Robert entered the mall with trepidation, listening to the soft clop of her hooves on the tile floor. She observed the many changed people inside, more than she'd ever seen in one place before; it was strange to think that she was no longer an outside observer, but one of them. She wondered whether she seemed all that unusual to these people; after all, they dealt with other changed of all varieties every day for the past month-plus. Still, how many of them...were built like she was? She was leggy, moreso because of her actual unusual leg structure, and combined with her breasts...she cringed. She must cut a distinctive figure, mustn't she?
Still, if anybody was staring, she wasn't really noticing it. She made her way to a clothing store that looked fairly reputable, paused outside a while while she tried to get her nerve up, and went inside. She was greeted by a robot woman, very nearly a living mannequin, but more expressive. "Good afternoon!" the gynoid said. "Can I help you?"
"Uh...um, yes..." Robert said shyly. "I'm...I need to...buy some clothes...I've only changed recently..."
"Of course," she responded. "I'd be happy to help, sir. If you'd just step this way..."
"W-wait!" the devil-woman said. "Y-you knew?"
The saleslady nodded. "Your clothes are pretty evidently designed for a man," she said. "Not custom-fit, I'd guess, but in any case not made for a woman. Besides, your shyness is characteristic of new women, no offense. Now, if you'll just step this way, we can get you all measured up."
Rachel sighed. "Well, with Lucas and Cass off spooning and now pastor-lady's gone, I guess it's just the three of us."
David nodded. "Still, it's kinda nice to get away from that aura thing...it was nice that she was up-front about it, but that was still a little weird."
"Oh, I don't know, I thought it was kinda fun," the devil-girl smiled. "It'd be interesting to see what kind of people we become under that influence...Lucas was pretty obvious, but you? Me? Mark? Or the pastor...I wonder if she'd be the kind to be hiding something, and have it drawn out...?"
The other angel-girl smirked. "You know, for all you know, that might be Mark right next to you..."
Rachel snickered. "Cute, but no. I know David, and you are definitely not her."
"Y-you can tell?" David asked. She'd been wondering how others saw her and her sisters...after all, they were identical. Of course, Rachel probably would've known which one was David because they'd been following each other pretty closely this whole time, while Mark hung back a little ways, but still...
"Oh, heck yes!" the devil-girl said. "I mean, your attitudes are completely different...even your body language is different. Your sister here's all confidence...not quite Lucas's swagger, but she moves around like she knows what she's about. And you're all meek and quiet, but with a warm center...totally different. And everything about your voices but your actual voice, too. Though you do kinda tend to look happy or sad when the other's happy or sad, but you said that's just a thing you guys have?"
Mark nodded thoughtfully. "Yeah, it is...huh. I hadn't thought about that stuff before."
"What you'd said before, though," David said, frowning slightly, "do you...do you really think that we'd become...dramatized versions of what we already are? Or is it just that we act more like some kind of characters? You think that...that what we felt then is reflective of what we really feel?"
Rachel shrugged. "I kinda assumed," she said. "I guess we don't know for sure unless we know what we felt and know what we really feel, so we can compare."
"Huh," the angel-girl mused.
Tiffany got permission from the nurse to leave early. It was just as well, she was in no mood to be dealing with people right now. She caught a bus back to her neighborhood and walked the rest of the way home. She arrived to find her father just getting up, making coffee in the kitchen, but she rushed past him and up to her room; the itching was getting nearly unbearable now.
Tiffany shut the door and tore off her clothes; the relief wasn't quite instant, but she could feel the discomfort drain away; in a minute, it was only a couple spots with a little residual itch. What the hell was in these things, that she was reacting so strongly!? She glanced at the mirror and frowned; the lines on her body were dimming down, but they must've looked like arc lamps when she'd first undressed. She still felt annoyed by these; she had never planned on getting tattoos, and even if she had wanted one, this "body art" type stuff was for freaks. Yet here she was, with a sort of abstract tree shape upon her...and it had to go and have "roots" curled around...around her privates...what would people think if they saw this crap? But it was apparently just part of her skin, not something she could remove...
And even without that, she was still a sort-of albino with a horn who glowed in the dark! It was all just too damn weird; even if she'd become some typical monster, she'd at least be able to put a name to it, but her...she didn't seem to be anything, aside from weird. Sighing, she opened the closet and removed the robes that had come with her transformation; she didn't actually want to wear them again, but she certainly wasn't going to traipse around naked, even without the embarassing tattoo-thing. She slipped them on over her head and straightened them out a bit; it wasn't a look she liked, but there was no sense being sloppy about it. She looked back at the mirror; oh great, the lines were still glowing pretty brightly, and with the diaphanous robes, they were hardly hidden at all. She hoped they'd hurry up and die back down...
She stomped downstairs, huffing with irritation. "I can't believe I can't even wear normal clothes anymore!" she snapped to no one in particular, though she was hoping her father would volunteer to get her a new wardrobe. "I look ridiculous in this!"
Mr. Saunders looked up from his breakfast. "Actually, Tiff, I think it's a pretty striking look."
She frowned. "You're kidding. I look like some kind of new-age cult leader!"
He smiled slightly. "I thought you wanted to be a leader..."
"I want to have people listen to me!" she said. "I want them to sit up and take notice, to respect me! There's no way anybody would listen to me like this! It doesn't matter how much direction I have, I look like a damn kook!"
Her father shrugged. "Well, I think you look nice, honey."
Tiffany frowned; did he just not get it? Or did he somehow think that it was okay nonetheless? And he had to go and phrase it as a complement, so it'd be hard to stay mad...
Hiro stood and stared at the anomaly. It was a...well, an anomaly. It was a sort of crack in the world, with what he thought was another world on the other side, shrouded in heavy purple mist. Was that just how this portal thing looked? Or was that what it looked like over on the other side? He didn't know.
Not too many people had been able to tell him that much about the other world, not much he didn't already know. It was a place of rocks, hills, and pillars, sure - there were still pieces of it littering the farmland around Hedgeton, and he'd passed several crystal spire formations on his way to the anomaly. Some people had talked about seeing unusual creatures lurking around, some weren't so sure. And as to the actual effects, they said that they'd become human upon exposure to the other world's yellow sun; but all of them had changed back immediately on their return, even though it was night at the time. It was like Earth exerted dominance over the other world; would it even be worth trying?
But anything that got him closer to a cure was worthwhile, right? Even if he didn't stay human, he might have some idea of how the change-back worked. And maybe he might at least become something different...although as near as he had gathered, everyone had returned to their initial transformed state upon getting back...
~pop!~
Dammit, that was the mail daemon, with a new message. He knew it even without looking; whatever other problems his systems had, they were perfectly good about fetching e-mail, even when he didn't really want it fetched. He knew with a thought that it was from his father...his father who had also become a cyborg, who had become a sort of warrior-robo-girl, his father who had probably received his first email moments after he sent it. He didn't want to look; he didn't want to be dissuaded. But...what if he never got the chance again? What if he got stuck in the other world, stuck with no way to ever read the last thing his father ever said to him?
But he didn't want to be talked out of it...he wanted to go through with this, press on until he found a cure...but what about his family? Would he ever see them again? He didn't want to hurt them, but what if he got lost? Wouldn't that hurt them? How much was he willing to risk for this?
...what should he do?
