It was another typical day in Manteo, North Carolina, with the sun being out in force despite the cooling temperatures as October was starting to come to an end and November was approaching. It was a good time for good thoughts, and Jimmy Hook had been seized. No, he had not been seized because of something he ate, but he was seized by inspiration. A long time ago, he had been contacted by a friend of his from the UK, who had told him all about the city of New Orleans in Louisiana, and he apparently had an absolute blast there. The sights were wondrous, the music was wonderful, and the food was simply too good to be missed. How can you go wrong with alligator sausage, gumbo and clam chowder? These were all things that appealed to Jimmy as an American, despite being a chap from North Carolina, and he had resolved to go there some day.
There was a rather big problem, however. Jimmy was understandably scared of flying. On a previous day back in February, he had been the only survivor of a plane crash in the California desert, and had then-
(LANGUAGE UNTRANSLATABLE; PLEASE CONTACT TRANSLATION OFFICER FOR FURTHER ADVICE.)
Oh, hello Somnambula. I thought you'd be napping in your sarcophagus now?
(LANGUAGE UNTRANSLATABLE; PLEASE CONTACT TRANSLATION OFFICER FOR FURTHER ADVICE.)
Could you please speak English? Somny, this program doesn't support heiroglyphics.
"Sorry. Well, I escaped from the plane, and then fell on top of an old green necklace, which turned me into Somnambula. We then had a big battle between myself and the Sphinx, with the support of a US Army unit in the neighborhood. Just then, I exhausted myself, and was loaded into a box to go back to Manteo. It's here things get a little fuzzy."
"You may want to ask me."
Later, Moonlight, later. Back to our story!
As Somnambula nicely narrated for us, Jimmy had been involved in a plane crash and turned into Somnambula. The fact this occurred on a Monday was no coincidence, for Jimmy's curse (or gift, depending on who you asked) was set off on that very day each week. Nonetheless, he had set out to go and see New Orleans for himself, and he was going there in the only way to travel he thought best.
No, he wasn't going by car. At least not all the way. He was going by train for most of it! He had already booked his tickets for the journey, and he was travelling on the 12:22 from Greensboro, North Carolina, to New Orleans Union Terminal. It hadn't been cheap, at $121 a person, but he felt that was a better saving than flying. The last night, he had packed his bags, and his suitcase, as well as a small backpack, were loaded and ready to go. He carted them outside his home and loaded them into the trunk of his car, before locking the door to his house and stepping back to his automobile. He already had his road route set out for him, taking him through Rocky Mount, Burlington, and Raleigh (although not in that order), and at four hours, he needed to set off. So, at 7, he sat down in the driver's seat, started the engine, and set off for Greensboro.
"Goodbye Manteo," he said calmly. "I hope nothing too crazy happens whilst I'm gone."
As he set off down the road, it didn't even cross his mind that tomorrow was a Monday.
Jimmy arrived at the Greensboro station at 11:30, and parked his car in a clear space. He got out, shut the door, and put a parking ticket in that would cover him for the week, and then proceeded to recover his bags from the car's trunk. The station at Greensboro, or the J. Douglas Galyon depot, to give the structure its full name, was a large, imposing building, built of granite in a mock Roman style. The section further back was made of brick, and featured many windows into which the sunlight fell on most days (and when it didn't, that was usually because of cloud). Slinging his backpack onto his back, and extending the drag handle on his suitcase, he set off into the station and through the doors, stopping at a seat just inside to take his backpack off again. He had just remembered his tickets were in there, and unless he had them in his hand this would be a very short journey indeed, terminating in a fine. He pulled out the folder containing them, and walked over to the access gate, where a ticket inspector was standing.
"May I see your tickets please, sir?" he asked.
"Sure, here you go," Jimmy replied, taking the ticket out of the folder and handing it over. The ticket inspector peered at it, before suddenly looking up.
"Aren't you Jimmy Hook?" he asked.
Jimmy was a bit stunned. "Er, yes sir?" he replied.
"I know you from the news! That thing about a mermaid!" The ticket inspector went on speaking as he checked over the ticket. "I recall there were two of them."
"That was a seapony, sir," Jimmy replied. "Rather different things."
"I wouldn't know about such strange things," the ticket inspector replied, as he finished checking the paperwork. "Everything looks to be in order, and the train is currently running 15 minutes behind schedule. Enjoy your trip."
"Thank you!" Jimmy exclaimed, and headed off through the doors to the platform.
He would enjoy himself, but not in the way he had intended at all...
