Twinning Effect (Mass Effect Twinning/Isekai) (Patreon)

Clark dropped his bag on the floor with a sigh as he shoved his way into the dorm room. “I’m baaack…” he called half-heartedly, trying not to yawn. It was kind of late in the day - the young man had decided to take evening classes so that he could goof off in the mornings. He dropped his drenched umbrella in a bucket beside the door and shrugged off his coat.

“Welcome back,” came the call from the couch at the other end of the room. “Have a good one?”

“Same as ever.” Clark sighed, wandering over to the couch. “You, Billy?”

“Same as ever.” Billy echoed. He had something of the opposite class arrangement to Clark; he took early classes, so his evenings were free.

As a result, the pair didn’t actually see each other much besides a few muttered niceties in the mornings after waking up and in the evenings before bed. It suited the pair of not super social young men just fine, in the end. Today was one of the few days in an average school week that had the two college students awake and active at roughly the same time.

“What’cha playing?” Clark said, depositing himself unceremoniously upon the couch.

“A game.” Billy said with a noncommittal shrug, keeping his focus on the television in front of him.

The screen was occasionally flashing colors as explosions went off, powers activated, and gunfire filled the air. Clark rolled his eyes a bit - Billy had a whole thing about not playing with headphones since they hurt his ‘immersion’, which was why if he studied he tended to do it anywhere but the dorm.

It took Clark a few moments to focus in, but when he did he noticed what was being played. It was a game he recognized - the controversial capstone of an incredibly popular sci-fi trilogy, Mass Effect 3. “Huh. Old game.” he commented trying to make small talk.

“Old but good.” Billy said with a shrug. The fight wrapped up, and then they were in some cutscenes where the characters were talking amongst themselves. Billy had clearly played the game before, and didn’t seem to need to pay much attention to keep up.

Clark laughed at that. “Good, right. Practically killed the franchise good.”

“Just because it had a bad ending doesn’t mean the game leading up to it was bad.” Billy said with the voice of one who had made this exact argument many times before. “If the game wasn’t a sequel to one of the best shooter-rpgs of it’s time, then people would call it a decent sci-fi game.”

“That doesn’t matter when it was supposed to be the climax of a whole trilogy,” Clark countered, “With how much your choices mattered in this one, you might as well have focused on deciding which girl or guy you were going with.”

As they argued, the storm outside grew louder and more violent. It was just a casual debate about a video game - something that neither of them were really about to get super worked up over. But the storm gave it some emotional punch that it normally wouldn’t have had - especially when thunder cracked at Clark’s last remark.

There was a flash of light, and both young men shouted with fright, unprepared for the sudden brightness that came from the screen and enveloped them both.

-----

“Gah, what was that!?” Clark groaned, rubbing his eyes as dark spots swam in his vision.

“Maybe a circuit tripped? Or the storm hit something important?” Billy suggested, mirroring the action.

They soon realized they had different problems at hand. The place around them looked nothing like the simple dorm room they’d just exited, but rather like some strange laboratory. There were computers and monitors beeping and reporting about some concepts neither college student could grasp, an assortment of instruments of indeterminate purpose, and the whole place was a sterile white and blue color. There was a background thrumming noise, a vibration spread through the whole of the floors and walls that never ceased.

“...Clark, I don’t think this is our dorm.” Billy said after a bit.

“No shit, Sherlock.” Clark snapped. “I don’t remember doing any LSD or whatever…”

“Neither do I.” Billy looked around, poking at some machines and the walls. “...Ok, I think I would have hit something real by now if this was a hallucination… so I think it might be real? And it’s really familiar...”

It hit them both at once. Of course it did - they’d seen the room not five minutes earlier. The room was straight out of Mass Effect, a laboratory that Billy had been working his way through. “What the hell? It’s just a game…”

The two of them now took a moment to look at each other, and saw that something was wrong - their clothes had at some point changed from their casual outfits into more futuristic looks. Clark was wearing a slim, form-fitting white top with black sleeves and with a hexagonal pattern spread across it, along with matching pants and shoes and a strange angled belt holding the ensemble together. Meanwhile, Billy had a full on off-white and blue bodysuit - not quite as form-fitting, but he could tell that as flexible as it was it was hardened and capable of taking some damage.

More importantly, they were the clothes of two characters from the game. It was hard to tell on male figures at first, but Clark was definitely dressed as Miranda, the genetically modified superhuman introduced in the second game, and Billy was dressed up in the outfit of series staple Liara, the alien researcher who used what was effectively space magic to fight in each game.

“You know, that isn’t nearly as flattering a look on a guy…” Billy commented.

“And neither is yours, shut it.” Clark shot back. He pulled at the lapel of his top, as if checking it was real - and it definitely was. “Why’d we end up dressed like girls? I’d prefer Garrus’ outfit.”

“That’s hardly our biggest problem.”

As they talked, it became clear that they weren’t just going to stay dressed as the characters. It was immediately obvious that their clothes were not the only thing to change - mostly because their chests swelled in size - it wasn’t long before their formally masculine chests were pushing against their tops. It was less of a stretching feeling, and more filling in space that was reserved for the purpose, as their clothes conformed to their changing shapes.

