Ring 3.3: Another Try

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Ring 3.3:

Another Try

"You got the ring?"
"Yeah, yeah." It was midmorning on Saturday. Cole and Rolf were meeting at the former's door, before walking to the latter's house. The object in question was in his pocket, so he started walking, and Rolf moved when he did. "You sure you want to do this? You were acting seriously freaked out last time."

"I really want to get it right. I won't enjoy the arcade at all if I'm too busy being confused. I was fine before, but now that I'm thinking about it I won't stop thinking about it, no matter what it is that thing does to my brain."

"Given that you don't seem to particularly like being Flora, I would expect you to be more concerned about 'becoming' her."

"Well, yeah, but I read the instructions eight times, because I'm at least as paranoid about this as you are. Once a week is fine, no problem, even if you keep it for the whole twelve hours. The warning is more for someone who tries to, like, lead some kind of secret life every night using the disguise."

"Hm, speaking of, I'd like to borrow that booklet if you're done with it."

"Sure, I have at the house. Mom and dad will be at work all day, by the way..in case you were wondering."

"Nah, I don't think so little of your intelligence. Akio, maybe, not you."

Inside, Cole handed him the ring and said, "So do you want me to turn around, or go to another room or something..?"

Rolf shook his head. "Nah. We all changed in front of each other the first time, no reason to worry about that now." He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, trying to get a handle on his thoughts. He got a clear idea in his head of what he wanted to turn into before he even brought the ring close to his finger: A version of Flora who shared his interests, for mostly the same reasons as him. Someone he himself could talk to. Once he had that down, he put on the ring, still concentrating on that idea.

He opened his eyes in time to see the ring glow, and then took it off. And then..seemingly nothing. Rolf looked around for a couple of seconds, Cole blinked and shrugged. Finally he broke the silence. With shouting. "What the heck?! Did it run out of batteries or something?" He held up the ring and practically yelled into it, as if it was going to respond.

"Maybe Akio got a knock-off and didn't even know it. Let me try." Cole held out his hand, and Rolf handed the ring to him. He put the ring on for a couple of seconds, thinking of Jenna, the ring glowed, and almost before it had cleared the end of his finger Cole started shrinking back into a girlish figure.

"Hmm," he said, inspecting it while his hair tumbled across his shoulders and down his back, and his clothes all pulled in to a dark summer dress. "Maybe your instructions were too specific." His voice sounded like Jenna's by now, and then he became a girl and her chest pushed out, completing the change in under half a minute. "Anything about that in the instructions?"

"I don't think so," said Rolf, before brushing some hair out of his eyes. He was about to say something else before he realized he didn't normally have to do that, and then looked down and took stock of himself again. He looked a little bit thinner, but his clothes were still fitting about the same, having shrunk with him. "Huh."

"Well, maybe it just works slower if you try to change the costume too much," suggested Jenna, having noticed the small changes herself.

"Question is, how much slower? It's gonna be really awkward if this takes, like, an hour or something."
"Maybe if you tell the ring to change you again it'll speed things along?"
"No, there was a warning about that. Putting the ring on again during the transformation has 'unpredictable results'." Rolf's hair had reached about shoulder-length by now, and it was starting to look brighter. "..I guess if this is gonna happen the next time I try, I'll have to start changing first next arcade night." His voice sounded a little less deep now, that was progress.

They waited quietly for a moment or so. He started to notice little changes coming to his height now. Jenna looked thoughtful. "Hmm..say."

"What?"

"I bet you'd be more comfortable as Flora if you stick with the form a little while. Even if you can't make yourself completly non-girly with the ring you can at least get used to the way you act and think so you're not stressing about it at the arcade."

Rolf noticed that his underwear wasn't touching his legs anymore, and became aware of a slight pressure between his legs. "What do you have in mind?" he asked, looking down at himself again and finding his stomach slimmer than before, his hips a little bit wider.

"Well, maybe we could hang out here, play some games or something. Or if you're feeling really adventurous we can go out shopping or something."

He felt an urge to take her up on that offer at the word 'shopping', and it didn't feel all that foreign, even though he knew he didn't usually do that kind of thing. "Um..hanging out here is fine," he said, his voice beginning to pull out of the masculine range. "As for the rest..we'll see." By now his hair was all the way down to the small of his back; he grabbed a bit of it and examined it to distract himself from the pressure between his legs, now alternating between getting tighter and looser. "If we do go out, I swear I'm gonna get a haircut or something. This just seems unmanageable."

As much as he tried to ignore it, the crossing over from male to female drew a slight blush to Rolf's cheeks. She felt a mild tingling across her body as most of the hair pulled in and disappeared, and her shirt and pants started to feel a bit tighter then before, though thankfully they weren't turning into a dress or anything. "Is..it going faster, or is it just me?" she said, her voice now well into the soprano range.

Jenna nodded. "Yeah, I think you're right."

Rolf could feel her hips pulling out and her stomach pushing in just a little bit more, and then her chest gently pushed out into a bra she hadn't even noticed appearing under her shirt. It was still a shirt this time, too, no neckline or exposed shoulders, though it was a little bit tight, and more so as her bust filled out.

Within a few more seconds Rolf was sure she had finished turning into Flora. She took a deep breath, thinking, and was relieved to find her interest in sports relatively unmarred. But she still couldn't help but think how cute the tomboy look must be on her..

"Okay, well, let's play some games then." Flora led the way into the game room, and Jenna followed.

