"I'm telling you, this isn't going to work!" Rachel hissed as Sean messed with the dials. She had to hand it to Simon, he was a whack-job, but he wasn't stupid with what he was doing. Sean had found an instruction diagram on the counter, assuming Simon had dropped it there before passing out in his room, and was setting up the machine to be used.

"If it doesn't work, I'll do your homework for a month." He stepped back as the machine hummed to life. "That should do it."

"All right Mr. Smarty-pants, but what are we going to use? That thing is DNA-based, meaning we need a living thing to go in it."

Sean held out a fist. "Rock, paper, scissors for it."

"You— oh fine." She held out a fist and they shook three times each, with Rachel landing on scissors and Sean on rock. "You suck, you know that?"

"No, you do."

She growled. "Fine. Not like this thing's going to work anyway." She stood in the machine on the glowing blue panel. "Now what?"

Sean flipped the page over. "Oh, here it is: Press the sequence 5, 3, 9, 6 and hit scan."

Rachel did just that and jumped as the machine began to make strange noises and move. "Sean…"

"Don't worry, if it's anything like the scanners in movies, it's just taking in all your information."

She took a deep breath as the outer ring of the floor lifted up slowly, emitting a blue laser the entire way. Not like this'll even work anyway.

"Engaging DNA transfer."

The interior of the tube illuminated, filling the whole room with blinding light. She screwed her eyes shut, feeling a very unpleasant lurch in her stomach. It's not working, it's not working, please don't be working.

After what seemed like an eternity, the lights faded, and she was able to open her eyes.

She had to blink a few times as she saw the floor closer to her than before. Wait a sec, the room was a whole lot darker before we did this.

"Rachel?" Sean peeked his head around the couch. "Holy crap, it worked! The thing actually worked!"

She looked down at her hands and suppressed a scream. What was once pale, freckled skin was now a dark green, and her fingers ended in sharp talons. Her body was thin and unrecognizable for what was once a human body. Her hips were now blocky, and jutted out into two spikes before slimming down into legs. She took a deep, steadying breath before putting her claws to her neck, feeling upwards to a rounded jaw line, a small nose where here glasses still sat, and at the top of her head, two, large ear-like things draped down to her lower back. "Oook, this is interesting. Now turn me back, it's your turn."

Sean looked at the instructions and yelped.

"What?"

"Um… well, about that—"

Just at that moment, Simon came out of his room, most likely in search of something from the kitchen, and automatically saw one of two things, the first being a strange creature in his home. "PROOF! I'll have my funding this time!" He didn't even take in the fact Sean was there as he grabbed a gun from behind the counter and proceeded to chase Rachel from the house, leaving the poor boy sputtering out explanations to the wind.

Meanwhile, Rachel huffed and puffed, tripping over her new blocky feet as she struggled to get away. "You dolt, it's me, Rachel!"

"That's what you want me to think, Monster! You probably have Rachel locked away in one of your garbage hideaways! Or in the sewers!"

The sewers! She ran as fast as she could down the block and took a sharp turn down an alley, hearing her cousin slam into something as he tried stopping as well. There was an open sewer line down that way, and she'd fit perfectly with her new body. She held on to her glasses, and with one big leap of faith, plunged into the darkness that was the sewers of Newark.