Kevin’s revelation had been met with shock and denial by most of her self-proclaimed fiancees. She’d hoped for better, but had braced for worse. She had been spared the worst of it thanks to Augusta getting a phone call, dragging her away to handle affairs of the Hozenberg-Lemonov-Bouragne family fortune.

Which left Plynx and Thisbe as the main objectors. Both girls were concerned that the ray was messing with Kevin’s brain, and insisted she would be herself again if they could fix things. Kevin wavered at that argument, suddenly unsure of her convictions, when Vivian walked over to her.

Looking up at the soft smile on her tall girlfriend’s face, Kevin felt a wave of comfort wash over her. Vivian gently placed a hand on her cheek, before leaning in with a kiss.

Kevin’s knees nearly gave out with the burst of pure joy the kiss gave her.

“You always were the only real reason I thought I might be bi,” Vivian said softly.

“Wong-rival! You cannot be serious!? This is the change messing with his head!” Plynx shouted.

“I don’t think so,” the tall woman replied, her hand still on Kevin’s cheek. “There was always a sadness in those eyes that isn’t there now. The sadness pulled at my heart, but the spark I’m seeing now intrigues me.”

Kevin felt her heart race. If the others weren’t there, she was pretty sure Vivian would have scooped her up and carried her off to the bedroom, which she would not have minded. But, well, the others were there, and so she was left with only a look from Vivian. Though it was a very powerful look. 

Plynx apparently picked up on the moment too, and cleared her throat to interrupt. “Either way, it is quite late. We-all should sleep on this before we make any rash decisions.”

Thisbe nodded along. “Very true.”

Blinking, Kevin realised that she was indeed quite tired. It seemed that her bed was calling her one way or another.

“I should brush my teeth before I pass out,” she muttered before a yawn.

---

She had managed a few hours of sleep. But now she was restless, having been trying to get back to sleep for what seemed like at least an hour. She just had to figure out how to extract herself from between Plynx and O’tmyil. Kevin had learned a while ago that both alien girls insisted on cuddling if they were all sleeping in the same apartment, and being transformed into a woman had apparently had no impact on that. 

Kevin had practice sneaking out from past nights, however. Usually for the sake of going to the washroom. This time, though, she wanted to do something a little more. 

She quietly slid open her closet and dug through some of the clothing the girls had left across various visits. Height wise, Augusta was the closest to her, so she hunted to see if she’d left any bras behind. Being so rich, Kevin was sure anything Augusta wore would be comfortable, and she’d learned going without got uncomfortable. 

After a bit of digging she found one. She then grabbed some of her own clothes and snuck off to the bathroom to change. The bra turned out rather tight, but she wasn’t sure how tight it was supposed to be.

Dressed a moment later, she snuck over and lightly rapped on Andrew’s door. Her redheaded roommate appeared a moment later, looking tired, but awake.

“Couldn’t sleep either?” Andrew whispered.

“I got a bit, but… I’m too excited to stay in bed,” she replied.

Andrew nodded. “I know… want to go clothes shopping?”

“Definitely,” Kevin replied.

---

Thisbe had been sleeping in the storage room to avoid any windows, so she wasn’t a concern. Mynx had been on the couch in the living room, and was awake, but had seemed in her own little world, whispering to herself. So it was easy enough for the two new girls to sneak past her.

Once out in the midday sun, they hurried the few blocks to Gore Park. Then it was down the stairs to the B-Line on the subway. Which was where Andrew became very annoyed she didn’t own a bra yet.

“I know yours are smaller, but didn’t that hurt you too?” she grumbled, hugging her chest.

Kevin blushed. “I borrowed one of Augusta’s bras…”

“Oh, you got yourself a bra, but didn’t think to get me one,” Andrew grumbled, marching over to the turnstiles. 

“Tha—I wasn’t going to loan you one of my girlfriends’ bras, no. You’d get all… you about wearing it, and then you’d never give it back,” Kevin protests as she followed her roommate into the concourse.

“You may be right, but, still: what happened to ‘bros before ho—you knows’,” Andrew said, cowing a little under Kevin’s glare for the final part.

The glare fizzled as Kevin began to laugh. “I think you’ll find you’re not really in the ‘bros’ category anymore.”

“I… alright, fair,” Andrew muttered as she waited for the elevator down to the platform.

The two then were quiet for the rest of the subway trip, not finding anything else to say until they got out at Dundurn, when Kevin asked where they should start. Andrew’s response was ‘bras’, plain and simple. Kevin agreed, and they hurried through the mall to the one bra shop Kevin had been awkward about passing all her life. They made it to the entrance before they both froze up.

