Topaz entered the room carrying a small box. She approached Lauren, opening it before her. "I brought them, as you wished." The siamese kitten presented her with two pendants, one red and one blue.

"Have they been properly treated and prepared?" Lauren asked.

"Yes, they should allow us to appear as the two people we need to pretend to be. Do you have a preference?" Topaz held the box out towards her.

Removing the red pendant, Lauren held it in her hands for a moment. She knew that they would be able to pass through the other countries on their way to their eventual destination in disguise. Appearing as they presently were would merely alert others to their presence sooner than she wished. This was the only way. Lauren slipped the pendant around her neck and instructed Topaz to do the same.

"They should do their job almost immediately." Lauren said. It was not long before the flesh on her hand began to turn gray. She looked up at Topaz, who had grown a full foot taller. Lauren felt a tugging in her left ear as it started to grow bigger, and the flesh around her calf began to thicken. Her hoof split into three large toes, and the gray flesh began to expand as her body grew in mass. Her nose and upper lip began to stretch out and after a moment, she could move it with conscious thought. "It's working faster than I expected."

"Lauren, are you sure this is a good idea?" Topaz asked, as her fur pattern was overridden with the giraffe she was copying. Her feet had already burst from her shoes and become hooved, and her shirt strained at her increasing height. She felt the top of her head for the furry horns that had sprouted, and her tail began to thin and shorten.

Lauren raised an eyebrow. "I was at the time... but now?" Thought it was too late. The pendants did not make one 'appear' as someone else, they made them into copies of that someone. It was at that moment Lauren recalled both of their disguises were male.

Art by catmonkshiro