Jimmy stood on the platform for about an hour or so. Why he did this, when he could have got a warm drink inside, nobody knows. But hey, Jimmy was just Jimmy some days. Come to think of it, he was Jimmy most of the time, despite all the strange shenanigans that seemed to follow him about most days. As the clock hit 12:25, a loud horn echoed from the Washington, D.C. end of the platform, and a pair of angular nosed diesels, numbered 77 and 88, rolled into the platform, with a full rake of circular, sausage shaped coaches behind them. These were, of course, Amtrak P42DCs, or the much reviled 'Genesis' units, mainly due to their lack of reliability and high running cost. The train ground to a stop, the door stopping a few feet away from Jimmy.
He consulted his paperwork. "Let's see... ah! I'm in coach C." He walked down the train, and once the ramp had deployed and the door had opened, the passengers for Greensboro got off. Jimmy then climbed aboard, and walked along the carriage until he took his seat. It was fairly comfortable, and at least there was free Wi-Fi and power ports, for the trains lacked any backseat TV. The cheapskates.
Luckily, Jimmy had brought his iPad, and proceeded to take it out. He had loaded the entirely of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Season 7 onto it, and was picking episodes at random as he felt like it. Just then, the train intercom went.
"Good afternoon, passengers joining us at Greensboro," said the engineer's voice on the other end of the intercom. "We are just setting off now, and are due into New Orleans at 19:32 tomorrow, local time. We hope you enjoy the journey."
The engineer sounded the horn, and both engines kicked into gear, the noise being produced by their engines deafening as the train rolled away towards the Big Easy.
One day later (or thereabouts), Jimmy was enjoying another episode of My Little Pony. He had decided, seeing as he was going to the heart of Cajun country, he should watch some episodes centered around Mage Meadowbrook, who seemed to be either Cajun or Creole; nobody was quite sure. The fact she was his favorite Pillar of Old Equestria was a marvelous coincidence, and he settled down to enjoy another one, there was suddenly a bump.
"Wow!" said a passenger nearby. "This is seriously bumpy!"
"This is worse than Network Rail," said a man with a British accent. "Trust me, that's saying something."
Jimmy thought no more of it as the train rolled along.
At the front, the engineer looked out ahead, the rails clear as he rolled along the side of a bayou, or for those who don't speak Cajun, a swamp or marshy lake. It was clear ahead, and the sun was out, but he was thankful for the air conditioning in the locomotive, as boy could it get stuffy out there! "Good, we're running on time," he said.
Just then, a blast of energy flew down from the sky, looking like a yellow cluster of light. It impacted a rail, causing an entire section of track to buckle and break away, falling uselessly to the side of the ballast. They were going to crash!
"What the?" the engineer cried, and slammed the brakes on. "All passengers, brace for derailment!"
The engine hit the track and toppled over, paintwork and plating grinding along the side of the embankment and the swamp, as the second locomotive also fell over, followed by the first three coaches. Everything from Coach D and back miraculously stayed upright, and came to a stop. Those passengers were simply shaken up a bit, but before that were not so lucky.
As Coach C toppled over, the passengers grabbed onto whatever they could to avoid falling onto the side of the coach. Miraculously, the coach was undamaged as it toppled onto one side, but a window shattered and the person sitting behind it fell out. Guess who that poor unfortunate soul was?
Yes, it was Jimmy. His iPad flew through the air and went splat in the mud, as he hit the ground at low speed. "Oww," he groaned. "Why can't I use any public transport without it going wrong?" First a plane crash in California from months ago, then his car suffering a flat tire in the Great Dismal Swamp a few weeks ago, and now a train derailment in a bayou in Louisiana of all things! He stood up, and looked forward, seeing the mess that had accumulated before the damaged rails. Or rather, that hadn't accumulated, as the stock looked undamaged. Apart from being sideways, it seemed it would run properly if it were put on some rails. As he looked around, trying to figure out where on Earth he was, he suddenly heard a voice.
"This way, Jimmy!" it called, from somewhere in the swamp.
Jimmy swung around in surprise. "Who's there?" he asked. But there was nobody around.
"This way, Jimmy!" There it was again. There was a female voice out there, in the swamp, calling to him. This merited further investigation. So he set off into the forest, keen to track the voice down.
"I say, get back here!" shouted the British man. But Jimmy never heard him.
Jimmy stepped over fallen logs, marshy ground, and more leaves than he cared to remember as he walked through the bayou. It was swampy, and messy, and horribly humid, and he ditched his coat whilst walking through the swamp in order to avoid overheating. It amazed him that anybody could be out here at all.
"This way, Jimmy! I'm over here!" But there was definitely a voice out there. A voice Jimmy intended to find. As it got louder, he suddenly saw a metal object sticking out of the ground. An open bracelet! But what was one of those doing out here? Jimmy went over to it, and knelt down, taking a closer look as he did so. This was a mistake.
Just as his hand reached out to touch the bracelet, it gained a life of its own. It lunged towards him, and snapped down on the black hair tie around his left wrist, severing it permanently (or at least severing this particular one, as Jimmy had purchased quite a few in advance should instances like this occur frequently). As it fell to the floor and sank into the mud, the bracelet came to life once more, jumping forward and snapping shut around Jimmy's left wrist, the lock engaging to hold it in place.
