Tails.
There was a horrifying moment as the coin flipped through the air, sending waves of rippling energy crashing through their Headspace, and their body was helpless to do anything but stare, and shake where they stood. Their mother caught it, and revealed tails.
Zoe suddenly felt profoundly heavy; it was as if she were in the shower again, but worse, and the sensation lingered. Every nerve ending in her body felt like it was talking to her on badly outdated dialup internet, and despite not being tired it was like she fighting to stay awake. She watched as her hands lifted themselves up, flexing experimentally before a gaze she couldn't focus, and then was similarly confined to just observing when those hands found their way to her boobs again. Angrily, she screamed at those hands to try slapping Jon again, but this time they only just twitched in response to her command, and did nothing else.
"Amazing..." Zoe heard herself say out loud. "This feels nice! Thanks Mom!" Zoe wanted to shout some more obscenities at her stupid brother for getting them into this stupid mess, but her tongue was little more than an alien tentacle in her mouth now.
"Don't thank me, Jon," their mother scolded, while offering him The Coin to take. "It could just as easily have been you in the passenger seat, you know. Besides, knowing your sister, I wouldn't expect a quiet Headspace today, if I were you."
"Oh, fuck no, you shouldn't!" Zoe shouted from within the confines of their mind. "You bastards! You stupid motherfuckers! You absolute morons, putting ANOTHER fucking Curse on me when we haven't even scratched the surface of what the first one's done yet! DO YOU HEAR ME, JON!?" Jon heard her loud and clear, of course, but within the Virtual Reality of their Shared Imagination, it seemed like Zoe had just been Grounded by their mother. She was now as impotent as an imaginary friend to Jon, and he only looked at her pityingly in there.
"Trust me Mom, I have few expectations at all about today, given this bizarre morning." As hesitantly and carefully as if it were a stick of Dynamite, Jon took The Coin from their mother. His hand was trembling terribly, holding it. It seemed like it was a much less magical object than the Stone, maybe it really was just an ordinary quarter underneath? Yet at the same he felt its power much more viscerally than he ever had when holding the Stone. But that's probably because it's much more directly attached to my psyche than the Stone is, had I to guess.
"What's the Stone?"
Jon's eyes went wide. "Fuck, I wasn't supposed to think that out loud!" He realized suddenly that the reason his hand was trembling so much was Zoe, willing said hand to flip the coin as hard as she could, but getting nowhere from the passenger seat. He slipped The Coin into one his new Jean Pockets (holy crud, these were tiny now, but they could still fit a quarter and maybe the Stone at least), and tried to ignore Zoe's complaining about it.
"I'm sure," their mother said dismissively. She checked the time again and groaned. "But, we're going to be late now. Get your stuff and get in the car, mister! Mikey!" She left to get their little brother for only a moment.
All Jon's school stuff was prepacked in a backpack, in the old reality, and Zoe by contrast made odd combinations of a purse with smaller bags work for her back then. The compromise thrust upon them by their fusion was apparently a particularly large and robust satchel, one they could either wear at the hip like a purse or over the back like a backpack; and thankfully, they seemed to have kept Jon's convenience of storing everything they needed in it.
With one notable exception, that is: the Stone.
Jon guessed it must still be in their new room, and with entire dozens of seconds before Mom would be back and shooing them out the door to school he thought hard about whether he should fetch it or not. On the one hand, if used judiciously it could get him out of plenty a pinch and deal with whatever knock-ons his first ill-advised wish was causing as they came up... But on the other hand...
"Jon, talk to me, what the fuck is this Stone you're thinking about!? Is it some Voodoo Talisman? Please don't tell me we're in this mess because you decided to fuck with Voodoo shit!"
Yeah, her. Jon really didn't trust Zoe to be holding the Stone when she was mad, and even if she didn't have control over their voice, he didn't want to find out if just thinking the words "I wish" was enough. At any rate, he was out of time.
Mikey reappeared carrying a half-eaten abomination with several layers of eggo waffle and nutella and jelly and whipped cream and all sorts of things completely unrelated to what the animal kingdom at large would consider food, and their mother was right behind him. Ready or not, Jon was compelled into the passenger seat of an actual literal vehicle just moments later, without the Stone, and being driven to school.
It was the first quiet moment he had that morning to really process what had happened. His new female hardware felt weird, just dangling off of what apparently was still male software in the Headspace; software that was no longer alone upstairs, either. He ended up spending most of the car ride to school shifting about in failed attempts at getting comfortable, and trying to ignore basically everything, including Zoe.
All of this was unimaginable just 15 minutes ago.
He shuddered to imagine what the next 15 hours or days might be like, in light of that.
