It was midnight, or perhaps one o'clock or even two. He had no idea how long he'd spent dithering and staring up at the ceiling, wondering whether or not to go through with his plan or not. The exact time didn't matter, it was dark and more importantly, the other three were still asleep. He'd made sure to check several times before leaving the room. It was one of the disadvantages of sharing a room with his teammates; it was very difficult to slip away undetected, as each had learned the hard way.
Kowalski slowly descended the stairs, pausing every time they creaked, which was a lot. It took ten long minutes until he was in the basement. He flicked the light switch and was momentarily blinded by the sudden brightness. Once his eyes had adjusted to the light, he walked quickly to the iron door and tapped in a code on a nearby electric keypad. The door opened, revealing an elevator which he stepped inside and pressed a blue button.
A short while after pressing the button, the doors opened again and he walked out into his lab that was filled with odd bits of machinery that only he understood the purpose to. A work bench was covered in small, half finished inventions that he had put on hold in order to work on his creation that he felt most important. He typed in another code to open a door and turned on all the lights. The large room contained several finished inventions waiting to be tested, many of which couldn't be due to needing test subjects and he was less than willing to use himself after previous incidents.
In the centre of the room was something that could only be described as a rather big ray gun mounted on a tripod. It had a control panel that stuck out on a bendable arm. First, he walked over to the floor length mirror situated on one wall. Kowalski looked at himself, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose and running a hand through his dark brown hair, wondering if it had always been so long.
He was so busy looking at himself that he didn't hear the distant sound of a door opening and the elevator descending. It was only when the door to the room he was in opened that he realised someone had noticed he had tried to be stealthy about what he was doing. He froze in the position he was in; a hand on one hip and sticking his chest out.
"Skipper, Private, Rico, what are you three doing up?" Kowalski asked and smiled nervously.
Skipper scowled, "we could ask you the same question. Care to explain?"
"I-I couldn't sleep." Kowalski turned around to look at the three and put his arms behind his back. The look on Skipper's face told him that the answer he'd given wasn't sufficient. "So I thought I'd catch up on my latest projects."
"Well that's not so bad, is it Skipper?" Private rubbed his eyes sleepily and yawned.
"That still doesn't explain why you were looking at yourself in the mirror like an insecure teenage girl." Skipper folded his arms and glanced in the direction Kowalski was looking, "so if you are going to do some late night science, how about demonstrating that?" He jerked his thumb towards the machine in the middle of the room.
"It's not ready yet." Kowalski said hurriedly.
"Then why is it in your testing room?" Private asked curiously, not understanding exactly what was going on.
"W-well I can't test it now as it requires some setup." Kowalski rubbed the back of his neck, desperate to get out of the situation.
"We'll help." Rico said.
Kowalski's nervous smile dropped from his face, "oh no, you really don't have to. I need to run some preliminary tests first anyway, to make sure it's safe."
"What does it do?" Private stumbled over to it and Kowalski quickly stood in his way.
"That's not important." Kowalski stretched his arms out wide as if he were trying to hide the machine.
"Answer the private's question Kowalski. That's an order." Skipper demanded seriously. Kowalski chewed his lower lip anxiously and looked over his shoulder. Skipper sighed and pushed him out of the way and pulled the control panel closer to him and was about to read the words on it but Kowalski slammed his hand on it and tried to pull it away from his leader.
"Skipper you really don't want to do that." Kowalski attempted to power the machine down but Skipper shoved him aside and pressed "cancel" repeatedly.
"Kowalski, I don't want to have to use force against you." Skipper yelled as both struggled to have the control panel. Private and Rico watched, unsure of whether or not to intervene but Private was too scared to step in and Rico was enjoying watching the fight too much. Both slammed their closed fists down on the screen and as it began to flash red Kowalski stepped on Skipper's foot and elbowed him away to read the message flashing on the screen.
"No, no, no, this can't happen!" Kowalski pressed buttons frantically. Rico saw that Skipper was about to try and take the panel back and restrained him, pinning his arms behind his back. Private rushed to Kowalski's side in case he could help in anyway. "Duck!" Kowalski shouted and shoved Private to the floor and then lay on the floor himself. Rico followed in the same way and the machine exploded.
Skipper didn't know how much time had passed from the explosion to him regaining consciousness, all he knew was he had a headache and was covered in debris. His vision was blurry as he opened his eyes, and his headache grew worse as he sat upright.
"Kowalski, what happened?" He asked. His voice sounded different. It was higher pitched and more feminine. He looked down at himself, and his suspicions were close to being confirmed. "Kowalski!" He yelled again but only succeeded in waking Private and Rico.
"Ow, my head really hurts." Private complained. He looked over at Skipper and his eyes widened. "What happened to you?" He crawled across the floor so that he was closer to his leader.
"Same thing that happened to you and Rico and I'm guessing Kowalski as well." Skipper wondered if Private hadn't actually noticed the changes that had happened to him, or was more concerned with Skipper than himself.
"Huh? Oh my goodness!" Private exclaimed as looked down and heard his voice properly. Private sounded young normally, but with his more female voice, he sounded like he was barely a teenager. He clasped his hands over his mouth and made the mistake of looking over at Rico who was far too enthusiastic about his new body.
Eventually, Kowalski woke up too and was immediately interrogated by Skipper, who asked him, "Kowalski, what has that invention of yours done to us?" He started calmly, and ended shouting.
"Well. It would appear that my invention has worked. It's reversed your biological sex. For all of us, actually." Kowalski explained and stared at his three teammates, dumbfounded.
"If that's what it's done, then why are you exactly the same?" Private questioned.
"That's a good point Private. Your voice is exactly the same and you don't have any of... these." Skipper gestured to his chest, inviting Kowalski to stare at it for which Skipper slapped him across the face for.
"Because I was a girl in the first place." Kowalski replied. Private gasped, Skipper glared at him and Rico raised one eyebrow and smiled.
First I want to explicitly state that Kowalski is not transsexual in case you thought that, that's not something I would attempt because I don't think I'd be able to handle it well. This will be explained in the next few chapters but I wanted to make my previous point clear. Anyway, with that out of the way, I'm back! It was lovely to write this and it's also an insight into my personal headcanon. I hope you guys like reading it as much as I liked writing it.