Steve and Bernice stared in horror as Maggie went tumbling away across the parking lot, lofted by a gust of wind.  Without exchanging a word, they both started running after Maggie as fast as they could go.  Steve took a while to get the hang of running on three legs, so she and Bernice were evenly matched when they finally caught up with Maggie.

Their chase ended at the hedge that marked the end of the parking lot.  It was a tall, thorny affair, and Maggie was splayed against it about four feet off the ground.  She was also flat as a pancake.

Steve shook her head and dutifully started gathering up the flattened woman.  There were several large tears, the largest over her hip.  “Not good.  You said you could fix her by putting her in the trunk?”

“While that would fix her, it’d pretty much guarantee she’s stuck like this forever,” fretted Bernice.

Steve cursed, and somehow Maggie’s eyes managed to look resentful despite being part of a flattened face.  She apologized, then pulled her crumpled form to his chest.  “What do I do now?”

“Have you tried a patch kit?” asked a passer-by.  “My doll springs leaks all the time.  The bike shop sells a bunch of different kinds.”

Steve stared at the guy walking past them, aghast.  “I... uh...  Right.  Thanks.”

“No prob.”

Once he was out of earshot, Bernice noted that there was tape in the first aid kit in her car.  They figured it was worth a shot, and trooped back to it.  Steve had kept hold of the shopping as they’d chased Maggie, and their treasures went into the trunk once Bernice had fetched the first aid kit out of it.  While looking for holes to patch up, Steve started to look puzzled.

“What’s wrong?” asked Bernice.

“She was torn in a half dozen spots, before.  Now there’s just this big one over her hip.”

“Maybe you just saw some scratches that looked like cuts?”

“Maybe,” agreed Steve doubtfully.  Her doubts were vindicated when Bernice asked her to hold the seam together in preparation to taping it.  Before both their eyes the enormous gash sealed itself up perfectly.  A moment later, Maggie started to inflate.

Maggie looked up at Steve and smiled.  “Hey sweetie.  I’m back.”

Steve crushed her to her chest in a hug that nearly deflated her once more, and once she bounced back Maggie laughed.  Laughed!  “Hey!  I’m fine.  Really I am.  It was a little scary at first, but...  Oh, come on.  Don’t cry!”

Steve wiped her tears.  “S... sorry.  I thought I’d lost you.  Again.”

“I’m fine!”

“You’re a blow-up doll!  How is that fine?  How are you going to go to class?  We just saw how easily you can get blown away!”

Bernice put her hands on their shoulders.  “It’ll be okay.  We’ll sort something out.  And maybe Maggie will change back on her own.”

“Really?” asked Steve plaintively.

Bernice sighed.  “Probably not.  But it’s our best shot right now.”

“It’s okay, Steve.  Really.  I can still look human.  And maybe I can fill up with a couple sandbags or something, to give me more weight.”

Steve conceded that the idea had merit, though Bernice looked uncertain.  Still, with having some kind of plan made Steve cheer up, and she drove them back to Bernice’s place.

To Bernice’s surprise, Lynne, Marco and Connie were still there.  Even more surprisingly, Lynne still had tentacles, though her upper body looked fairly normal.  And Marco had a decidedly feminine look to his waist.  Bernice chuckled softly.  “I see you’ve been having some fun.”

Connie nodded eagerly.  “Turning Lynne male was the best thing ever.  The tentacles were fun, too.”

“I don’t want to stay male,” grumbled Lynne.  “I want my old body back.  Did you figure out how to fix Maggie?”  She looked back and forth between Steve and Maggies.  “Which one of you is Maggie?”

Maggie raised her hand.  “I may look human, but I’m... eh, easier to show you.  Steve, can you find something heavy to fill me with?”

Steve looked to Bernice, who pointed him to the pantry.  While Steve was occupied fetching a large sack of rice, Maggie turned her back to Lynne and tugged on the zipper.  Lynne squeaked in surprise as Maggie deflated and collapsed before her eyes.  “What happened to her?”

“The trunk turned her into a bodysuit of herself.  When Steve wore her, it turned him into a copy of her.”

