This branches into two storylines, with the alternate one marked with an A
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The Tall and Short Problems of a Cute Gamer Girl

[9]
For the Alt Branch [9A]

After narrowly avoiding the thesis that aliens are watching us poop from Dale, and Finley furthering the notion by pondering if Home Depot is actually a spying network for the CIA, Giselle and Rachel got everyone heading back home.

Neither of their friends who accompanied them to that strangeness at all believed their efforts to give it a benign explanation. Somehow, around it all, Finley pulled a PS2 game collectible out of his pocket and offered it to Giselle for a great deal. It had kind of been a running joke that over the next thousand years Jeremy and Finley would finally be able to collect all of the PlayStation 2 games with the pace they were going.

It warmed Giselle‘s heart to know that no matter how she looked, those efforts and that kinship didn’t change. Finley made sure she had a big bear hug before they parted company. Dale gave what would be a normal, lengthy one under usual circumstances. They were all glad to be back at home after that craziness. They thought about opening the box with their friends but resolved that it might be too dangerous.

The number of white lies and deception Giselle found herself spinning in the last few days was enough to leave her with psychological heartburn. She hoped this would fix that. As they walked inside, delicately handling the box, Giselle felt Rachel guide her shoulder over from bumping into the side jamb. Giselle appreciated it but felt a little weird about it. Granted, this entire situation lapped ‘weird’ several times over.

She had boobs on her chest cradled in the most unusual sort of brace she’d ever worn. Between her legs, she could only describe it as sort of like the aftermath of a chainsaw that didn’t hurt. In fact, the crash course Rachel had given her felt mind-numbingly good. Beyond that, she was never particularly strong but at least her body was able to bolster what muscles she had stretched across dangling limbs.

Rachel, despite not having that many more developed muscles than her, was shouldering the bulk of the box weight. It didn’t take long for them to get it over by the door in the master bedroom. On the one hand, they wanted it as much in the bathroom, where it was supposed to go, as possible. But on the other, they wondered if having two together might cause some weirdness. Furthermore, leaving it in the bedroom also didn’t feel like a good option because they didn’t want to see it. Ultimately, they shifted it over into the closet against some shoes.

After they had said goodbye to their friends, with Finley driving Dale back to his house, Giselle eased onto the couch and Herschel soon slipped into her lap, hoarding the available lap real estate. Before Rachel could ask, Giselle made it clear she didn’t wanna have anything to do with that box for at least a few minutes to an hour. It didn’t matter if it meant she was still ticking down hours as a girl. She could tolerate another 50 plus.

In fact, she put forth the idea that they should just hold out two more days despite the ominous note of how she woke up, how her parents had been lately, and the changes to their friends. Of course, she wanted all this gone but everything sounded like a bad idea. Just waiting it out felt useless but the safest course of action. Trying to surgically slip off the old one and do whatever they could do with this new thing held so many questions. And she absolutely didn’t want anything to do with that guy’s creepy mention of kicking it. She could only imagine that it might explode in their faces.

The looming issue of their regularly scheduled game stream tomorrow and then friend get-together Saturday night didn’t bother Giselle that much, considering the personality warp she’d made it through. But the key problem was her fear that Rachel would forget who she was. The pain of just a few hours of terrifying the woman she loved with this blasted thing was bad enough. She knew she could find the strength to do for her what she had done. To her last breath, she would always make sure of that.

But the possibility of a relentless war on what she knew and who she loved was too much. With a resigned breath, she still asked for a little bit of time but knew they would have to do something. Supper felt excruciatingly normal as Giselle quietly got used to her perspective when it came to the cabinets and drawers. They used the far restroom where necessary and each did their best to enjoy the meal. Giselle even included some typical vlogging with an apology about the last couple of days being crazy. She wanted to get up to the loft and edit this together with the footage from yesterday but felt torn in too many directions to really settle down and focus.

