//------------------------------// // Chapter 13: Changing Wind // Story: SuShi's Bizarre Adventure: Twilit Curtain Call // by Jojoleopard //------------------------------// It was the fifth time Skyburn Dash had shaken Twilight Sparkle awake and she got up as groggy as ever, shaking her head wildly. “I’m awake. I’m awake.” “You should really get some proper rest. You’ve been up all night.” Skyburn sat down beside her. “Spike has the right idea. He’s out cold.” They both looked across the table where Twilight’s companion was in the process of inhaling a sheet of paper. They had already spent more than a day in the Canterlot Library, looking up anything they could about Die Die Riches and how to find their main headquarters. As he looked out the window, Skyburn could see that dawn was already breaking once again. Sweetie Belle was off at the Crusaders Foundation, going through what they had on Die Die Riches from around the world. That made Skyburn think about his uncle and cousin. They were off visiting Berlin and perhaps they had become targets of Die Die Riches as well. Trouble never seemed to stop finding them. They had been searching through the internet since leaving the Apple Farms, but nothing had come up on where Die Die Riches was operating from. Unlike the other activist groups, there was no information on how they started or who their leader even was. He didn’t know how much Twilight and Spike had gone through on the net, seeing as they had never once used a computer before, but he had gone through just about every news article and wiki, searching for anything, anything that could point them to Die Die Riches’ roots. He had to make them pay. For Appy, his dear Appy who was now gone. He had known her for a majority of his life, ever since elementary school and though they hadn’t always liked each other, their relationship had taken one step further four years ago during one of his biking events in school. He had fallen off his bike on a trial run and Appy wouldn’t even let him bandage up his wounds. She had done it all for him, no questions asked, and something in him ignited that day and they had been hanging out more ever since, and that soon blossomed into a romance that lasted until the morning before where she was taken away from him by people who wanted to see the end of rich people all around the world. Skyburn had pictured a family he would one day have with Appy. He wanted at least three children and they would all be as sporty and thrill seeking as he was. They would go on adventures around the world, climbing the tallest mountains, biking down the greatest of slopes, even jumping into the deepest lakes. But his dreams had all been crushed and it was all thanks to Die Die Riches. They had pushed their agenda into his life and now, he was going to push back. As long as they could find something about Die Die Riches on the internet. Both his mother and his aunt had stood up against rising evils and now, it was his turn to do his part for the world. Die Die Riches may think killing the rich would benefit the world, but it didn’t, at least not to him. He could understand the plight of less fortunate people in the world they lived in today, but he would not accept murder as a way to change that. As Twilight took his advice to get some rest, Skyburn continued through the internet, browsing through site after site after site as he searched for more articles about the rising activist group. As the day drew on and people started filling the library, Skyburn began to feel himself wearing out and he stopped to find a quieter section to get some rest, leaving Twilight and Spike by the tables. His first corner was rather quiet, with only one kid with huge glasses sitting on a beanbag, but his constant sneezing forced Skyburn to find another location, which led him to his second spot, behind a whole column of bookshelves at a triangular corner of the library. It was quiet here too, but that must’ve been why a couple had picked this place. There was a woman sitting in the lap of a man behind the last bookshelf and by the way she was moving and the expressions they were making, he wasn’t going to get much sleep here without thinking of what they were doing. His third location was close by, still behind all these bookshelves, but it was nothing but a long corridor of dusty shelves. People definitely hadn’t come this way in years, so he opted to just lie on the floor and close his eyes. He had only just done so when a shrill scream broke the silence and made him jump back up on his feet. “Yo-you’re a man!” a male voice yelled. “Who are you?!” “Who am I?” came another voice. “Who are you? You’re a woman!” “Ugh, my clothes are so tight! Why am I wearing a bra?” “I have boobs!” the other voice exclaimed. “Wait… did we… did we swap genders?!” the woman’s voice said. “I don’t know! Let’s get out of here!” There was a rush of footsteps and Skyburn jumped