Steven was on the street the arcade was on. She just had to pass by some cherry blossom trees... but she could sense they were 'watching' her.
Suddenly, all the trees just.. lost their blossoms in front of her. Steven blinked, uncertain what was going on. Did she do that? Or did the trees...
"Um... what are you guys doing?" She asked cautiously.
She had the vague impression they were... welcoming her?
The cherry blossoms falling started to blanket the side walk in front of the startled flower girl. No.. not a blanket. A mat... a welcome mat? They were.. rolling out a...
She gulped.
... Steven tried not to freak about this. "Just.. walk through it. The arcade is just over there..." she said to herself. The trees meant well again, she knew that... but this was awkward. Not that anyone else out there knew what was going on.
Slowly she took a step onto the pink petals... immediately thinking of the petals growing out along her waist. Her sweat pants were really starting to feel warm now, and she thought she could use some water. The craving for water was becoming an instinctual thirst..
Finally, she arrived at the arcades- and realised oddly, this was where the cherry blossoms stopped.
"Yeah.. Um... Thanks. You really don't have to go through that trouble... okay?" she said glancing up to the nearest tree.
One passer by, a fox-like human looked at her oddly hearing the flower girl talking to herself.
Steven glanced around. "Er.. just talking on my phone," she said nonchalantly before ducking into the arcades.
Finally.. a normal environment. She could hear the sound of the local pac-man machine going, which was oddly quite nostalgic to her at the moment. She was going to spend a lot of quarters to lift this mood.
Max used her keys to enter the house, inviting Jon, Tim, and Karyn inside. The house was a little larger the Jon's house. It was carpeted and very homely.
"Um.. would you like a cup of tea or anything?" the catgirl asked. It looked like she wasn't used to having many guests.
"Coffee if you have it," said Tim. "No milk."
"Ha.. right."
At this point they were interrupted by the cat flap in a back door opening. Basty, Max's pet cat came out of the door looking enchantingly happy to see the cat girl.
"Hello Basty, what have you been up to?" She smiled gently picking her up. The cat seemed to be very content in her arms and just snuggled itself with a content meow. "Well here she is."
Tim laughed a bit, while Karyn got into a fit of giggles. It was just.. adorable.
Jon didn't know much about cats, from what she heard they were mostly solitary creatures. However this one was certainly acting sociable with Max. "She really seems to like you." Honestly it was acting more like a dog then a cat.
"I've had her since she was a kitten. I always took care of her." The catgirl said fondly. It was the cat that constantly made her get out of bed after her transformation... and slowly coaxed her back into the world. If only for her desire for more tinned food.
Even depressed as she was, Max couldn't let her pet starve over her insecurities.
"You could almost be sisters," said Karyn. Together like this, the resemblance was just.. uncanny. How in the world could anyone explain this? Surly this was not coincidence... could it?
Max blushed again. "Well um... yeah. I don't know. I always got the feeling Basty was curious about us humans... maybe I got caught in a dream of hers," she said blushing heavily at her crazy thought.
"Aww," smiled Karyn. That was just such a sweet idea.
"Meow," said Basty.
"Yeah yeah.. just the one you wanted." Max took out her tinned food and poured it into bowl for her. The cat gave another meow before jumping onto the ground, stretching itself, then eating the food.
Max made sure to leave her some fresh water too.
"Can we meet your parents too?" Asked Jon hopefully. She really wanted to see them... after all, a situation like this might happen to her own parents too. If they ever exposed themselves to the sunlight.
"Sure, come outside," Max said while licking her paws. Realising what she was doing she looked a bit sickened and quickly washed her hands on the sink. "U-Um. sorry." she wiped her mouth with the water as well.
Tim looked a bit bemused by it. "Don't sweat it," he said. "It's perfectly normal"
Max cringed at that... how could any of this be 'normal'? Six orbs hanging down her torso reminded her dimly this was anything but normal.
Mikey was curious to see if her football skills got worse or better in her form. She heard girls were generally not as good (though other's said that was just a lie). Mikey had never been very good at football before her change.
"Let's play goal keeper," said Caitlin.
Mikey felt she was suggesting that cause it would be safer. After all if they got into tackling, there was no telling what her stone body would do to Mikey.
Mikey looked at the ball. Weight, dimensions, balance, elasticity, ..she blinked. That felt a little weird. Somehow she had processed a number of phsyical aspects of the object. A lot of them she didn't even know what they meant.
"Who keeps the goal first?" Asked Mikey.
