//------------------------------//
// Shimmer, Sparkle, and... 
// Story: Forever Friends 
// by The Blue EM2 
//------------------------------//

Katrina sat looking out of her window over the gloomy landscape that morning. The weather had dropped cold, and snow had begun to drift across the landscape as fog rolled in. It was oddly quiet too, and Olathe was not the mildly busy place it usually was at this time of year. Family meant a lot to folks in the Midwest, but she couldn't have been further from her own than was possible.

Her parents and siblings were still living in Topeka, whilst she had moved out and got her own job to take the strain off of them. She felt, after all, now was the best time to move on. Nothing lasts forever, and this cut especially hard for her. Like a lot of people, she struggled with the hardest thing of all.

Letting go.

Then her life had taken a turn for the crazy. Not long ago, her old Christian youth friend, Tom Haddington, had invited her to spend a few days with him and Jimmy Hook, another friend of his, at Walt Disney World for a chance to get away from it all. But Tom had neglected to mention Jimmy's bizarre skill for spontaneous transformation, and it had infected both her and Tom. Not only that, it had happened for eight nights in a row to all three of them. She had hoped getting away from Jimmy would make it stop, but no such luck. Only a few weeks ago, it had happened again, just this time it was Mel Chase from Milo Murphy's Law! Having heard that Jimmy had started changing into Disney Princesses, and that Tom had briefly ended up as Ember the Dragon whilst on holiday in Germany was troubling to say the least.

Which brings us to the here and now. Katrina had called him and asked him to fly over, as it seemed their affliction was starting to evolve into something else. And it scared her. What else was going to happen? Tom seemed to be equally uncertain about the matter, but had agreed to come over to the States, as he had family in Pennsylvania he wanted to see anyways, and Olathe wasn't a massive detour off his route.

She was simply waiting for him to get here. Her phone suddenly buzzed, and she grabbed it. "Hello?" she asked, swiping the green button and listening to the voice on the other end.

"Hi Kat!" Tom's voice replied. "I've parked my car and should be inside pretty soon. I just need to find your adress. I must say I can see why the small town in so appealing to Americans."

"You don't say!" Katrina replied. "Big city folks like yourself don't always see that."

"I live on the outskirts of Nottingham," Tom answered, sounding midly annoyed as he did so. "Anyways, I'll pay for my ticket, and then head on over. Boy is it cold!" The line clicked shut.

Katrina set the phone down, and smiled. It would be good, nontheless, to see him again, as the last time they'd met had been a bit chaotic. Figuring Tom would probably like a hot drink (having mentioned he liked American strength coffee), she went into her kitchen to get some coffee prepared. As she walked in, she took out what she needed, and turned to get a spoon.

She tripped over a tree branch that was somehow lying on her kitchen floor that hadn't been there, and hit the floor with a bang. Her forehead crashed into a wall, and her glasses fell off her face, falling onto the floor and cracking. She reached for them, only to stop.

Her palm had turned a light pink, and as she looked at it in confusion, it began to spread out in a circle and radiate across the rest of her hand.

"No, no, NO, NO! NOT AGAIN!"

Not questioning in that moment how she could see perfectly clearly without her glasses, the pink colour had by now completely covered her skin, leaving her looking like she was mildly sunburned. Groaning, she pulled herself over to a mirror and looked on at what was happening as the infection did its terrible work of ruining her day for the 11th time in a row.

Her eyes turned from their usual hazel to a colour that vaguely resembled the grape flavour of Gatorade, and her eyebrows turned purple moments later as her fringe pulled back to the top of her forehead. One strand than rose up in front of it and flopped in front, curling again into the air as it did so. Moments after that, more hair fell onto her shoulders and ran down her back. The sensation of her hair growing so fast was bizarre. Not painful, just weird. This was thankful, as apparently Jimmy had had a few that were excruciatingly painful. She then decreased in height by about three inches or so (a guess, as she did not have a ruler on hand, so she made a guess from the pillar behind her), but other than that nothing changed. Her build remained precisely the same.

She suddenly seemed to jerk upwards a few inches, only to notice her feet now had black and dark grey boots on, with no clue as to the state of her socks. Her jeans tightened on her legs, and turned a grey colour before fading slightly, no other changes being readily observable. A black wristwatch with a white cover, featuring a symbol in the centre, appeared on her wrist whilst her shirt's neckline dropped, but not very far, turning into a fairly typical V neck, before the entire garment turned a light green, with purple trim on the ends of the sleeves and around the neckline.

And with that, it was over. Katrina tried her voice. "Well, this is weird." She stopped as Starlight Glimmer's voice came out of her mouth. Glancing down to check her clothing was to her liking, she picked up the piece of wood, grumbling to herself. "I'll give this to Jed to cut up. He'll know what to do with magic pieces of-"

She stopped, and peered closer. "Wait a second, this is the Staff of Sameness! How did this get here?"

Just then, there was a knock at the door, and she went to answer it, turning the key in the lock.

"It sure is cold out here, and I hope I ma-" Tom trailed off as he looked at his friend, now a fictional character. "Kat, is this going to happen whenever we meet?"

"That's kinda what we need to talk about," Starlight replied. "Ice cream?"