aside as the two people from the back ran by him. He had only caught glimpses of them earlier, but he was sure the man was dressed in a loose red flannel shirt and the woman in a tight pink shirt. Now, it was the other way around. “That’s odd…” Skyburn scratched his head, then he realized something. Something odd. “Wait, why do I have a girl’s voice?” Skyburn looked down and moved his hand around his body. He was shocked to learn that his body had become leaner and curvier, and more importantly, feminine. His hips had widened and there were two small mounds sticking up from his chest. “I-I’m a girl!” he shuffled his hands along his body and then pressed his cheeks together in surprise. “But how?” He only realized he was shouting after a few seconds and remembered he was in a library, a place of quiet and reflection. But at this point, he wasn’t the only one shouting. Skyburn could hear gasps and shouts of surprise as probably everyone in the library had found out their genders had been swapped. There were varying degrees of outbursts, but what Skyburn managed to pick up were, “Mommy, help! I have a peepee!” “Whoo, I’m a girl! I’m gonna touch myself so bad!” “What is going on?!” “Heeeeelp meeee!” “I just ripped my pants!” Then there was an explosion outside and Skyburn ducked, turning his head to the nearest window. There was a plume of smoke rising up from the window ledge and there were more screams from outside. “This has to be the work of an enemy Stand!” Skyburn peeked out and saw a buff woman lying on her back next to a fiery ball of a truck on its side. “She must’ve been flung out from the blast after realizing her gender had swapped.” More people ran about the street, most of them horrified that they were now a different gender. There were even two men strangling each other, likely fighting over the fact that they had become men. Another car crashed into the burning truck and exploded as well, forcing Skyburn down as the explosion shattered the window he was looking out from. “Runaway!” he yelled as a bluish Stand emerged from him, swiping at the blades of glass with two batons. It had a blue helmet over the top half of its head, covering everything above the tip of its nose and it had an outfit that resembled a motocross suit, but to his further surprise, his Stand had also taken on a female appearance. “I gotta find Twilight and Spike.” He shook his head. He wasn’t going to get used to hearing a female voice come out of his throat. Back at the main foyer of the library, everything around him was a mess. A girl was pulling her hair out and wailing to the air, a man was throwing books as far as he could, two children were poking each other and running all over the library and the librarian was running circles in her booth. Twilight and Spike were somehow still asleep at their table, though Spike was now a woman and Twilight a man with huge biceps and thighs. “Twilight! Spike! Wake up!” Skyburn shook the pair of them roughly. “We’re under attack!” Twilight was the first to open her eyes. “Huh? What? Where? What’s wrong with my voice?” “It’s an enemy Stand,” Skyburn told her urgently. “It’s changed the genders of everyone in the area. We need to stop it before everyone goes nuts!” “Changed genders?” Twilight looked at her hands, then at her body. “I guess I do look different now and I sound different. Human bodies are interesting. I’ll have to study them more when I have the time.” Another explosion sounded from outside and people were screaming and there seemed to be a full onset of panic going on out there. “Twi? What’s going on?” Spike got up and wiped the corner of his mouth. “Why is my hair so long? Did you do something to it?” Spike’s hair, which was normally a green mohawk, was now draped down the right side of his head, going all the way down to his shoulder. His body had slimmed down, especially his neck and Skyburn’s heart skipped a beat before he remembered Spike was actually a guy. He coughed and pointed to the door. “We need to get out there and find out what’s going on. We need to find the one responsible for this. Ten bucks says it’s Die Die Riches again.” “This Stand business is really crazy.” Spike got up and tried to brush his hair out of his face. Now that Skyburn had brushed a hand behind his head, he realized that his hair had also grown down to the small of his back, long and multicolored like his mother’s hair. Twilight’s hair, on the other hand, had grown short and spiky, slicked back horizontally from the back of her head, looking like an airplane of sorts. “Whatever this Stand is, it has the power to change our genders and while it doesn’t seem like much…” Skyburn panned a hand across the carnage on the street as they emerged from the library. “The confusion of becoming the opposite gender has plummeted the city into mass hysteria.” Across the street, two women had grabbed a large piece of debris and threw it through a store