I returned to my bedroom, only to see Sarah holding the stone. A moment of silence passed between us.
Of course, Sarah was here for a reason, but fortunately for me, it wasn't actually to be cruel to me. If that was enough to make me fortunate. Because sometimes, despite intentions...
I decided to do damage control with the least risk. She doesn't know what it does, or so I thought. So I ran straight for her. The plan was simple. I get the stone back, I wish her back to her house with no memory of being here. Unfortunately she did know what it does. Unfortunately, she didn't understand the rules. A dangerous combination of knowledge and lack thereof. As they say, a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.
"I wish Jon could only make cat sounds," Sarah quickly said.
I stopped, horrified at her wish. But we both were forced to look away. I wanted to tell her, what have you done. I wanted to tell her wishes can't be undone, that she had just horribly harmed me for life. What I said instead was "Mmmeeorrrrrrwwww!!" She said it to prevent me from talking, as a means to prevent me from making a wish against her, and I could only hope that she made that wish out of ignorance. That she made it thinking that she could just as easily give me back my speech after she had successfully accomplished her theft of the most valuable thing in the universe, no hard feelings. If that made it any better. Actually, I didn't know what was worse. If she knew wishes were permanent and was malicious, or if she didn't know wishes were permanent. Each one was actually bad in a different way.
Sarah laughed, "Good kitty."
Except voice damaged for life or not, I could still render her powerless by separating the stone from her grasp.
I took a swing at her, and connected with her face. What she had accomplished, was an end for the time for words. So be it. If words were no longer available to me, she would get the fist she deserved. She slumped backwards against my bed and almost dropped the stone, before desperately wishing, "I wish, Jon can't get within an inch of the stone or any part of anyone holding it!"
I pounced onto her, one last desperate attempt to pry the stone from her hands before it was granted, and it was too late. Instead of landing on her on top of the bed, I was suspended just above her in the air by some sort of invisible force field.
"Ha, ha ha..." she laughed painfully. "That, was close. Ha, nothing you can do now though, AAHHH!!" she cried, but keeping her volume down, her confidence taken away from her.
I had just taken a swing at her with my umbrella, which I had swiftly swiped from atop of my desk. In shock, Sarah looked at the deep laceration running down her wrist. Yet she still hadn't dropped the blasted stone!
"I wish, Jon had big fluffy kitty cat paws instead of hands and feet!" Sarah began as a shout as she danced out of the way of two more strikes from my umbrella, almost forgetting she also wasn't trying to create a commotion that would shake the house.
I dropped the umbrella as my hands changed. I almost lost my footing as they changed too. Or should I say, my pawing.
"Mee...owwwwww....." I cried sadly, looking at my forepaws. Big and fluffy, just like she had asked for. Bigger than a lion's paws, but stuffed with fur between them, almost immobile. The alien sights at the ends of my wrists, they were simultaneously adorable, yet so, wrong, that they were mine.
"I guess I'll go with the cat motif," Sarah said with a wry smile.
My mind scrambled to come up with any other ideas. Claw at her! No, I couldn't, my claws were a part of me, that was the point of the umbrella, a weapon that could make physical contact with her. Possibly throw something at her I could grasp? If the umbrella attack hadn't made her drop the thing, there was no real hope anything left to me would, and what could I even do, wrap my arms around my TV and try to toss it into her face? I had little doubt she would easily get out of the way, and even if it somehow hit her, she still would be determined not to drop the stone. Sarah had in fact robbed me of my final options. With that, she had won. And marked me for life. Unfortunately, she wasn't done.
"First of all, I want to make sure we have our privacy and don't bother your family. I wish that as long as I remain in this room, Jon would be unable to leave it and his family wouldn't hear or disturb us. Now for the fun stuff. I wish Jon would grow a nice, fluffy, four foot long kitty tail, with suitable proportional, girth, and good muscular strength," Sarah said. "And I wish this wound on my wrist would be repaired without a scar." As she said the second wish, my new tail tore a hole through the back of my shorts for itself.
"Mrooww... rarrrr...." I desperately tried to plead, not to do this, to explain that wishes were permanent. But all I could do was stand there helplessly holding up my big fluffy kitty paws and meow and swish my massive fluffy tail, unable to communicate in words. Ok maybe the tail was a bit fun.
"And of course, it would be a crime against anime logic, for you to have the tail and paws, without the ears to match," Sarah said. "I wish Jon would have matching big, fluffy kitty ears at the top of his head in place of human ones at the sides, and these ears would hear incredibly well and far beyond the sounds a human can hear just like a cat."
Sarah was consistent at least, I'd give her that.
