Two teenagers anger a witch on halloween, and she is quick to punish them as she sees fit.
The dare was simple enough: break into Granny Rags' house, grab something old and creepy then get out of there as quickly as possible.
However, Jemaul and Matt were in for the most interesting Halloween of their lives as they learn that one does not simply steal from a witch and get away scot-free.
Who says the magic isn't real? These boys certainly don't now.
… On the edge of town, down old Jane's Lane, only one house was ever built. A once stately Victorian manor that may have overlooked the land that was once rolling fields. Sitting on its own, the old fence was so overgrown you wouldn’t be able to see behind it easily, but its heavy wrought gates were as strong and secure as ever . The city lights didn't reach it, leaving it in darkness at night. Trees with lower hanging branches seemed to lurk on the land, thick creepers giving the illusion of nature trying to pull the house down into the depths of the earth.
The owner rarely left the land. Apparently she had a garden of sorts that she got most of her supplies from, and when she was seen, it was as if she skulked. Few people visited, but once, sometimes twice a month, a tinted car would slowly make its way there, though no one knew why. It was commonly accepted that the owner was their town's sole witch.
No one knew her secrets, because no one had managed to make it all the way to her home, but that? That was about to change…
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Jemaul pulled out the piece of paper with the details of the task on, skimmed it needlessly for about the eighth time since they had snuck out, and stuck it back into his hoodie's pocket as he walked, sneakered feet striding across the grass. The town itself was actually getting more active than usual as people prepared for their halloween activities. Pumpkins to be carved, decorations to be hung, candy to be bought, all of the things that most people would jot down on their ‘to-do’ list in preparation for the autumnal celebrations. Not that most people had trespassing and potential burglary on their last minute to-do list. "So, Matt… any regrets? Wanna chicken out?"
Matthew shook his head. "Hell no, man," he said, smirking, "we're gonna be the first kids in town to actually get inside Granny Rag's house! We're gonna be legends, man! Legends!" A brief gust of wind caused Matt to shiver in the waning light as he pulled the hood of his jacket lower over his face before stuffing hands deeper into his pockets. "Though now that you mention it, I do regret not bringing a thicker jacket; it's damn cold out."
The cold didn't bother Jemaul as much, and he only nodded. "Then we might as well get moving. I figure if we climb over fence on the north side we can avoid being seen." He chuckled, rubbing his hands together. "I sound so professional."
Matt couldn't help but roll his eyes at his friend's glee. "Glad to see that larceny is in your blood. But we still need to be careful; Momma will gut me like a fish if we get caught."
"You think you're the only one?" Jamaul muttered. "Dad'll tan my hide. Twice. If I'm lucky. But that doesn't mean I can't have fun with it. Didn't I find the way to sneak out of school from the chem labs?"
Matt couldn't help but scoff in derision. "Chem labs? You do realize that you are the only one who calls Coach Bilbrey's class that, right?"
"It gives them a more welcoming and homey feel."
"You make it sound like he's Walter White and we're cooking up crystal meth in there," Matt replied flatly.
"Have you smelt that place at the end of the day?" Jemaul responded blandly. "You could use that reek to make bear repellant."
"Well, I can't help that you have him last period, while I’ve got him first, when the room is still all nice and clean," Matt said, quickly pushing his glasses up on his nose before stuffing his hand back in his pocket. "And changing subject now: so did you get your costume all ready for tomorrow?"
"Had to dip into what I was saving for my new source book, but I got everything," Jemaul grinned. It wasn't like he needed more manuals anyway. He didn't use half of what he had.
"You're trying to buy another man? Jeeze, you're as bad as I am for historical stuff. All I had to do was buy an old officer cap off of eBay and that only cost around 40 bucks."
"That's how much the contacts cost me," Jemaul sighed. "I really should have gone with a simpler concept. At least Dad pitched in to cover some of the costs for the suit, since I can use it for other stuff after."
Matt nodded in agreement before chucking to himself, "I can still use the greatcoat too afterwards even if it makes me look like I'm going to shoot up a school."
"Should have just gone with the Wizard Warden," Jemaul grumbled, trudging through the underbrush. They were avoiding using the road proper. "But noooo… I had to go all out..."
"Well, you did go the whole nine yards with that Springfield guy from that one anime last year. The only time I think you'll ever wear that again is to a con," he idly replied, "and that's why I went commissar. All I needed was the cap and a few other things and boom I look ready to put a Bolter round in some heretics."
"What can I say, I get carried away easily," Jemaul said with a shrug. He started counting off on his fingers. "Particularly when I have enough funds to pull it off or get nitpicky with the details, and since I save for new books a lot, I do have funds generally.” He paused for a moment, seemingly in thought, before quietly muttering, “maybe I should just pick up LARPing."