Clark tried to push his budding bosom back down. “W-What!? I know I like touching this stuff, but not when it’s on my own chest!” he declared, struggling to keep his breasts flat and masculine, but was quite distracted by how it felt to handle the new mounds.

Meanwhile, Billy stared down in fascination. “What the heck…?” he said in confused interest, not fully able to accept the reality until he poked one of his new boobs. “W-Wow, they’re real…” he stammered, pressing them again and again from each angle, as if to confirm that yes, he had developed a not insignificant rack.

“That’s not normal!” Clark stated the obvious, “How far is this going to go- ah!”

The yelp came as he reached to his rear, and found it growing right beneath his fingers. Miranda’s outfit was meant for a curvy lady, and it was going to be worn by one no matter what else happened. The change came fast as he tried desperately to maintain his male shape, but that simply wasn’t going to happen. Billy once again mirrored the change, albeit not quite as extreme in his case.

“I think it’s going to be all of the way…” Billy said, reaching down to confirm his manhood was present. At the time it was - but whatever was changing the pair seemed to take that as a reminder. The small bulge in their tight clothes began to fade, and both blushed as they felt a strange heat inside of them. Their manhoods shrank away, sucking inwards and being replaced, and their interiors were being remodeled to match their new exteriors.

“What does all the way mean!?” Clark demanded, his voice higher pitched than it had been moments prior. “Are we just going to be women, or…” he trailed off. “...You’re turning blue.”

“I-I think I’m turning into Liara…” Billy said - indeed, he was turning blue, his skin at his extremities looking nearly frostbitten - and then continuing right onwards to a full pastel blue. His hair began to shrink into his head - Asari didn’t have any hair, after all. They had something different instead…

“Then that would mean I’m…” Clark trailed off - he reached a hand to his face, and found it softer, with less rigid lines than before, and his light brown hair was lengthening and darkening even as he felt it up. “I’m going to be Miranda? Why her!? She’s hot and all, but I don’t want to be her!”

“We’re not getting a choice!” Billy replied. He didn’t exactly want to be an alien woman either, even a sexy one!

But as he said, they clearly had no choice in the matter. They were going to transform whether they liked it or not, and Billy could feel his face changing, the bone structure changing to give him a softer and more feminine face, while his head… well, he didn’t know how to describe the formation of the Asari head-crests; it felt sort of like his head was extending to replace the volume that losing his hair had freed up.

For Clark’s part, he was starting to feel conflicted - he didn’t want to be a sexy woman… but Miranda was still probably one of the hottest girls in the game, so he kind of wanted to get a mirror. If he was going to turn into a babe, he may as well get to see her!

Both men-turned-women felt a strange sensation - things seemed clearer, as if the world around them had just become just that bit more real. Their biotics had formed, and with it their transformation was completed.

“Miranda, what-” Liara started to say, before realizing she’d just called her roommate Miranda. And thought of herself as Liara! She definitely remembered who she and her roommate had been not ten minutes before, but as much as she tried to think of their names, all she got was Miranda and Liara. “M-Miranda, what’s happened to us!?”

“I don’t know!” Miranda replied, pacing in place as she tried to work out what to do - and finding herself unconsciously shaking her hips as she did, in the character’s traditional sexy gait.

Before the women had much time to think, there was a beep at the door, and a whoosh as it slid open. A red-headed woman walked in, and nodded to both of them. “Liara. Miranda.” she said.

“Shepherd.” Liara acknowledged with a tilt of her head - but she hadn’t meant to do that. She no longer felt in control of her body, as it moved and talked on it’s own.

Miranda, for her part, nodded to the woman as well. “Commander.”

“Am I interrupting something?” Shepherd asked, looking between the two.

“Miranda was just having me examine her biotics.” Liara said. “Some minor issues caused by hits during the last mission, but nothing that won’t recover.”

“Doctor T’Soni is quite brilliant,” Miranda confirmed. “I’d not noticed the damage myself until she pointed it out.”

Both of them knew it wasn’t… fully truthful; after all, Liara was a researcher, not a medic, even if she was quite skilled with biotics. It had been more a private matter related to her contacts as the Shadow Broker; this lab was just the nearest private space when they’d decided to chat.

Of course, knowing that was also a lie - they had been just transforming into the video game characters. But that reality warred in their head with the fiction of the setting they’d found themselves inhabiting, occupying the same space.

“Did you need something?” Miranda asked, smoothly changing the subject from what she and the doctor had been speaking about.

“No,” Shepherd said, “I was just checking in on the things here. Going around to make sure the crew is all keeping themselves out of trouble.”

Shepherd, not much of one for military formality these days, nodded to the two and left the room.

The two ladies were worried they’d be stuck in character even when Shepherd left, but once the door shut behind her, they were back in control. “We can’t even talk for ourselves…” Miranda grumbled.

“That… will make it hard to work on a way back.”

The two racked their brains, trying to think of a way to leave the game - but when someone else came and the two slipped back into character, it became obvious they were going to be stuck there for a while. They just had to hope this Shepherd was going for the best ending...