Masked Mystery - Scap in the Paperverse: Confounded Compounded

#66 - Opposite Gender

After an accident or all-night bender, your character wakes up the opposite gender! Science, or magic, or maybe a curse, show how they react, for better, or worse!

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All Scap remembered before he blanked out was stumbling into Aultiver's office, grabbing the desk, trying to stop himself from falling over. 

A shattering sound. Slipping in something slick. Splintered glass under his hand. The smell of cherries and menthol. 

"Of all the times and places to be guttering, now? Whoa there, okay— let's get you to the table. . ."

—

Sleeping off the effects of both the guttering and the anti-guttering medicine normally made him feel somewhat back to normal afterwards.

Normally. There was an inexplicable strangeness, an odd incompleteness this time.

"Good morning, Sleeping Beauty.”

The proximity of the voice to his face startled him enough to jerk himself upright, colliding his forehead with the cold, rough mask belonging to the Multiverse Visor.

“Gah! Aultiver! Don’t do that, that’s weird!” Scap rubbed his head, then touched his throat. He coughed a couple of times. “Better now—? Hhh!” He gasped, clapping a hand over his mouth.

A girl’s voice. The words that had come out of his mouth were spoken by a girl’s voice. Afraid to utter anything else, he leveled a stare at Aultiver. 

Explain this, Scap’s expression read.

“Right. Your mind was probably too distracted to remember knocking over my carefully-distilled compounds from the desk.”

Oh. The minty cherry smell. “Why do you keep compounds in your office and not the lab?” Scap asked, trying (and failing) not to be disoriented by the sound of his own voice.

“Why do you come staggering all the way to my office instead of going to the MedCen?” Aultiver shot back, not angrily, but matter-of-factly.

Scap picked a spot on the wall to stare at. “I don’t like going to the MedCen.” He fiddled with the ends of his hair, twisting the strands around his fingers.

Wait. 

His hair had never been that long before.

He reached up to his head, combing his fingers through his hair that just kept going, past shoulder length, nearly halfway down his back. 

“Aultiver! What was that compound?”

“I don’t exactly know, because someone spilled it all over themselves when I was in the middle of trying to relabel things.” 

Though it was not uncommon for Aultiver to use an light tone with passive-aggressive sentences, the Visor seemed like he was deriving more amusement from Scap’s situation than the sperix would’ve liked. “Would you like a mirror? Perhaps Jasi has some old outfits that you can fit into."

Scap threw the nearest cushion at Aultiver. “Tell me this can be reversed. Does it wear off? Do you need to make an antidote?”

Aultiver caught the pillow and set back at the foot of Scap’s bed. “Steady, Princess. Don’t get your feathers all ruffled.”

“Call me that again - or any such nickname - and I will throw something harder at you.” 

“I’m a Multiverse Visor. Of course I can reverse it. I’m surprised you would call into question my abilities.” The contrast between Aultiver’s scientific and sporting personality never failed to unnerve Scap. Especially since he said everything with the same breezy tone.

“It would take a couple of days at most. The lab has all the components needed for an antidote. Simple tasks of gathering material and distilling it.”

“There’s a catch, isn’t there?” Scap was tired of waiting for the Visor to drag out the details.

Aultiver whispered, “Ooh, she’s a smart one.” He covered it up with a forced cough before Scap could react. “You made the mess in the first place.”

“I was guttering! You can’t blame me for what I do when my mind isn’t completely communicating with my body—”

“You spilled my compound,” Aultiver repeated, with an edge of no-nonsense in his voice, “so you’re going to collect the materials from the other labs around the facility.”

Scap sighed. “But-” Shards, he sounded like a petulant thirteen-year old schoolgirl. “Mmmhhh, fine. If that makes you get this done faster. But I’m wearing my own clothes!”

Aultiver nodded. “Good girl.”

Scap reached for another pillow.