Costume Catastrophe

by PrincessEnchanteDream

Surprise and Thunderlane

Surprise was well named for her impressive ability to, well, appear suddenly and without warning, as well as vanish just as suddenly, which had led her to win the Houdini award at school for many years in a row. Reportedly, the relatively new girl was good at it too, but that was that. Surprise was out at practice, as was her usual practice, when she had been hit by the flying blob and briefly incapacitated. As she slowly regained use of her limbs, she could see strange lights dancing on a crystal sky, and what appeared to be people from the Victorian age wandering about the streets. This left her a little surprised, so she stood up and attempted to brush some dirt off her shirt.

Funny. The sleeve felt thinner than usual. Surprise quickly glanced down to see that the arm and the fabric were indeed thinner. This confused her. Why were they thinner? Had she used the wrong setting on the tumble dryer?

Just then, the fabric around her neck and collar, as well as the tops of the shoulders, began to unravel. They opened up, and slid down her body to a point where her upper chest was clearly visible for all to see, with the fabric stopping at her breasts. The sleeves were still attached to the sides of the new garment, but they were now asymmetrical. They dropped down as far as halfway up her upper arms, before now continuing to her wrists before stopping, terminating in a puffy outer sleeve.

As you can probably guess, Surprise was more than a bit, well, surprised. Her friend Derpy had told her of a strange incident where she had received an abrupt wardrobe makeover courtesy of Rarity, but it seemed like this might be connected somehow. After all, once you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.

The next series of events would confirm this even more, as sure enough her former shirt merged into her shorts and turned both sets of garments, or I guess they were now one garment, white. Surprise glanced about a gain to see a remarkable number of women in wedding dresses about, and quickly figured out that she was probably about to join them despite having no intention of marrying (and being too young, but let us not get excessively stuck on formalities).

Sure enough, her shorts soon got the memo it was time to change, and they began to grow longer. The legs flowed down her own, over her knees, and stopped eventually at her ankles, where they made no further progress.

The bottoms of the legs then merged into one, and the merger began to move up her legs, swallowing the dividing line as it moved upwards like a shark swallowing its prey. Eventually, it reached the top, where the gap vanished altogether, revealing a very odd skirt.

Moments later, the skirt grew again, flowing down over her legs and pooling at the floor in a bigger and bigger pile, spreading out over the floor and ground like a puddle of water. Eventually, more than a foot of fabric in all directions had pooled at her feet, and then it happened.

With a boom, the skirt flew outwards, quickly forming into an A shape. It rocketed outwards at such speed Surprise was even more surprised than normal. It flew outwards to about six feet, then stopped, as a frame and several layers of petticoats formed underneath to hold the skirt in place.

She was suddenly thrust upwards as her boots became heels, and she looked behind to see a long train growing out of the skirt, spreading backwards. The front and sides of the skirt spread forwards too, presumably to more evenly cover the surface area of the ground, and the entire dress was soon covered in elaborate nature patterns.

Surprise was secretly happy. She had always wanted to wear one of these again, having previously worn one to the Fall Formal, and now her dream had come true. She hauled herself over to Fleetfoot, who was also in a big gown, and went to talk to her.

"Hey Flatfoot!" she called. "Nice dress!"

"Err, thanks?" Fleetfoot replied. "I'm not too sure myself. I mean, how do I walk in this thing without falling over?"

"Lean slightly forward and lift the front of the skirt up with your hand if that helps." Surprise's advise was surprisingly helpful.

Fleetfoot tried it out, and found it helped immensely. In fact, moving in such a huge skirt was easier than she anticipated. "So, how do you know how to move in these? This is a lot lighter than I was expecting."

"I wore one to the Fall Formal one year," Surprise replied. "Nobody saw that coming!"

"Otherwise you wouldn't be called Surprise!" Fleetfoot laughed.

"Err, guys? A little help here!"

Both Surprise and Fleetfoot saw their friend, Blaze, wedged in place by her dress. Both of them sped over to help. 'Sped' being something of an operative word in the circumstances.

After a few moments of struggle in their heavy skirts, they both managed to make their way to Blaze, who seemed to have gotten tangled in the thorny bushes outside their playing field.

Surprise snickered. "My, aren't you in a.......'leafy' situation?"

Blaze scowled. "You gonna help me or not?"

Surprise grinned and then both her and Fleetfoot grabbed one of Blaze's arms.

"On the count of three, we'll pull," said Fleetfoot.

Surprise nodded. "One."

"Two."

"And......THREE!"

Fleetfoot and Surprise pulled on Blaze with all their strength. With a mighty tug, she came tumbling free. Unfortunately, the edge of her skirt got caught as she was yanked out.

Riiiippppp.

"Oh no," muttered Blaze.