front, shattering its glass before hopping in to grab what they could. It seemed people were taking advantage of the situation to get what they needed. “We’re all going to die! This is the end!” A man ran down the street, dressed in a skirt and crop top. “The world’s gonna come crashing down!” “Overly dramatic, but okay.” Skyburn looked around at all the different people. “We need to find the Stand master and stop this.” “But how do we know who it is?” Twilight folded her arms across her wide chest. “By the looks of it, this Stand is able to affect a very large area. The Stand user could be hiding anywhere.” “True…” Skyburn sighed. “It’s ability isn’t very strong or even offensive, meaning that the Stand could likely travel further. For example, your Stand, Strange World, hits hard and fast, meaning that it wouldn’t be able to travel far from you.” “There must be a way to smoke them out, then!” Spike pounded a fist against his other arm. “Think of it. Carnage like this… I’m sure the Stand master must be somewhere they can see all of this. They’d want to see everything they were causing.” “And they won’t be panicking like this. They’d be used to seeing this…” Skyburn looked at the top of the buildings. “A good vantage point would allow them to see the carnage unfold. I bet I could get up there easily.” “I’ll check the streets then.” Twilight nodded. “Spike will come with me, since he doesn’t have a Stand.” “Changing a mare into a stallion and vice versa is highly advanced magic,” Twilight was telling Spike. She was a little confused by her body changing, but since she had still been adjusting to her transformation from pony to human, it wasn’t quite as bad as the other humans seemed to be taking it. In fact, the massive muscles that she had been given made it easier to move around without exhausting herself. “Yeah, it’s amazing and all,” Spike said, trying to keep up as Twilight pelted ahead at top speed. “But we gotta figure out a way to change everyone back! I can’t let Rarity see me like this!” Twilight glanced back at Spike. His hair was streaming behind her in the wind, like a green flag. “You’ve gotta stop. She already has grandchildren.” “Old habits die hard, I guess.” Spike shrugged. “Let’s just get to finding this Stand master so we can go back to normal. Well, normal in this world.” “I’m working on that, Spike,” Twilight said back over her shoulder. “All this Stand stuff has so many unknown variables, and I want to make sure whatever plan I come up with has the best chance of success.” Skyburn watched them go, then ran up to the closest building, which was the library and summoned his Stand just as a woman ran out from the entrance, carrying a handful of books. “All mine, mine!” she said as she ran off. “People are taking this chance to do whatever they want…” Skyburn shook his head as his Stand grabbed ahold of him and began jumping up the side of the wall, using its baton as handrails along the building as it jammed it into the wall. “We’ll just need to find this Stand master and put an end to this!” The roof of the library was clear, devoid of all life except for a raven on the other end of the building, but it paid Skyburn no mind and he examined the rest of the city from what he could see. There were fires on most of the streets near the library and she spotted Twilight and Spike running down to Porky Park, which was across the street as a brawl began about twenty feet ahead of them, near the park’s fountain. “The whole city’s gone to pie.” Skyburn rested on a knee at the edge of the roof. “Now where are you, you little Stand master… Runaway and I have a score to settle with you for killing my girlfriend.” Everyone was either busy feeling themselves up because of their changed gender, fighting each other because they were in a full on panic, or robbing stores, taking advantage of all the hysteria. Except for one man, tossing a football into the air on an apartment building’s rooftop. He was dressed in a black suit and he had long dark curly hair falling down beside his face. He looked… pleased. “If that’s not a suspicious looking man, then I’m not a man myself,” Skyburn said, then remembered his body. “Well, now I’m not a man, but I’m a man trapped in a woman’s body, so I’m still a man. Well, I just have a slimmer body. And my boobs are really tiny, so there’s not much difference. Bah, the least this Stand could’ve done was give me a better body…” Skyburn called up his Stand again and with a running jump, it threw both of them off the roof of the library, sailing through the air before landing on the adjacent building, breaking into a run without a pause. His Stand was agile, capable of moving quickly, and where it lacked in physical strength, it made up for it with acrobatics and maneuverability. He had first discovered his Stand when he was seven years old and at first, he had thought it was just his imaginary friend, but once his grandmother