"You'd transcend into the next level of nerdhood dude," Matt laughed to himself. “You want any more fuel for the idiots who are the only reason we're doing this?"
So maybe there had been a little more to their planned technically criminal activities than just becoming local legends. Motivation in the flavour of blackmail. Blackmail from some douches too cowardly to actually do it themselves. Jemaul sighed and irritably broke a branch that was in arm's reach. "Yeah, yeah, whatever. The faster we get over the wall, the faster we can get to the house, and the faster we can sneak in, take the picture, and grab something sufficiently spooky before performing all that in reverse with ill-gained goods. Ah, the glamour of the delinquent lifestyle."
"Well, speak of the devil and he shall appear," Matt chuckled to himself as he looked up at the street sign to see the words Jane's Lane in black letters. "Only a few blocks left to go." And with that, Matt set his pace to a brisk walk; partly out of the urge to get there faster and partly due to the cold.
"No hesitating," Jemaul reminded his friend. "We go straight. If we stop, we might actually come to our senses and cut and run, which would not bode well for our continued everything at school. Hate that guy."
Matt nodded, "I know, and yeah, Justin can shove a red hot poker up his ass," he spat.
Jamaul pulled his hood up, muttering something about self-entitled fools. Between the dark jeans and hoodie and his natural skin colour, he would hopefully be able to remain unnoticed in shadowy areas. That was the intention anyway. "Any idea of what would be a good thing to snatch?"
Matt frowned, his brow furrowed as he thought. "Hmm.. Something old I guess? Maybe a necklace or some piece of jewelry? I know my Mema has nearly fifty years of accumulated jewelry so...maybe just find one that looks sufficiently old and or creepy, snatch it, and bolt."
Jemaul rubbed his nape under his hood but said nothing more until they got to the property line. "We are going to hell for this," he grumbled, pulling out the note again. It had a rough map of the property he had made from Google Earth. It had been horrible quality, and the streetview camera never covered that part of town, but it was better than being totally blind.
Thank God for the internet, a part of him thought bitterly, a thief's best friend.
"Like I said, northside is the best bet," he said, tapping the map. "There're trees on both sides, so we can use them to get over. Easier than trying to climb the fence alone."
Matt nodded, then sighed. "Well, let's get this over with. I still can't climb trees to save my life though..."
"And yet, you're gonna climb this tree to save your social life," Jemaul said without much compassion. "Do you want a leg up, or a hand up?"
"No I can do it myself," Matt frowned, shaking his head, "but thanks for the offer nonetheless."
"Suit yourself." He eyed the tree for a moment before taking a running start and leaping up to grab one of the thicker branches, swinging his legs forward and 'walking' his lower body up with the momentum. He didn't quite make it all the way, almost falling back, but he managed to hook his ankle on the ridge.
Exhaling in relief, he shimmied and wiggled the rest of the way up. Once there, he scrambled up to a higher branch without too much difficulty and grinned at Matt, throwing down a low taunt. "Still got it!"
"Show off," Matthew said flatly before running towards the tree himself and leaping for the same branch that Jemaul had used and missing spectacularly, running into the fence with a hollow thunk.
Stepping back, he ran at the branch again and this time managed to grab it. And with all the finesse of a necrotic corpse, he managed to get his legs around the branch and shimmied his way towards the trunk. And after several failed attempts and falling off twice, he managed to get on the tree. "Not all of us are monkeys like you," He said, panting slightly as he looked up at Jemaul.
Jemaul had been shaking his head slowly, one part snickering, one part sighing at Matt's attempts. While he wasn't the most athletic person, a combination of a natural love of veggies; rampant fidgeting; a tendency to run and leap up and down stairs, habitually jumping off them and balconies alike whenever he had the chance; and overall good genetics kept him on the moderate side of fit, even if his endurance was lacking.
"I don't care what you say or what your pride has in mind, but when we are booking it, we are booking it. I'm 'Maneuver 7'ing you into the tree," he grumbled, climbing closer to the fence and picking a landing point that wasn't overgrown hedge.
Matthew just glared up at him as he too climbed a bit more up the tree to look over the backyard, leaning on a branch as he did so, "Jeeze, I've see-"
Suddenly, there was a loud, resounding crack as the branch, which Matt had been leaning his weight against, gave way and broke off. Matt flailed his arms in a frantic, futile attempt to regain his balance.
“Shit!” Matt yelped, giving a loud, pained grunt as he landed on his back, his feet awkwardly raised and lodged partly into the hedges. The unusual position only added to the sense of discomfort he had suffered from his sudden and unexpected reunion with Earth.
"You're an idiot," Jemaul sighed. He hopped down, landing on all fours to lessen the fall as much as he could, but he still had to shake his hands and legs out a little to ease the sting.