As keen as she was to get out of it, the same couldn't be said about the current state of the dress. From the waist to her ankles, there was a huge tear in her gown.

However, to Blaze's absolute amazement, the dress stitched itself back together, good as new, in a flurry of gold sparks.

"Welp, there ya go," said Fleetfoot matter-of-factly. "No wear, no tear, all-in one non-removable princess dress. Not available in stores near you."

Blaze glowered at her. "Do shut up, Fleet."

"Let's go, let's go! Over there, where Spitfire is!"

Fleetfoot and Blaze nodded, and all three of them headed in Spitfire's general direction.

---

Thunderlane had never really been one for garish clothes, unlike his younger brother Rumble. He had been practicing during soccer with Misty Fly when suddenly his phone went, and he went off to one side to answer it.

"Hello?"

"H-y big br-! Th-s is R-mb-le!"

"Your message is a bit garbled, please repeat, over?"

"W-tch o-t! Th-re'- m--ic a-out ch-ng-ng c-ot-hes! B- o- y-ur g-ard!"

Thunderlane put his phone away, very confused. "I have no idea what that was all about."

Suddenly, there was a bright flash, and the bright light his brother had referred to slammed into him. This nearly knocked him over, but he was a stable man, and easily stayed upright in difficult circumstances.

He was, naturally, a little surprised when the collar of his shirt grew upwards, covering over his neck, or al least most of it. The sleeves grew longer, and neatly reached his wrists. It also turned black from the former blue and yellow.

A purple waistcoat and jacket appeared on top of that as a series of things began to happen to his shorts. The first things were the addition of a zip and button on them, which helped with holding them in place. They also turned purple (the shorts that is, not the other stuff), and the legs grew down to the ankles, covering those over as his boots morphed into shoes, also purple. A garish wristwatch appeared on his arm as the process seemed to complete itself.

"I look like a musician," Thunderlane noted. "A musician who escaped from Canterlot's Got Talent, but I guess somebody has to pick up the slack."

Thunderlane looked once, then twice around his surroundings.

Not seeing anyone nearby, he grinned and pretended to play an air-guitar, complete rock and roll style.

"Whoa-oo-oaaaaa!" sang Thunderlane, terribly off-key.

Surprise, Blaze and Fleetfoot doubled over in laughter as they went past him.

Thunderlane flushed, rubbed his neck sheepishly and hastily got up.

He then turned over to Misty Fly to see she had undergone a change of her own, and was now clad in a wedding dress.

Misty Fly growled at her new attire. "Stupid thing," she said. "It's a wedding dress!"

"Hey Misty, looking good!" Thunderlane called.

"Shut up," Misty Fly snarled. "I hate dresses, especially these ones!"

"Wedding dress, from the look of it," continued Thunderlane. "Who's the lucky guy?"

"Shut. Up. I see you look stupid too."

"That I do," Thunderlane conceded. "I wonder what caused this?"

"Same," Misty Fly said. "I'm going to find who or what caused it, and give them a piece of my mind and hope they have the appetite!"

"Seems the others were affected too," Thunderlane said, pointing to the other girls and boys of the Wonderbolts running about in silly suits and fancy frocks.

"We should probably meet with Spitfire to discuss a course of action," Misty Fly noted, her level headed mode temporarily subduing her frustration and anger. "And hopefully change out of these whilst we're at it!"

"Not in public!" Thunderlane exclaimed.

"That's rather obvious, you fool!"

Without another word, the duo set off for the group huddle.

---

Needless to say, Spitfire face-palmed at the current state of her team.

"This is getting silly."

"I'd like to disagree, boss," piped in Surprise as she ruffled around in volumes of white skirts. "THIS IS SO FUN!"

Spitfire was just about to address them, when a voice spoke up.

"Hello!"

The team looked over to see a girl with purple hair waving to them. She was clad in a gigantic blue ballgown with the widest skirt they had ever seen.

"Who are you?" Spitfire asked. "Did you get lost on your way to the ball, Cinderella?"

"Yes and no," the girl replied. "I'm Starlight Glimmer, and I'm heading round to help those affected by this magic that's changing everybody's clothes into dresses and suits. If you could report to the town square, that'd be great! We have a plan to fix this mess."

She went on her way, her skirts bouncing and swaying as she walked along.

Spitfire glanced over to her team.

"You heard the lady! MOVE!"

Without a second thought, they sprinted out of the field and onto the street, keen for this crisis to end as soon as possible.

Author's Note:

Surprise-

Art belongs to the amazing Fude-Chan-Art at https://www.deviantart.com/fude-chan-art/art/RQ-MLP-FiM-EQG-Surprise-891474192.
Thunderlane-

Art also belongs to Fude at https://www.deviantart.com/fude-chan-art/art/RQ-MLP-FiM-EG-Thunderlane-896241172.