"Up to you."
The gynoid decided she will try to shoot into the goal while Caitlin blocked. It might be interesting to see how fast the stone girl could move. She was incredibly heavy... that usually meant she couldn't go very fast, right?
Somehow Mikey knew where to hit the ball for the right trajectory to give a reasonable challenge...
She took a few steps back... and kicked the ball.
Billy tensed as the white haired girl touched her. Her fur rubbed softly onto her skin... which only served to accentuate the difference between them.
What was she doing? Trying to give her sympathy? Trying to make her feel better? How could she! Being a girl wasn't so bad? It was the worst most horrible thing that had ever happened to her! The white haired girl had no idea... no idea at all what this was like to Billy. Why did the girl just change hair colour? Why should she be special! Billy was.. not special.. enough?
She jumped back from Jenny and ran to the swing."L-Leave me alone! Human!" she practically spat that word. The very object of what she wanted to be, had become a curse.
The other transformed children glanced at each other taking a slight step back from the situation. They had never heard the word being used as an insult... they were all human once, but this was... different. Jenny was different... to them.
"It was you wasn't it! That's why you're still human. You're the one that changed the rest of us!"
Jenny was so surprised at the wild accusation her jaw dropped. "N-Nuh uh- It wasn't-"
Billy ran back to her swing, her squirrel tail twirling behind her like a display of fire. Jenny realised quickly the tail was as big- no just a touch larger, then the squirrel girl's body. Itself standing about three feet and a bit tall, and had a paler orange shade along her front the pattern of which was hidden by the blue top she wore. The orange tail bristled, with a strong shine to it. The clothes she had were a very mediocre adaptation of a large shirt and pants. The pants looked like they could slip off now and then due to that large tail if she wasn't careful...
Her paw-like feet were visible, and were clearly not designed to wear shoes (not the usual kind anyway) But she seemed to have human like hands. Jenny thought she was pretty if she wasn't stuck with so much mud on her fur. Billy rarely cleaned herself. Probably because she didn't know how.
"B-Billy?" Jenny tried to plead. "It isn't so bad-"
It looked like Billy had had enough... and suddenly, just climbed up the sides of the swing!
Jenny could scarcely react as the squirrel girl clambered up and onto the supporting structure. It had to be over ten feet high! What was this girl doing? She was completely nuts. If she fell over...
"This is my swing. You ain't gettin' it." With that she pulled up the chained swing to her, so it was no longer in reach, and taking away the only way up... or down. She held the swing in her small arms, balancing carefully.
The T-rex boy, her big brother looked shocked. "You're being a silly-"
"Don't you dare say it sis'!" Billy piped trying to sound as menacing as she could, but with with her high pitched voice it was impossible not to sound anything except... exactly what she was. "You said you would help me Stacy! You... promised. You said you wouldn't let the others do anythin' to me. But you don't even care. You don't.. care..." The tone of betrayal was clear. She hated to sound so... Pathetic. Childish. But... the sun took away everything that made her cool.
Stacy looked down at all the other kids... feeling a swell of guilt. He knew his sibling wasn't happy... and he didn't know what to do. What could he do? He didn't want them to upset his Big- er- little brother- sister any more...
The dinosaur took one large, forceful step, making the earth vibrate with a small quake. While not strictly earth-shattering, it was enough to scare away half the kids from watching.
"Look out!" One child said running away.
"He's going to eat us!" Another said also running.
Stacy wasn't sure how to feel as they reacted like that. It was the same as always... they feared him now. He had gone from innocent girl... to a monster. But.. at least Billy still liked him.
Jenny held her ground... "P-Please... Billy... come down..." she said. "I- I- won't hurt you. P'omise. I- can- help-"
Billy was struggling to stay up after that ground shake. But she saw it coming and had held on tightly.
"You just wan' to make me like you. A girly girl. I don't wanna' be... don't wanna' have.. girly thingies on me" she said patting her flat chest cringing as if imagining the ticking time bomb of her growth. What would an adult squirrel lady look like?
"Get down!" The T-Rex roared.
"It's my swing!" She repeated. She moved slightly but it looked like Billy was still very unused to the weight of her very large tail. It started to move by instinct, completely pushing against her pants which lost their support falling down her legs. She tried to maintain her balance, and mistakenly grabbed the swings seat, but it was not secured to anything on her level. Her expression was of surreal panic and surprise as she turned in mid air, loosing all footing.
Jenny watched in slow motion, as the squirrel girl... started to fall...