“W-what if they figure out something is up?” Kevin whispered.

“Because I’m bra-less and neither of us know our sizes?” Andrew whispered back.

Kevin nodded. “If they realise we’re not actually properly girls…”

Both girls grew deep in thought at that, worrying about what sort of punishment they might face. Kevin worried about being decried as a pervert and banned from the store. Maybe the whole mall. Her concerns were overridden when she noticed a blush on Andrew’s face, and worried just what her roommate was thinking about. Especially when Andrew whispered ‘they’d probably be fuzzy’. She should have expected something like that, knowing Andrew, but the redhead just looked so adorable and innocent now that her defenses had lowered.

“Wait,” Kevin said, while looking at her friend. “What would they even think, if they got suspicious? We got zapped by an alien laser… thing. They’d have no way of suspecting that.”

Andrew blinked, before her eyes started to sparkle with hope. “You’re right. They’d just think we’re weird.”

“Mhm. We should be fine,” Kevin replied with a grin.

They both nodded. And then proceeded not to move forward. Logically processing that they were fine to go in and emotionally processing it were two different things, and the latter was rather slower to kick in.

Their frozen positions were broken by an employee poking her head out the front of the store, asking if they were alright. Awkwardly, they both tried to assure her that they were fine. Just tired, really. Stepping into the store, Andrew decided to announce they’d both had recent growth spurts, and needed new measurements. Kevin grimaced, but nodded along as the sales associates were all smiles. 

Kevin found herself being measured, which ended up requiring her to take her current bra off. She was deeply flustered to hear that the one she’d borrowed was significantly too small, wondering how Augusta would respond to the news. 

The next step saw her trying to pick out bras in her actual size, which led to a new shock: they were rather pricier than she’d realised.

Very cute, though.

As she looked over a slightly spicy red and black lacy number, Andrew walked up to her, grinning from ear to ear.

“I’m a G cup,” the petite redhead said, eyes sparkling.

“It goes up to G?” Kevin replied.

“It goes well past G, Keviiiii—Kevi,” Andrew said, before dropping to a whisper. “You really need a new name.”

“Give me a bit. I’ve been asleep at least half the time I’ve had to process that I’m staying a girl,” Kevin whispered back.

“Taking your time. I’ve already figured one out,” the redhead said, placing a hand smugly against her chest. 

“Really?”

“Mhm, mhm. Cartridge.”

Kevin stared at her roommate. “That’s not a name.”

“A name can be anything. And video game cartridges are my favourite thing. So I want it to be my name,” she replied.

“Cartridge…”

“Yes?”

“Alright… Fine. I’ll call you it, until you think of something better,” Kevin said.

“There’s nothing better,” Cartridge replied, wearing her trademark obnoxious grin.

---

They both ended up spending over a hundred dollars at the bra store, and Kevin felt more than a little embarrassed. Not just from the money. There was also the way An—Cartridge had flirted with the cashier at the checkout. It was, in one way, nice to see her friend unchanged on that front. It reassured her that her mind wasn’t being changed by the ray’s effects. On the other hand, though, her roommate had always embarrassed her.

Walking along, past the other shops of Dundurn Square, Kevin tried to figure out which store to visit next. They made it a few storefronts before she stopped. The black dress with purple trim in the window was calling to her. 

She’d always had a bit of an interest in the outfits on display in that vaguely goth store, and…

“Oooh. Yeah. That’s probably your style. Especially as Empress of the Galaxy,” Cartridge said.

Kevin blushed. “Do you think I could pull it off?”

“Dark hair, pale, six foot… you can definitely pull off soft goth,” Cartridge replied.

Kevin nodded, before heading in. She stiffly grabbed a few outfits that caught her eye, before heading over to the sales attendant. And ignored Cartridge’s fascination with the more lingerie end of the store. Instead, she focused on trying to seem natural about asking to try on the skirts and dresses she’d selected. The attendant gave the same calm smile the one’s at the bra shop had, and simply led her to changerooms.

Kevin proceeded to get undressed, blushing a little at how she looked, until she pulled her pants off.

“I’ve got thighs!” she whispered to herself, now actually seeing her proportions due to the full length mirror. 

Her new chest had been nice to see. But something about the thighs really hammered home that she had the whole package now. From head to toe, she looked the part of a woman.

And she had a nice bottom too. 

Excited by that discovery, she pulled on one of the dresses she’d grabbed, looked in the mirror, and…

And she felt right. Like the first surprise of seeing softened her face last night all over again. There was no way anyone could doubt the girl in her reflection was a girl. Which meant there was surely no way anyone would doubt it for her.