"Noo, nooo..." I cried, realizing I could still make that sound, swinging my forepaws in the air. Hopefully she would get the idea that maybe she had done enough.
"Sorry Jon, don't worry, when this is all over, I'll change you back to normal. It isn't lost on me that you were trying to help me, with the tutoring. I promise you, I'm not going to do anything too cruel to you, and this isn't some sort of punishment, I actually want you to have fun with this, so relax and enjoy it."
Ok, indeed, it was almost the worst of all possibilities, her fundamental lack of bad intentions not helping matters because she was also lacking a very important key piece of information that wishes were permanent! Was there any way left to me to get this across to her? Couldn't talk. Couldn't write. Probably couldn't even type, I thought, looking my paws over. Well, actually, I probably could type, one key at a time. But I didn't think Sarah would wait while I started up the computer. Nope. Completely at the mercy of whatever she's about to do. Which I assumed was to turn me into a cat the rest of the way.
"I wish Jon would turn into a girl, a very pretty, cute, sexy one," Sarah said.
Nope, didn't see that coming, I thought. "Meowwww..." I complained in a higher pitched meow than before. Of course, the general trend was catgirls, not catboys, if she was going by anime logic.
"You know, if I'm going to give you an interesting night, I might as well give you the whole package," Sarah said.
"No, no!!" I cried emphatically, with actual tears.
"You're too uptight, Jon, don't worry, I'll fix it later. If you even want it fixed. Maybe you'll come to like it. Just tell me what parts you want to keep when the time comes, and I'll make sure you keep it, and change everyone else's mentality so they think it's normal. But I'll do my best to change your mind and convince you to want to keep as much as possible in the meantime, and when I say change your mind, I don't mean cheating by wishing for it, I mean, convince you the fun way to keep it."
"No, meooooo aoooughh!!" I cried. The tragedy of her misguided intentions compared to the reality was almost palpable.
"Oh stop being such a baby, don't you think you're overacting? I already told you I'm trying to make this fun for you too, hard as it may be for you to believe," Sarah said. "Here's a crazy idea, why don't you try to enjoy it? I'm not going to turn your brain into a cat's brain and erase who you are if that's what you were worried about, I was just going to give you fur. You into furry stuff, Jon? It's a secret interest of mine. Shocking, right? The airhead blonde cheerleader queen of the school, secretly a furry, and secretly bisexual too, why do you think I'm a cheerleader, to hang around close with the hottest girls in school, if you tell anyone, I'll deny it to the ends of the Earth though," Sarah said, as if I could tell anyone, but again, she didn't know it was permanent. "I'm not one of those freaks that wears a costume, but I think you'd look pretty cute, though I haven't decided. Maybe fur over part of you? What do you think?"
I sighed. It was a logical next step, but more severe than she realized, though thankfully not as severe as actually turning me all the way into a cat.
"I know, I wish Jon's tongue would become a fitting kitty cat tongue, long, flat, and abrasive, but not the wrong size for her mouth."
I closed my eyes as it happened, and then felt the roof of my mouth with my tongue. Why not, at this point. Honestly this was less of a problem than most of what Sarah had just done. But when would she consider it to be done? What actually was her plan here? Would I get any sort of opportunity to communicate something to her? Fortunately, she proceeded to explain it to me.
"Of course, it shouldn't be a big surprise at this point, that I was here for a reason, and it wasn't to be tutored. I saw you using this thing earlier today. So the main goal, was to get this. But there was also another," she said, approaching me. "It's because you..." she said, seductively, playfully poking at my new left boob through my shirt, and letting the force field 1 inch around her finger actually do the poking, "have always defied, no, resisted me, in preference for that... Karyn... girl." Sarah rolled her eyes at that. "So I was also here, for a bit of, call it playful conquest. But rest assured, that in no part would it have sat well with me to treat you badly. Especially considering you were after all doing this to try to be nice to me by tutoring me, even if that was a lie on my part. Fortunately for you, I have every intention of returning that kindness."
She had already been clear through her insistence that she was well-meaning, that this wasn't intended as torture, perhaps even Sarah was expecting it to be the foundation of a friendship, that we would just laugh about it afterwards and it would be just a fun experience, and honestly if that was how it could have ended, it would have been a welcome gesture, aside from the part where Sarah becomes the default owner of the stone. Or even that might have been fine, if we ended up friends. Unfortunately, the exact execution of that misguided kindness could have gone a lot better, as you eventually are going to find out, I thought at Sarah. I wondered what her reaction would be when that moment came. Would she apologize for ruining my life, would she cry, would she actually be sorry?
