(Author's note: This is partially inspired by a parallel branch.)
"How are you going to explain what happened to Jon?" Jon asked. Even if they somehow rewound time back to the start of the school year, Karyn and him had been best friends since the end of middle school. Jon felt a little hurt to have his friendship with Karyn talked about like it was some sort of mistake that needed to be fixed.
"We don't feel we have to really, but basically with that little wish we had you make." Ellis said absently. "I can show you." He keyed in a few commands, and one of the screens lit up. "Here's the playback. Oddly, more people prefer the two-dimensional view to immersive VR show watching...The two dimensional view has a delay so the ysstem can cut it together into more of a narrative."
"Hmmm, I'm bored. I wish something interesting would happen." Jon in the video said while holding the stone. The stone flashed...the flash slowly expanded outward...
"That's artistic license...we established that from your perspective, it would be instantaneous," Ellis told him.
The flash acted like a cross-fade, and Jon's bedroom, and Jon himself was slowly replaced by an empty room. The view panned outside, showing the empty Gibson house, and then out to the street, where a For Sale sign sat in the yard. A car moved in reverse down the street away from the house...A graphic came up. "The first day of Junior Year...again."
"Am I still going to be Karyn's best friend?" Jon encouraged, hoping to retain his relationship with Karyn even if who he was changed.
Ellis waved him off, "No, I think we're going to have you involved in the Sarah half of the story this time. We don't want her plots growing stagnant while we're putting most of our resources towards fixing Karyn's narrative."
"So I'm going to be Sarah's friend?" Jon asked. He didn't know Sarah that well, beyond occasionally catching an insult from her for hanging out with Karyn. Her friendship with Karyn and his had basically not overlapped at all.
"Not necessarily. We're going to introduce you through Sarah's perspective. You could be friends, or not...we'll see how the storyline develops....and where we decide to nudge it. Let's see how this model works..."
He began adjusting nobs and dials, typing out a few new lines of codes as he spoke. The model began to shift and Jon realized with a start his body was morphing along with it. His waist shrunk in rapidly, while his hips flared. His thighs thickened with smooth muscle that traveled down until he had long slender legs. At that moment he felt a flush of heat and hormones as his genitalia reshaped, leaving her with a tight vagina in place of her old male parts. That tingling warmth traveled up into her new slim midsection, and she could feel her insides twist as room was made for a womb and ovaries.
Her shoulders pulled in, becoming less broad while at the same time her arms grew a bit daintier. She took a deep rattling breath, trying to process what had happened when Elias twisted another dial and large breasts ballooned out of her chest, her nipples growing sensitive as they grew slightly as well. She lifted up a bit on the table as her bottom rounded, and, as Elias hit a few more keys, her hands and feet shrunk, turning into ones that matched her new girl body. Then apparently the doctor turned his attention to her head, which began to itch as waves of glossy brown locks exploded out of her scalp. Her vision blurred, her eyelashes lengthened, and a pair of glasses appeared on the bridge of her new nose. Her previously bushy eyebrows grew thin and expressive and her slightly square jaw shrunk and turned v shaped, her teeth straightening and whitening within her mouth at the same time. Her cheekbones then moved while her lips plumped slightly, and her ears came in a bit. The final change was a general smoothing of her skin, which also grew a shade darker in color.
She had completely been turned into a girl, and was just breathing heavily while Ellis turned to survey his work. "Yes, I think this is the best of the options presented."
"What, did you do to me?" Jon asked, still with his original voice.
"Oops, have to fix that," Elias said before typing a few keys, "ask me again."
"What did you do to me?" Jon asked through gritted teeth, this time his voice coming out soft and melodious.
"I've loaded in a new model for you, Program J," Elias explained, "New student, attractive...someone Sarah could see as a threat. Tiffany was supposed to be her main competition, but Sarah's had her pretty firmly under her thumb since last year. Yes, I can see it, a new student getting all the attention, driving Sarah nuts...we'll have to do a full backstory and develop a new personality matrix that won't just let Sarah walk all over you...I think we'll call you Julia. We'll get the accent right with the backstory. I'm thinking first generation American, with immigrant parents, but we'll see what the team comes up with." A chime suddenly rang in the room. "Excuse me...I have to take this call." He entered a few more instructions and the white void, still with the monitors, became what looked like a generic hotel room. "We had this in the files from Sarah's last vacation...the television should work...just keep yourself busy until I get back. It should only be a few minutes."