clarified everything for him, he had begun practicing to control his Stand. Today, he could proudly say that he knew everything his Stand could do. After his next jump, the man saw him coming and to his credit, didn’t turn tail and run. Instead, he turned his whole body to face him as he continued throwing his football into the air. “So, you’re here. I knew you would find me eventually…” he said with a rather thick accent. “You like what I’ve done with the place? Simple, but it makes people revert to their inner evils.” “What do you mean?” Skyburn landed on the roof the man was standing on and pointed a finger at him. “It’s because of your gender swapping that everyone’s gone hysterical.” “Oh, no.” He threw the football to his other hand. “They’re acting out their inner evils, boy. Look at that one down there.” Skyburn followed his gnarly finger to an old woman by a drinking fountain at the edge of Porky Park. She had pulled a strangely red gun from her backpack and she had begun mowing down a group of teenagers. “See? I didn’t do that. I didn’t cause her to shoot people,” the man said. “She’s doing that herself. She’s taking a chance during this mass panic to do what she’s always wanted to do. Well, he, but you get it, aren’t you? You are a boy in a girl’s body.” Skyburn creased a brow at the man’s english. “Whatever it is, it’s you who’s started all this. I know you’re with Die Die Riches!” “Ah, yes my boss wants me to kill rich people.” He grabbed the football tighter and held it high. “See my Stand, Wind of Change. It has the ability to change the genders of any living thing in the vicinity and it can do it for hundreds of meters. See, all I do is have to change the genders and people start killing themselves for me. There will be less rich people in the world after I’m done.” “Not when I’m here to stop you, dude.” Skyburn bent his body to the right, then angled his head so that it was leveled with the ground. “Your group killed my girlfriend. You’re all just making the world worse. I’m going to make sure you don’t get the chance to achieve your goals.” The man bent back and laughed a really fake sounding laugh. “What a story. I’m afraid you’re not going to kill me. Not today at least. Did you really think I was here on the roof without backup, right?” Skyburn sent Runaway forward, who brandished both batons, ready to cave the man’s face in, when from the corner of his vision, he saw something spinning towards him. He turned towards it, noticing it was a thick boomerang the size of a trash can lid, colored in red and yellow. He was about to dodge it, but unexpectedly, the man threw his football at his Stand’s head, hitting it dead in the center of its forehead, knocking it back. He did the same, falling back a step as blood spurted from his head, only for the boomerang to add to it, hitting him on the bridge of his nose and sending him flying back into the roof’s raised ledge as stars burned across his vision. “Ha ha ha! You just fall like a chicken! Cheep cheep cheeeeep!” The man began flapping his arms like chicken wings. Then he caught his football as it bounced back to his hands. “Ha ha ha, you cannot be actor, girl. You don’t even know how to fall like a human.” “Wh-What?” Skyburn pushed himself off the ledge and stood up. “Who said anything about acting, you lunatic? Where are you even from?” “Not gonna say…” he tapped a finger against his chin. “But I will tell you my name, because I like to tell people my name before they are kill. My name is Wiseau Sirius and I was sent here by Die Die Riches to kill. You must be rich that you’re trying to stop me. Only rich people don’t like me.” From a door to the roof walked a woman in a red tank top and blue jeans and she had black hair that stuck straight up into the air almost like a pillar. From behind her, Skyburn could see a humanoid figure with red and yellow markings. It had a strange mask on its face that only revealed its eyes and its arms and legs were in circular segments with fingers and toes at the ends. “Oh, High Mark, you’re coming out of the stairway.” The man turned and held his football in both hands. “Why are you a wo- ah, that’s right, Wind of Change affect you too.” “Oh, hi Wiseau.” She stuck her hip out to one side and ran a finger up her right leg. “I don’t mind from time to time. It makes me look hot.” “So there’s two of you!” Skyburn raised both fists in front of himself as Runaway flipped its batons in its hands. His head hurt, but now was no time to feel pain. He’d suffered worse than this before, putting up with this was going to be easy. “Die Die Riches is going down.” “Today you face Wind of Change and Taken by Force. Get ready!” Wiseau stood sideways and lifted both arms up like he was pretending to be a plane. High Mark stood beside him and folded her arms. His arms. Her arms. Skyburn shook his head. He would only make it more complicated if he kept thinking about it.