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“Are you sure you know what you’re doing?” Epel Felmier asked as Deuce added a new ingredient to the potion in the cauldron.
The idea had been simple enough. They’d found a muscle-enhancing potion in a book at the library and had decided to brew it. This way, he and Ace could show up to their beach trip looking the way they wanted. Epel especially wanted to see what he’d look like, even though he’d mostly gotten over his body image issues after Malleus dream world. Deuce had tagged along mostly in case they needed help, which, since Alchemy was something he'd studied hard for at the end of the year, was mildly comforting.
"You sure this is gonna work?" Ace leaned over the cauldron, poking at the bubbling green liquid with obvious skepticism. “I mean…I don’t want to be turned into something gross.”
“It’ll be fine,” Epel reassured him, sounding more confident than he was. “I double-checked it on the internet. People use this all the time. It’s temporary though…”
"People use it to catfish dates," Deuce said with a grimace, fanning himself with one hand. They were doing this in the greenhouse in Ace’s backyard, windows fogged up from the heat outside. "Doesn't potion-brewing usually need a stable temperature? Crewel-sensei’s always talking about—"
"It'll be fine. A few degrees off isn't gonna matter."
Epel realized about four seconds after adding the final ingredient that maybe it did matter. Purple smoke poured from the burbling pink liquid as it started to rise in the cauldron.
"Uh oh,"
"That's not supposed to happen."
"Epel—"
“Run!”
The cauldron started to shake, and Ace yelped, dropping a whole container of gryffin saliva into the liquid. They backed away as the liquid exploded, coating everything in the room in a fine pink spray. For a second nobody moved, too startled to do anything but stand there dripping.
A tingling pain spread from their fingertips to their toes, rising in intensity until they all fell unconscious.
***
Epel woke first, pushing himself up painfully from the floor.
"What the hell was that?" he exclaimed, and then froze, hand going to his throat as he realized his voice had come out much higher than usual.
"Epel." Ace's voice had gone up an octave too, and when Epel looked over, a tall redhead girl was staring at him with wide eyes. “You’ve got tits.”"
"What—" Epel’s hands came up to grab his chest to find two soft lumps. He pulled the neckline of his shirt away and stared.
“Shit…” His eyes widened as he grabbed his own crotch, shocked to find nothing there. “We’re girls!”
They both turned to Deuce at the same time, half-expecting to see their friend similarly affected, but Deuce was just standing there looking poleaxed.
"...Why didn’t it work on you?" Epel said.
"I don't know. Maybe it doesn't affect everyone the same." Deuce shrugged, though there was something a little too careful about the way he said it. " Maybe not enough got on me.” He said, eyes not meeting theirs.
"Dude, you were just as close as I was!"
"Can we deal with the actual problem first?"
That seemed fair, mostly because Epel had bigger things to worry about at the moment, chief among them the fact that his clothes had gone from fitting properly to hanging loose in some places and pulling tight in others. He caught sight of himself in the dark reflection of the greenhouse window and nearly jumped.
His hair was still the same length as it had been, and his face hadn’t changed much; he looked more delicate, but his hips were bigger than they had been, and of course…there was his chest.
"I look like a goddamn doll.”
"You kinda look hot, not gonna lie." Ace was examining himself, hands sliding over his slim hips, yelping as his pants slid lower. “Totally unfair that your boobs are bigger. I wonder what decided that? Like…”
"I don't know! I didn't plan for this!" Epel grabbed the book and flipped through it. “It says it’s heat-sensitive, but this isn’t on any of the side effect lists!”
"Check the ingredient list. If something extra got mixed in during the explosion, it may have reacted weird.”
Ace raised his hand guiltily. “Uh…when the potion burned me, I dropped the bottom I was holding in.”
"Oh no."
“Yeah. Um…we may need help.”
"Could be worse," Ace said, with the forced cheer of someone trying very hard to look on the bright side. "I mean, we're not hurt. I’m a babe, Epel's cute and…Deuce, you got lucky. We just need to let it wear off, right? The original potion only lasted 72 hours…maybe this will be the same?”
“As long as the extra ingredient didn’t extend it. It’s a totally different potion now!”
“Crap…”
They spent the next twenty minutes trying to find a solution. Deuce eventually gave up flipping through the last book and set it down with a sigh.
"We're gonna have to just wait it out and hope it fades on its own," he said. "Or…I have Professor Crewels E-mail" Deuce fiddled with his phone, looking down. “Mom got it so I could get summer help.”
"He’s so gonna laugh," Ace said immediately.
“He totally will.”
“...Let’s make it a last resort if this doesn’t wear off in the original time.”
"For what it's worth," Deuce was cleaning up the mess as he spoke, a flush on his face, "I don't think it looks bad on either of you."
"Thanks, I think." Epel sighed as he crossed his arms over his chest, then let them fall to his sides as he felt them compressing his boobs.”That is so weird…”
“Speak for yourself.” Ace jumped, grinning down as his chest bounced. “I’m gonna enjoy this while I can.
“We have one more problem you guys may not have thought of,” Deuce interjected quietly. “We’re supposed to leave for the beach tomorrow.”
Epel shook his head. “No way am I going looking like this!”
"C'mon, it'll be fine! Worst case, we just tell everyone it's a really convincing disguise."
"Nobody's gonna believe that, Ace! And it’s not like we have swimsuits…"
“We can get some! I’d saved some money for a video game so I can get us cheap ones. Come on, it’ll be fun!” Ace spun to look at Epel. “Maybe my rizz as a girl will be better.”
“What rizz?”
“Ouch.”
"What are we gonna tell your mom?" Epel asked, turning to Ace.
“Mom left this morning to help my brother move into his college dorm. We’re good. She’s not going to be back till Monday.” Ace looked down at himself. “We’ll fix it by then, I bet.”
“I hope so…”
“I hope it just wears off on its own”
Deuce was silent, and Epel looked over at him, concerned.
“We’ll be ok. You don’t have to worry.”
“Yeah. It’ll wear off, and you guys will be fine. I’ll be right back. Bathroom.”
Ace watched him go, frowning. “That was weird. What’s he worried about? I mean he’s not the one stuck as a girl.” Ace grinned. “I still say we should get some girl suits. We can just return them when we change back.”
Epel frowned. There had been something off about their friend, but he couldn’t put his finger on it.
“Did he seem a little taller to you?”
“Huh? I mean yeah, but I’m pretty sure we’re both shorter. Why?” Ace opened the door into the warm sunshine. “Let's go shopping once he’s back.”
’
“Not sure…”
There was something off about his friend, and Epel wanted to figure out what.