"Mike! Hey!" a dainty, bird-like voice called out from behind. Mike turned to see something he'd never expected. There was a girl running toward him, and she was hot. Not just hot, but straight up beautiful.
Shimmering blue eyes locked onto him, but his were busy traveling up and down her running figure trying to force it all to make sense. She was tall, leggy, had really wide hips, a slender waist, two almost spherical breasts crammed into a tight blue dress jumping around with every click of her crystal-clear plastic heels on the mall floor as she closed the distance between her and him. Thick masses of blue or purple hair with glistening sparkles billowed behind her as it tried to keep up with her body. Mike realized that a lot of what he'd thought was hair was actually a large, full-bodied horse tail. A big, fluffy ear flicked in excitement when she finally got close enough to slow down. There was a bone-white horn spiraling out of her forehead. Her entire body was some sort of slightly pastel purple-white color. It was an odd combination of beauty and unreality that somehow seemed perfectly, disturbingly natural together.
She waved an arm as if to snap him out of a trance. "Earth to Mike! Yoo-hoo! Wake up, Mic-Mac!"
He blinked, jarred out of his suspended consciousness by the use of that familiar moniker. "Huh? Did Brandon send you to get me, or something?" he asked, wondering how this unearthly creature knew his friend's private nickname for him.
"Uh, did I send me to get you? What are you talking about, dude?" she asked, just as confused as him.
"Wait, hold up. Brandon?" he asked.
"Who else?" the unicorn girl replied, like someone had just asked how many heads she had on her shoulders.
"Dude, why are you a unicorn chick?"
"Why am I a ... what... huh?" the stranger stammered for a moment, before looking down at herself. An expression of realization slowly crawled across her delicate features. "Wait, wait a minute, wasn't I...?" She held up her hands and looked at them studiously. "No, you're right, this is different..." she said after some consideration. Then she started turning and twisting to check more of herself. "Huh, weird! I remember being a dude before, but, like... I dunno how this happened."
"Okay, well," Mike said, scratching his head and trying to look at something other than his friend's enticing new cleavage. "Just try to retrace your steps. You woke up normal this morning, didn't you?"
"I mean, this feels normal," she said, tugging on her dress. "But I definitely remember wearing pants when I left the house today."
"Okay, okay, that's a start," Mike said, encouraged. "Anything weird happen between then and now?"
"No, just hung out online like usual, then remembered to meet you here so we could get the latest expansion packs at the game store. Uh, I parked on the east side so my car would warm up in the sun, so I had to go through the Stacy's department store. They had some areas blocked off for redecorating, so I had to go through the ladies' section to get out of there into the mall-"
"Holy crap! Brandon, you didn't!" Mike blurted out in shock.
"Didn't what?" the feminine unicorn asked, worry seeping into her voice at her friend's tone.
"Didn't what? You idiot!" Mike reached out reflexively to shake his friend back to sense, but barely restrained himself. "You walked through no-man's-land! NEVER go through the ladies' department at a store like Stacy's! What were you thinking?"
"Oh yeah! ... oh, yeah..." she gasped, her face becoming ashen as if she'd just learned she'd strolled through a minefield. She looked down at herself again. "Oh crap."
Mike sighed. "Okay, so... what now?"
"Well I still want to get those new expansion packs," she said after a moment.
"Okay," Mike said, "and what about after that? You need to, like, buy some new clothes or something?" he asked, gesturing vaguely up and down his friend's new body.
"Probably, but I only have enough for the cards. Hey, Mic-Mac... I don't suppose you would mind...?"
"Oh no, no no no, forget it!" Mike said defiantly. "Geez man, you've been a chick for thirty seconds and you're already trying to sucker me into buying you stuff?"
"How about we make a deal?" She held her hands behind her back and leaned forward with a grin. "You buy me some clothes, you get to help me try them on in the dressing room?"
"... you mean-?"
"Fool around, yes," she finished the thought for him.
After narrowing his eyes and furrowing his brow, but nonetheless taking in the girl's figure one more time, Mike sighed. "Okay, yeah. But just this once! Don't think you're gonna get anything else out of me like that!" he said, pointing an accusatory finger at her.
