Casper looked at Ashley's pink swimsuit, feeling a bit chagrined that he didn't bring anything, but then again, he really had nothing to cover up anymore, just a latex bulge signifying that he was male.
Now that he thought about it, walking around with nothing on really wasn't practical, as he didn't have any pockets. He thought about picking up a vest or a bag to carry stuff around in, like his wallet, apartment keys, etc. Though, with the barcode on his rear, and the experience on the bus, he probably didn't need a wallet anymore.
The ring seemed to feed him more information, that the group responsible for the Synthetics also made the scanner that was on the bus, and was very secure against mis-use.
He thought about how Synthetics were made, or born, again seeing the image of Ashley with a round stomach full of their mixed air, but another image of him, with a stomach similarly swollen came to him as well. He noted his reaction, or lack of reaction to this image, reasoning that the ring had already told them that Synthetics of any sex pairing could produce offspring. To his new sensibilities, this was normal to him, as one of the artificial life-forms.
Maybe the Synthetics ability to procreate was due to the magic innate within them, something the original creators had not intended, and thus the catalyst for the campaign for Synthetic personhood and citizenship.
241 Synthetics inhabited this world now, thanks to him and his magic ring, he was about half way to his goal of a self-sustaining population, give or take a few. He thought of all the people he had transformed, having had some hand in the form they took, and decided he might like it if he didn't know what people were going to turn into when he changed them from organic to inorganic creatures.
He knew the ring could act semi-autonomously, he felt from it that he could be as specific or as vague as he wanted with his use of it and the ring would "fill in the blanks." He also felt that the ring itself was like a muscle, the more he used it the stronger it got, and the easier it became to do complex things.
He looked out over the beach, there must have been at least 100 people here. He looked to Ashley. She was just pulling the straps of the bathing suit over her shoulders.
"What's up?" she asked.
"I'm going to try something here, I want to let the people decide what animal anthro and what colors they become. I think the ring can do that now, but it may be too much." He confided.
"You're going to try to turn the whole beach?" she asked, purple slitted eyes wide.
"Yes, but I don't know what that will do, to me or to them."
"Can the ring tell you?" she asked him.
Casper thought, concentrating on the ring, and thought about what he wanted. Without warning, the ring vibrated on his thick red finger, growing warm, almost burning him, as he cried out, holding his hand with the ring aloft. He fell to his knees, eyes shut tight as his head pounded, the pressure building and driving the breath from his chest. The ring began to glow, vibrating and humming. As quickly as it happened, the ring released a wave of shimmering energy, like heat ripples in the air, and the vibrating stopped.
Ashley screamed, fearing for Casper's safety, but he waved her off as he regained his bearings and shakily rose up to his hooves.
"What was that?" she asked, panic still evident in her voice.
"I think I activated the ring to do what I had in mind." he said, looking down at the artifact and his still stinging finger. The designs and patterns in the ring seemed to have been burned, or molded into his finger. He could still take the ring off, but the space it occupied on his finger showed clearly that it had left something of itself behind. Replacing the ring, he and Ashley looked out to the beach.
"Uh oh," he said, "what did I do?" Casper asked, catching his breath.
"Nothing to do now but sit back and watch what happens." Ashley said.
The wave of shimmering air passed over the beach slowly. As it passed over and through the beachgoing people, they changed. Slowly, a kaleidoscope of colors became present, as people were reworked into more Synthetics. The people on the beach became every color under the sun, from midnight blue so deep it was almost black, to the most neon of greens, reds and oranges.
A family close to the pair started to shift and change, the man becoming a shiny brown boar-anthro, trotters and tusks gleaming in the bright sun, while the woman with him became a sky-blue skinned elephant-woman, her large rubber ears fanning her as she sat watching her children. Of her 3 children, two of them became puppy-boys, a labrador and another dalmatian, adopting the natural colors of each, while the third became an orange newt, white spots ringed with black over her body. They were splashing in the surf as their parents looked on, unaware that anything had changed.
Another pair of beach-goers became a matched pair of bunny-morphs, but the man changed into a female, both of them a shiny ivory color, long ears waving in the breeze.
"Looks like someone was harboring some secret desires," she said, pointing them out and giggling.
One of the lifeguards changed into a latex anthro seagull, bright yellow beak and arms ending in wings, though he had small hand-claws matching his scaled feet protruding from the apex of his wings, Casper supposed it would be hard to function with no hands.
Another pink pig-woman was sunning herself on the beach, naked and soaking in the rays.
The other lifeguard surprised the ram and lizard, by changing into an anthro shark, the sunlight glistening off his new blue dorsal fin and black striped flanks and tail, fading to pale white on his front. His face flowed out into a shark snout, mouth filling with rubbery triangular teeth.
A few families of dolphins were spotted next, colors ranging from sunset pink to black.
A rubber pangolin made his way out of the surf, two-toned body of blue and light tan. He plodded up to a latex wolf woman, and a rubber wolf-child in her arms.
A few more bulls were made, and a few more lizard-types, their families and significant others changing with them, sometimes the same species, sometimes not.
Another surprise for the pair, a woman changed into a rust colored snake, her legs merging and lengthening into a prodigious tail, as she slithered onto a rock to sun herself, her rubber cobra hood retracting to the sides of her head. Her husband, or significant other at least, became a rubber rhino, increasing in size as his skin darkened to a deep emerald green.
More and more changed, the beach becoming a mass of rubber animals in every color imaginable. Primates, mustelids (a family of rubber skunks cavorted in the water, normal colors inverted), avians, reptiles, pachyderms, anteaters, the list went on and on.
There were a few people who did not change, Casper noted, probably because they did not have a favorite animal, or their favorite animal was not a vertebrate.
There were 334 Synthetics now, the ring informed Casper. He turned to Ashley, just now noticing her eyes shut in discomfort.
"What's wrong?" he asked, putting an arm around her shiny shoulders.
"Too much...too many memories...all at once..." she managed through gritted teeth.
Casper's mind raced, he didn't want any harm to come to Ashley. He thought back, to when he used the ring to form a mental link between himself and the rubber lizard girl. Perhaps he could use it again to shunt some of these memories off of her and to him.
No sooner had he thought it, the ring responded, and his mind began to fill with memories, the look of discomfort easing from Ashley's face.
He remembered that Synthetics did indeed reproduce by mixing their air, via their nozzles, and also with the raw materials their bodies broke down from their inorganic foodstuffs. The lab where they were created had several machines that could be used to mold new Synthetics, taking materials from the parents, themselves breathing life into the new Synthetic body.
He also remembered that they were too numerous to have everyone present at a new year's party, but there was a Synthetic pride parade every summer in the city, around the anniversary of their creation.
He remembered that Human-Synthetic relationships were not uncommon, and not frowned upon either.
He remembered that Synthetics had existed for at least 40 years, the civil rights movement for their personhood and rights as sentient beings being only 30 years ago. He marvelled that humanity has been so accepting of the new creatures, perhaps he was making the world a better place by changing people, he thought.