Steve dragged the bag of rice over to the pile of Maggie-skin.  “I hope this bag doesn’t turn into another clone.  That’d be weird.”

Lynne giggled shrilly.  “Weirder than what we’ve seen so far?”

“Yeah.”  Steve shoved the heavy bag of rice into Maggie, and she immediately expanded from a limp skin to a limp but fully human body.  She tugged the zipper up, then waited.  Nothing happened.  “Mags?”

Bernice and Steve helped Maggie sit up, but she didn’t respond to any attempts to rouse her and just sat there staring off into space.  Occasionally her eyes would blink, and her chest rose and fell softly with her breath.  

“What’s wrong with her?” asked Steve.

“I don’t know,” said Bernice.  She gave one of Maggie’s hands a squeeze, and then pulled it up to her face to look at it more closely.  “She looks and feels completely human, but... comatose?  Huh.  She was in control when you wore her.  I wonder what’s different?”

After a few more minutes spent trying everything they could think of to rouse Maggie, they conceded defeat and opened the zipper once more.  Bernice hauled the sack of rice out, but Maggie didn’t collapse into emptiness like before.  Bernice stared at the girl in confusion, until Steve noticed that the bag had a tiny leak, and some rice had fallen out.

“Oh... wait, what?  A few grains of rice are enough to make her solid?”

Bernice shrugged.  “Magic.  I’ve stopped trying too hard to figure it out, and just go with the flow.  We’ll need to get the rice out.”

Steve dug around inside Maggie, pulling out several grains of rice.  But she didn’t deflate.  Steve dug deeper, ending up half-buried inside her ‘twin’ with only her three legs sticking out.

Bernice giggled at the sight, then poked one of Maggie’s leg-tentacles.  “Did you just make her move?”

“Did I?” asked Steve, voice sounding distant from inside his girlfriend.  “Let me try again.”  The tentacles squirmed more emphatically.  “Grr, these things are awfully long, I think I pushed a grain furth.. Whoop!”  Steve’s legs slid entirely into Maggie’s back as she lost her balance.

Maggie stood up unsteadily on her tentacles.  “This feels really weird.”

“Maggie?” asked Bernice.

Maggie shook her head.  “Still Steve.  But... despite being upside-down in this suit, I’m able to handle it.  Kind of.  Ah!  Think I got the grain, give me a hand out?”

Steve emerged from Maggie, and this time the bodysuit collapsed emptily.  “Yes!”

One quick zip later Maggie was inflating and hugging Steve.  “Thanks for saving me again.”

“What was it like?” asked Bernice, intently.

Maggie shrugged.  “About the same as being empty.  I could see and feel, but couldn’t move anything.  I could feel where the grain of rice was hiding, but I couldn’t exactly help.  Having Steve inside me was...”

Everyone was giggling at her comment.  Maggie rolled her eyes.  “Not like that, you goofs.  I was just a puppet while Steve wore me.  Still, it’d work well enough to go to class.”

Steve stared at her.  “What are you suggesting?  That we just... deal with this?”

Maggie nodded.  “If I can’t get back to normal, at least I can fake it somewhat.  I look like me, unlike Jem.”

Explaining Jem required explaining the entire trip to the mall, and a quick clothes-change to show off the matching electric blue dresses they’d bought.  Steve blushed once she emerged from the powder room with her new dress on.  “It doesn’t cover very much, and I’m not wearing panties.”

Maggie giggled.  “Nor am I.  I don’t seem to have anything to cover up, though.  It’s weird, I’d almost forgotten I was walking around on tentacles.”

Lynne nodded.  “I feel the same way.  They feel... normal.”

Bernice flexed her back-tentacles, flaring them out into wings.  “Me too.  I... after the non-reactions we got at the mall, I’m going to class like this.  These will be so handy during labs.”

Maggie and Steve showed off their dresses, doing an impromptu catwalk strut/slither arm in arm.  The others cheered and whistled, Marco loudest of all.  Lynne shot him a withering look, and he just laughed.  “Get in the spirit, girl.  Or should that be buy?”

Lynne blushed and ducked her head.  “Girl.  Mostly.  I want to get rid of the extra bits and put our genders back the way they should be.”