"Heehee," she giggled with a triumphant smirk. Holding up her own dainty fingers, she wiggled them as if manipulating strings. "Dance, puppet! Dance!"
"Knock it off, dork," Mike said, rolling his eyes as he turned to continue on to the game store.
"Sure, I've got the knockers for it!" she said with a laugh, hoisting her bust up with both hands as she skipped playfully up to the keep pace with her friend.
"God," Mike groaned at the terrible pun. "It's gonna be a long walk to the store, isn't it?"
"Need a ride, pardner?" she asked in a badly exaggerated (and quite girlish) imitation of John Wayne, holding up both hands like the hooves of a rearing horse.
"Ugh!" Mike grimaced. "You know, I'm going from being embarrassed for you to being embarrassed by you real quick."
"Oh you'll feel real embarrassed when I stomp all over that life gain deck you keep trying to build," she teased. "Now you'll get to add 'by a girl' to all the times I beat you at cards!"
"Don't you have a meadow to go frolic in, or something?" he retorted.
"I say thee NEIGH!" she replied dramatically, pumping a fist into the air.
"Gah!" Mike cried, eliciting a cackle from his newly transformed friend as they continued down the crowded concourse.
"Did you have to buy the whole display box? I thought you were broke," Mike complained.
"I said I only had enough to buy the cards. I didn't say how many cards that was," Brandon corrected him, a self-satisfied note tinging her sing-song voice. She pulled the shopping bag up and crooked the handles into her elbow like a makeshift purse, then turned to grab Mike's jacket sleeve with her free hand. "Time to go clothes shopping! Hope you've spent as much time thinking about what you want me to wear as you did staring at my ass back in the shop."
"H-hey, everyone was staring at you!" Mike said despite the blush rising under his skin. "No less than two little girls kept asking you to grant wishes."
"Pffft, kids these days!" she said, leading him back in the direction they came from earlier. "Don't they know anything? Unicorns don't grant wishes, they tell you that friendship is magic and grow mustaches on people to teach them about humility! They didn't even try to call me 'Rarity' or anything like that."
"Where have you been, bro? That show ended years ago. I think they already had a fifth gen come and go since then. The only ones who remember that stuff are the weird dudes who kept whispering about you from across the store," Mike said. "Where are we going, anyway?"
"Back to Stacy's," Brandon said matter-of-factly. Mike suddenly stopped, pulling his arm free of her grasp.
"Are you crazy?" he demanded. "Look what happened to you! I ain't going into no-man's-land! Deal's off."
"Dude, relax!" Brandon said, rolling her incredibly blue eyes. "Think about it for a sec. Men aren't supposed to venture alone into the ladies' section of the stores, that's basic man-code. But you're not alone. You're escorting a lady," she said, pointing to her delicate face and batting her eyelashes. "What's more, you're even treating her to a new ensemble. Heck, you're supposed to be there if you're buying her stuff! See? All within the man-code."
Mike's brow furrowed. What he- what she was saying made sense, but it was still risky. Brandon was taking this whole thing pretty casually, but the last thing Mike wanted was to get hexed for transgressing the unspoken rules of manhood with all his hopes pinned on technicalities.
"Nah, forget it," he said. "Besides, why am I listening to you? You're literally the example of what NOT to do!"
"I can think of a couple of good reasons," she said, tugging on the shoulder straps of her dress and giving her chest a bounce.
"... how far would you go?" Mike said, eyes regarding her talking points with reticence.
"One base per outfit," Brandon replied with the confident smirk that came with knowing her best bud's weakness.
"You're really serious, aren't you?" He stared into the inhuman face of his formerly male friend, surprised at how much he was being offered without any apparent reservation.
"You gonna look a gift horse in the mouth?" Brandon replied, stifling a giggle at her own stupid joke. Mike, however, remained stony-faced when confronted with her flippant retort. Sighing once again, Brandon tried a different tack. "Look, we both know you haven't so much as asked a girl out in weeks, not after Lindsay freaked out on you. We're still bros, right? I'm just helping a bro out, okay? Don't get all weird about it."