Rachel surprised her with a warm back rub, which she relaxed into. Before evening fully descended upon them, they decided to at least pop open the box and gather what was what. They had a grip stick resting to the side in the closet and employed that as something akin to a crude bomb disposal robot.

The inside of the box had the same normal expected packaging and plastic that Rachel encountered when first installing the original seat. The seat looked much the same as the other one, with an instruction packet, several smaller boxes of metallic pieces, some tools for tightening, and a separate device that hadn’t been in the original set.

They soon both discovered this appeared to be the control device that was missing on theirs. Rachel sighed and shook her head as she unwrapped that one in particular. Glancing at Giselle, she wondered aloud, “What if we just use this with the old one and see if that’s enough?” She figured it couldn’t hurt.

Delicately, Rachel unpacked the control section and brought it right over to the seat. She rubbed it against the display portion like a slender sander. The display did flash a few times but eventually gave a coded warning she had to look up in the documents.

“This says it’s not paired and it can’t be paired after being activated. Devices must pair with the parts they arrive with. Never mind that then.” No amount of finessing got it to recognize the device, but it did give Rachel an idea.

She noticed that when the device for the new seat got close to the old one the screws in the back started to loosen, as though it were preparing to disengage. Working together, they grabbed pliers, set the two seats together, and worked on swapping one with the other. They made quite a bit of progress at first, as sliding the control device around gave Giselle and Rachel enough leverage to twist the section holding the sea almost to the end. Unfortunately, at that point, it felt like it was soldered as a single piece of metal and nothing they seemed to do would release it.

At her wit's end, Rachel smacked it with the edge of her pliers and, remarkably, the pieces plopped on the ground. It was free! But, as they switched the seats from one to the other, a blue bolt of energy arced above the plastic. Tingling, a sudden blast knocked them both to the floor.

Giselle had a bad feeling as she gradually sat up. The first ominous realization was that her bra was pinching. Fortunately, she soon realized an instant later that was because the band was tight. She’d gotten bigger! However, there was still something in the cups. To her settling disappointment, she could tell she was still a woman. But she was a woman whose clothes were snug. Rachel‘s outfits would probably fit her more comfortably now.

Where was Rachel? It took a moment before her eyes were able to adjust to the rest of the room after that flash. That ominous concern deepened like a lead weight inside her stomach when she saw a tall man constricted by his clothes. His hair was lighter than Jeremy‘s and rather thick. If Giselle had to compare him to anyone then she would definitely note that Rachel’s Wisconsin male cousin, Tim, would be a perfect fit, except for the height.

Plaintively, the man rolled and begged her to help him get the clothes off. Giselle hesitated until he looked her in the eye. She knew that presence anywhere. It was her wife.

The bra had to come off, as well as the underwear. Rachel‘s pants also weren’t going to work. Without them, Giselle could see the full presence of this guy’s manhood. Giselle, as a man, had big feet and avoided the obvious questions. She could tell you that certain things did not necessarily correlate. However, she was happy with what she had as a man. This guy, actually Rachel, looked definitively blessed. Not to the point that anyone needed to call the record books, but she had a hard time looking away. And the tight clothes against her body triggered several things with a mind of their own.

She helped him up while trying not to think about her bright, hot face and gaze aimed at the floor. In the mirror, the top of the newly male Rachel‘s head was cut off. Giselle noticed she could comfortably stretch a few inches taller than the abysmal shortness she’d been saddled with till now. In fact, she seemed to be just about as tall as Rachel had been. And the man that Rachel had become towered in precisely the same way as Jeremy.

They looked at one another with concern as it dawned that, despite the fact they were in bodies that felt like variations of themselves, they had essentially swapped places when it came to height.

Together, they both muttered, “Aww, piss…”

[Since this is meant to be interactive, feel free to suggest ideas and prompts for future/alternate branch storylines. Some branches are already written but this will allow me to best pick new/alternate ones. I'm currently just rolling dice.]

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