“Not going to give Connie a turn on top?” asked Marco with a grin.

“I...”  Lynne and Connie both blushed.  “Doesn’t it bug you to have the wrong parts?” Lynne asked Marco.

He shrugged.  “There are upsides.  I’m not saying I want to stay like this, but I do think Connie wants her turn trying to satisfy two needy women.”

Connie’s blush got even brighter.  “I...  Uh...”

“We’ll send you home with some trunked condoms,” said Bernie.  “We found some female ones that work just the same, so you can have innies or outies as you see fit.  Trunked dildos work for that, too.”  She giggled.  “Kim found that out the fun way when she tried deep-throating one.”

Connie squirmed.  “Would that work with boy-condoms, too?”

Bernice nodded, looking up the stairs toward her bedroom where Tanya was still waiting for her.  “Oh, yeah.  That’s way fun.  But... you’ll need to come back to get fixed up.  Easiest to just pop your head off and put a trunked shirt or sweater on.”

“Pop your head…” Maggie brightened.  “Hey!  What if you cut ,my head off and put it inside me?  Then I’d be in control of myself.”

“Uh, sweetie, plans that include ‘cut my head off’ are bad plans.”

Maggie was already grabbing a knife from the kitchen.  “Fine, I’ll start small.  Just a finger.”

“What are you doing?” cried Lynne as Maggie raised the knife.

“Oh, didn’t we get to that part?  If I get cut, it heals.  See?”  Maggie stabbed the knife into the palm of her hand.  “Doesn’t even hurt.”  She tugged the knife free and pressed the edges of the cut together.  Her arm, which had starting to go limp, reinflated.  Maggie held up her hand, palm facimng outward.  “See?  Good as new.”

Lynne checked Maggie’s hand over carefully.  “Wow.  So there’s an upside to all this?”

“Here’s hoping.”  Maggie set her left hand on the cutting board and drove the knife through her pinky finger.  The moment the knife touched wood, her finger vanished, just like limbs did when cut with the trunk-chargesd string.  She tried again with her ring finger, to the same effect.

“Well, fooey.  I’d have just ended up headless.  Any other ideas?”

The only ideas left were to wait and hope it wore off, and if that failed, talk to Bernice’s History of Magic professor.

“And if that doesn’t work?” asked Steve.

“A weight belt and heavy boots?”

“I’m pretty weak like this,” said Maggie.  “I might not be able to move.  But if Steve holds my hand until I’m inside, I should manage okay.  I can get to all my classes without going outside.  The cafeteria is another matter, but I can pack a lunch, or meet up with one of you to walk me.”

“Whew,” breathed Lynne.  “So I won’t have to wear your body to classes for you.”

“Aww, I didn’t know you cared.”

Lynne crossed her arms and huffed.  “It was my mistake that made you like this.  I have to do something.”

“How about you buy us all dinner?” asked Maggie.

Lynne shrugged.  “Eh, sure.”

Steve asked if she could go back to normal before going out again, and everyone agreed that it was probably for the best to look somewhat normal, especially as Lynne was offering to take them to one of the nicer restaurants in the area.

Getting Kim back to normal was the trickiest task, as she had to be extricated from the toy she’d become without damaging it.  Apparently Rob had had quite a bit of fun with it, and wanted to try it again.  What emerged looked like a quivering pile of jelly, and didn’t appear much more stable once human.  Kim just lay on the couch, smiling dazedly up at Rob, while the others got ready.

Steven had some difficulty as well.  Putting on one of the catsuits had dealt with the three legs, but left her still a clone of Maggie.  Steven looked down at her body and swore.  “Am I stuck like this?”

“Would that be so bad?” asked Maggie.

“Kind of makes it hard to go home to my folks.”

“Just erase your limbs and put some male-pattern clothing on.  It’ll fix you up.”

It took two more tries to get Steve into his proper body.  The look of relief on his face when he was finally normal made Maggie giggle.  “Come on.  It wasn’t that bad.”

Steve hugged her tight.  “No, but it has made me appreciate this shape even more.”

Maggie waggled her eyebrows at him.  “Me too.”