"Alright, fine," Mike caved. "But I'd better not turn into some kind of farm animal chick or something!"
"Well at least we know you won't chicken out!" she said, bouncing back over to once again lead him by the sleeve towards the other end of the mall. "Oh, by the way."
"What?" Mike asked.
"I think people will look at you funny if you keep calling me Brandon. How about Brandy?" she suggested.
"Brandy? Isn't that a little plain for a prancing pony princess?" Mike teased.
"You're right, man. How about ... Brandy Broullis?" she said, undeterred.
"Brandy Bosombuddy, more like," Mike replied.
"Big Brandy Bitchmaker!" she countered enthusiastically, releasing Mike's sleeve to make grabby-hand gestures. "She's comin' for your hos!"
"Brandy Bubble-Bum Binky-Bonnets," Mike smirked, confident his teasing would win out over his friend's unflappable demeanor.
"Just remember, whatever we pick is what you're gonna hear your mom calling out at night," Brandy said while waggling a finger.
"Whatever, Brandy Bimbo-Blossoms," Mike said dismissively.
"Wanted in ten states and three territories: Booty Bandit Brandy Babe-Snatcher!" she gushed with perverse glee. "For the crimes of deflowering entire towns, random acts of huggery, slaying on the runway, corrupting the public morals, and dancing on a Sunday!" she said with dramatic flair, while raising the roof and swishing her hips side to side. The motion of her tail combined with the shortness of her dress nearly gave Mike, and anyone else behind her, the chance to find out if her briefs had made the transition along with the rest of her.
The moment was interrupted by the spilling of her newly-purchased box of cards out of the paper shopping bag. "Crap!" she gasped, halting their progression and kneeling down to inspect the investment. "I hope that didn't ding any of the corners."
"This is what being a dork gets you," Mike admonished.
"Oh, what a fool I've been!" Brandy cried, replacing the box in her bag and cradling it like the corpse of a slain loved one. "I solemnly swear that from this day forth, I shall never be a dork again!"
"Too late," Mike shot, looking around to see if his friend's antics were drawing too much attention.
"Eh, easy come easy go," Brandy said, securing the bag in the crook of her elbow once more as she stood up and brushed off her dress with her free hand, thought for a second, then pulled her tail around to sweep free of any mall floor dirt. "Anyway. Follow me once more, loyal minion. To the department store!"
"You thought about what you're going to tell your family?" Mike asked casually as they resumed their trek across the mall.
"Hm? Oh, about the whole 'girl unicorn' thing," Brandy said, interrupting a dramatic adventuring tune she'd been humming. "I guess I'll just tell them you sent me a video about being 'woke' and that led inevitably to my becoming the exemplar of sparkly, inhumanly feminine girl-power you see before you," she joked. "Even better if you buy me a shirt with rainbows on it."
"Your dad and older brother would probably believe it," Mike said.
"Probably. Wonder how far I could lead them on before they realized?" she pondered.
"Maybe you should just tell them the truth," he suggested.
"What, that I forgot the man-code and went through the ladies' section of Stacy's all alone by accident?" Brand asked. "Nah, they'd never buy it. They'd swear I did it on purpose."
"Maybe tell them you drank a latte and didn't realize it was a soy latte?" Mike joked.
"That could work. Maybe too well," she said. "They'd probably pull me out of college until I revealed which purveyor of sacrilege had so poisoned me. Speaking of college, I'm going to need something to run in for track, so I hope the store has athletic stuff."
"Didn't you see any the first time through?" Mike asked.
"I wasn't paying attention," she said.
"Shocker," Mike joked.
"Hey, at least now I have an excuse for going through life with blinders on!" Brandy cackled.
"Ugh, more of your tacky puns? Time to stop beating that dead horse," Mike deadpanned, eyeing the sign over the entrance to Stacy's.
"Sorry Mic-Mac," she said. "From now on you're going to get them straight from the horse's mouth!"