---

It was hard to explain to herself how it had happened, but shortly after lunch Flora found herself near the front doors of the mall with Jenna standing next to her. And then they walked in without any ceremony.

Flora looked around at the clothing stores, simultaneously lost and bizarrely at home. Rolf had seen all these places before, but never really understood their purpose, never found any reason to look for more than a second or two at the vast array of different clothes; now she was inexplicably familiar with not only how to put them on but had some internal idea of how good this or that dress would look on her, or for that matter on Jen, and she felt like she could just look around at the colorful display for hours.

Jenna looked slightly less confused than she did, but between the two of them they managed to attract the attention of another, more natural-born high-school-aged girl behind them, who walked up next to them. She was a blond with a pixie cut in a camisole and jean shorts. Actually, both of them recognized her as she went to their school, and they'd even met briefly at the arcade, but Flora couldn't quite recall the name.

"Hey, you guys haven't been around here yet?"
"Well, no, we've been kinda busy the last week," said Jen. "Care to show us around, Lauren?" Right, that's what it was.

"Heh, sure."

She took the front and led the other girls along. "You're in luck, actually. I'm here for this huge sale that going on, but it's all day and on the other side of the mall, so there's no hurry. Let's just start here." Lauren began with the nearest store on the left, taking them up to the window and pointing inside. "They have all the brand name designers there. That's the place you go if you wanna spend a bunch of extra money for the label. But hey, if that's your style, I don't judge." She whirled around and quickly walked the other direction to the next store, the others still in tow.

"Fancy dress store," she said, indicating the clothes inside with her whole arm. "Expensive, but worth it. I used 'em for the prom this year, will again for the next one. If you ever need something fixed, one of their tailors takes some work on the side. Name's James, tell him I sent you and he might give one of us a discount sometime." With that, it was another turn and go.

They passed by a lingerie store, which neither of the usually-guys had ever set foot in. Lauren waved at it without stopping, saying, "I'm sure you know what that's for." Then she stopped in front of a video rental place, and the other two exchanged glances. They'd been here before, a lot, and had a decent idea of what she was about to tell them. "One of the last of its kind; I don't know how they get the prices as low as they do but if you ever wanna see a movie you don't own or catch up on a show that's out on DVD, stop by here." The place rented games, too, equally as nice and cheap.

Next they came upon a rather large shop, taking up the space of three normal ones. "They have a little of everything here, but you can get a little lost sometimes. They're real friendly, but they like to sell five or six outfits at once for some reason; if you try to walk out with just one they'll start throwing random discounts at you left and right. So if you actually want a bunch of outfits.."
"..Pretend you can only afford one," finished Flora.

Lauren gave a single nod. "Right."

Eventually they reached the other end of the mall, and a relatively small store awaited them. There were some sale posters blocking half of one of the windows, but from what they could see the place was full of clothes..and people. "..And this is where I was going," said Lauren. "They're a little unusual, they deal in used clothes, but this is no goodwill, it has to still be in pretty good condition. And they clean up and repair any damage before it goes out on the shelves. If you like the name brands but can't afford 'em, you might get lucky and find something here for a tenth of the price, and heck, nobody can tell the difference anyway."

"So I'm goin' in, you guys wanna join me?"

Jenna and Flora exchanged a look. They were both rather grateful they'd talked about this beforehand, the possibility of one of them actually wanting to buy something, or needing to do so to keep up appearances. Rolf had cash on hand, plenty to pay for an outfit or two, and Cole could pay him back later. It wouldn't be hard to hide a dress or whatever in Rolf's closet, cluttered as it was, so that was where they could keep it.

After only an instant of confirming their earlier plans, they turned back to Lauren and Jenna said, "Sure." They followed the other girl into the store, and got to work.

Supper was in the food court at the mall, also paid for with Rolf's cash, and after that the two of them set off for home. Lauren came with them, chatting for a good few blocks of the way, but eventually turned a different direction, leaving the two boys-turned-girls to sigh with some relief. They both changed back as soon as they were inside Rolf's home, and confirmed that neither of them had come to resemble their feminine disguises in any way they could measure.

As he was getting ready to walk out the door, taking the instruction booklet with him, Cole said, "Hey, if you wanna do that again next week we oughta invite Aki along, too."
"Hah, yeah, that'd be fun. Knowing him, she'd probably pick out something wacky looking and then actually pull it off. Um..not that I really want to do this again next weekend. I think I'd rather stay male a whole week this time, now that Flora acts..mostly like me, anyway."

"Well, maybe after arcade night, or the weekend after that, then. I'm glad to see you're a little more comfortable with it at least," said Cole. "When're you free next week to go to the gym?"
"Uh..Tuesday, I think. Actually, I'd better check my calendar, I'll text you about it later."

"Alright. See you!"

Rolf thought, after he'd closed the door and left, that Cole seemed more cheerful than usual, especially about the idea of exercising. Maybe, in some odd way, this was good for him. It got him wondering, Is it good for me, too, in some way I can't see? But he shook his head at that thought after a moment, and headed off for his room. He had some weight lifting to catch up on before bedtime.

---

Note: In the interest of honesty, I'll point out that in 1.1 Akio said the ring's effect lasted 24 hours, but then in 1.3 it was implied he'd said 12, and I've been acting like it's 12 ever since (see: Kell turning back automatically in the early morning). So I went back and edited the first part to match what I said/did later.