked at herself in the mirror. She resembled the old legendary Jersey Devil, fully monstrous except for her eyes. Her human, feeling eyes. An inhuman wail erupted from her three foot long throat and donkey snout as Jessica leaped into the air, bat wings flapping. Driven into a panic, she started flying away. The last thing she heard from Nikki chilled her blood.
"The safety's off, you know. Don't expect to come back in an hour."