"Argh! What the hell?" he exclaimed, grabbing it with his other hand and trying to free it to no avail. Just then, a blue pulse shot through the air, and an electrical jolt shot clean through Jimmy.
The pulse was seen back at the crash site, the passengers scrambling over from the side of the train to see what was going on.
"What in the world?" asked one.
"Beats me," said another. "But it does remind me of something I saw on an internet chatroom once..."
Jimmy staggered back at the electrical pulse, confused at what was going on. And then it all became clear, as he began to shrink, his body getting smaller and smaller until it was only a fraction of its former size. His clothes lay about him in a heap as his toes shrank into his feet, the remains of his feet shifting until they morphed into hooves. Just then, his leg joints inverted, now facing backwards. The destruction of his kneecaps was not lost on him, which in turn caused him to fall onto all fours in a state of indescribable agony.
"OW!" he yelled. "MAKE IT STOP! PLEASE!!!"
The area just above his butt began to tingle, and the sensation slowly got stronger and stronger. Jimmy looked behind himself as best he could, to suddenly see a red tail burst out of his backside, growing longer until it reached the floor. A pair of braids appeared in it to hold it in place. But if he had just grown a tail, then that meant...
His thought process was interrupted as his hips cracked and changed shape, his legs being forced under his body. He cried out in pain once again as he felt his manhood start to move, receding into his body to be replaced with the opposite set of equipment.
Or should I say, as it was by this point, her body, as something else appeared in their place, followed by two lumps next to her legs. Her chest grew in size and rounded out, morphing into a barrel. Just then, her shoulders were forced inwards, shoulders compressing as if they were being pushed through a scrap crusher, as her arms suddenly inverted as well, her fingers shrinking into her hands. What remained of her hand then rolled up into another hoof, changing her arms into forelegs.
Jimmy groaned in agony. She had only just remembered it was Monday. She had little time to think about that as her neck reared back and grew longer, making her look like a giraffe. Her nose and mouth grew out of her face, changing into a muzzle, and her eyes grew larger and larger, turning a different shade of blue in the process. Not only that, large, feminine eyelashes appeared on either side of her face, and her eye shape changed to one that was fairly similar to that of a familiar yellow Pegasus, although Jimmy was in too much pain at this point to think straight. As her muzzle had formed, made from both her nose and mouth, her red glasses had started to come loose. Eventually, they could take no more strain, and the bridge broke in two, the sound of breaking metal audible for several feet around. The end result was that they fell off of her and into the swampy water. They sank to the bottom, rusting and losing their former color, although a passing fish briefly took interest in the mixture of metal and glass that was drifting around. Not that this was much of a concern for Jimmy. She had plenty of spare pairs, and besides, she had bigger things to worry about. She didn't really need those glasses anyways as her retina had focused, rendering her able to see clearly without them, the world a crazy mixture of technicolor.
Her ears shrank into her skull, only for two more to grow out of the top of her skull as a pair of bands made of fabric grew around her forehead, the back of her skull, and looping over the top and bottom of her ears. Then her hair turned from brown to two-tone red, and began to pull itself up into a topknot, growing back until it was at least six inches above her head, held in place by another braid. Then blue fur sprouted from every part of her body, covering over the formally human skin.
Mage Meadowbrook looked about herself in alarm. "Well, Ah'll be!" she said, in a thick Cajun accent. "Ah can't go anywhere like this, can Ah?"
But it seems somebody heard her speaking, as just then a blue glow surrounded the ruined clothing. The shoes transformed into a metal collar that glowed the color of bronze, and the shirt shrank back until it was a single band of fabric. This moved into position around her neck, followed by the collar clicking into place. The pants were lifted up, and then shrank in size, before the legs merged together and the zip and button vanished, transforming the garment into a skirt. This then turned green, with a cream band running around the bottom, as parts of the skirt puffed up slightly. This then floated into place, and Mage Meadowbrook slid her legs through it as it came to a stop around her waist, and then dropped down, sitting over her tail, as well as not dragging on the ground. Safe to say, she looked truly stunning in her dress, a look only fitting for a mare like her. She then decided to look at her new form in the reflection of the water.
She looked magnificent in every detail in the reflection, her mother Mage Wellspring would be so proud of her.
"Well, this is better!" she said. But what was she doing again? Something about a place called 'Manteo' flashed through her mind. "Well, Ah'll suppose Ah'll head there!" she said. Checking her saddlebag, with a map and potions inside it, she set off on her trip through the swamp, a place she knew only too well.
Little did she know, however, that a fellow passenger had seen her trotting away. "A blue pony wearing a Cajun dress? I must be dreaming."