The next outfit she tried on brought just as exciting a wave of euphoria.

As did the next.

---

The Dundurn Square food court was in a large atrium, reaching up the middle of a ten storey office building. There were skylights in the top and an artificial waterfall running down one wall. It was furiously 1980s in the aesthetic, but the lightness of it and the sound of flowing water let her slide into a trance as she ate a few french fries. She was staring into space, processing what she’d done. A shopping splurge that had broken the thousand dollar mark. A serious chunk of a new wardrobe purchased in one day. She’d even gone to the hair salon and had her hair dyed purple, like she’d always been afraid to do. She’d never even come close to enjoying clothes shopping before, and yet she’d just gotten some of the happiest hours of her life on it.

Now she was left realising how much she’d spent in her flurry of manic euphoria.

“I burnt through, like, six month’s games budget,” Cartridge mumbled beside her.

“Mmm.”

Glancing over, she wasn’t sure Cartridge had needed to buy much. Cartridge had decided to go butch, and she was sure that most of the redhead’s old clothes would have fit the new aesthetic fine.

“And you’ll have to skimp on gifts for the girlfriends, eh Kevin?” 

“Svetlana.”

Cartridge blinked. “What was that?”

“It struck me while I was getting my hair dyed. It’s a good name for an empress, and my mum’s Ukrainian, it connects to that side of my heritage.”

“Svetlana… yeah. That’s a name. I like it,” Cartridge said, smiling.

---

They’d both chickened out of heading home, worried how Plynx and the others (but mostly alien warrior princess Plynx) would respond to their impulse purchases and embracing of the situation. So, instead, they’d headed straight to work, working the night shift at Crooked Giovanni’s Retro Electronics Emporium, as they usually did. 

The afternoon shift cashier stared at them as they walked in. The shy and nerdy man was too intimidated to talk to either of them as they walked up to the ‘employees only’ section upstairs. They’d half packed away their bags of recently purchased clothing in their lockers when their boss, Crooked Giovanni himself, stepped out of his office.

The heavily built man stared at them both for a few moments.

“New haircuts?” he asked, pointing at them.

“No?” Cartridge replied.

“I had mine dyed, but not cut,” Svetlana added.

The man nodded a few times. “Hrm… Well, have fun with it. Terry is off in ten and I’m heading home at quarter after… you are Kevin and Andrew, right?”

“Er, we’re going with Svetlana and… Cartridge now,” the taller woman said.

“Mhm. Alright. Just let me know when that becomes legal, for payroll reasons,” Giovanni said, before heading over and pouring himself a coffee. 

Both women saluted him, giving an ‘aye aye’.

---

Work was dead. Because it was 9:15 pm, and they sold used retro games, laserdisc players, and CRT televisions. They’d be surprised to get more than three customers all shift.

It was clear that if Giovanni was running a legitimate business he’d have gone bankrupt a decade ago. The semi-regular meetings of men in pinstripe suits at weird hours of the night had long ago clued the girls into the fact he was not running a legitimate business. But the pay was decent and, well, they sold used retro games, laserdisc players, and crt televisions. Svetlana and Cartridge loved it.

Since it was dead, Cartridge was playing through a 16-bit dungeon on the tv in the corner, while Svetlana had pulled out her phone to update her social media accounts. She had decided to ignore the group chat for now, wanting to postpone the inevitable.

“Wait. Did you seriously change your twumbler handle to ‘Cartridge ‘G-Cups’ McIntyre’?” Svetlana asked.

“Yes?” the redhead shouted over her shoulder, before going back to slaying a dragon. 

Svetlana shook her head, letting out a sigh. She was about to surf some more when the bell door jingled. She hopped to attention, only to find a very concerned Thisbe standing at the door.

“There you are! We’ve been looking all over the city for you, Kevin!” the vampire girl said, running over to her.

“It’s Svetlana now,” she replied.

“Svet—what are you wearing?” Thisbe asking staring… well, pretty much straight ahead, at Svetlana’s chest.

“Do you like it?” she asked.

“It’s… um… it does go together well, as an outfit, but… it’s very feminine,” Thisbe replied, her red eyes looking rather concerned.

“I know. Cartridge and I went shopping today! We had so much fun!” Svetlana explained, before doing a little faux-pirouette. “Look at the skirt when I spin! It’s so fun! I wish I’d been zapped like this years ago.”

Thisbe continued to stare, before pulling out her phone and quickly typing away. Due to the age of most of  Thisbe’s other friends, Svetlana felt it was a safe bet Thisbe was messaging the group chat. When her phone vibrated with a new message, the suspicion was confirmed. She was about to have company.