It took but a moment for Matt to get to his feet and, after dusting himself off, lower himself into a crouch as well. "Let's try the second floor first. That's usually where bedrooms are and she's gotta have a jewelry box or something."
"Common rooms might be good too," Jemaul suggested, thinking on it a little. "Bedrooms tend to be personal stuff. Living and sitting rooms? More general display."
"Whatever, let's just get in there and get out," Matt whispered harshly, looking up at the old home in front of them. He couldn't help but have this small feeling of dread in the pit of his stomach. It always happened when he saw this old house. He shook his head. Now was not the time for getting jumpy; they needed to remain cautious. "Come on, let's get this going. I'm already starting to have second thoughts," he whispered as he started heading towards the back porch.
"Window," Jemaul said, pointing to one of the open ones on the first level. It opened over a garden with unusual looking flowers, but it looked like it should work. "Unless you want to try the door."
"I was planning on the door," Matt nodded as he started moving towards the porch again. However, the old weathered wooden steps let out a loud creak as he stepped on one, and he immediately stopped, his heart freezing in his chest before he, just as slowly, brought his foot back down to the ground. "Change of plan: we do the window instead," he said, taking a step back and heading to the window.
"Of course," Jemaul said softly, rolling his eyes in disdain as he picked his way over the flower bed to the creeper covered wall. "Just knock on the door. 'Avon calling!' Brilliant." He spat on his hands, not without making a face, and grabbed the window ledge, pulling himself up just enough to try and get a peek into the room.
"What do you see?" Matthew asked in a quiet whisper.
"I see the promised land," Jemaul said in an awed voice, "a mythical world of cheer and happiness, with bunnies and butterflies and pretty flowers, winged horses, muffins and fairies frolicking among them and what the hell do you think I see? It's a room. Looks like a retirement home."
Matt just rolled his eyes, "well get your ass inside so I can get in, too!"
"Not gonna fall this time?" Jemaul snarked before scrambling awkwardly for a secure foothold, huffing a little before he managed to pull himself in. The fact that there was a small table under the window was almost his undoing, making it awkward to get his legs over far enough to shift his center of gravity to the other side of the window, but he barely managed to avoid making a mess, or falling down as his friend had earlier. He perched on the window sill, a warding hand held out at Matt as he looked around the room, listening for anyone moving in the house.
His spot check bringing up nothing but the mismatched old-fashioned furniture, knick knacks and photos—both old and faded to modern, and colored,. Oh, and the always lovely smell of old person. Just wouldn't be complete without it. "Seems clear."
"Well are you going to get out of the darn way so I can get in too," Matthew asked flatly.
"Hold your horses, princess," Jemaul grumbled. He carefully climbed down, in case Granny Rags was sleeping somewhere in the house, and shifted the table away from the window with his leg so the far less coordinated Matthew wouldn't have a most unfortunate accident. That done, he stuck his arm back out so he could give Matt a helpful pull in.
Matt took Jemaul's hand and with his friend's aid had a much easier time getting in the house than he did climbing up the tree. Matthew couldn't help but look around a bit at the room and breathed in the funky smelling air, gagging slightly. "At least Mema febrezes her house," he muttered under his breath.
"Task at hand," Jemaul said, pulling out his cellphone.
He nodded. "Yeah, something old and creepy. Living room first?"
"Um, yeah," Jemaul said, looking around the room once more. It didn't lack in 'old' things, but the creepiest thing was the doll on a shelf. Aside from that, it was classic old lady. Photos, ugly furniture, horrid wallpaper, flowers in a vase, white ceramics with cutesy pictures. He took careful and slow steps, cautious of creaking boards. "Are you getting that Dolores Umbridge feel, or is it just me?"
Matt nodded in agreement as he looked closer at some of the ceramic plates. "Damn, some of these are old as hell:! Let’s see...1948... 1954... 1960... 1969... I think that one is from the Queen of England's coronation," he said with a hint of fascination in his voice.
"Oh yes, get your fingerprints over everything," Jemaul muttered. "Brilliant move, history nut. Those are the wrong kind of creepy. That's just old person creepy. We need witch. Those don’t even register ‘crazy cat lady’ on the Creep-O-Meter." Without waiting for Matt, he moved on to the next room.
When he realized he was alone, Matt quickly got out of history nut mode and followed his friend into the next room.
The first surprise was the television. A large flat screen television. The second surprise were the children’s toys in one corner. Jemaul scratched his head. "Um… do witches need HD?"
"Well, they don't air anything on crystal balls anymore," Matt stated matter of factly, though this was belied by the smarmy grin on his face. "Well anyways, look around for anything old and creepy." He remained quiet as he looked at the nicknacks and whatnot on a coffee table.
Jemaul took the proof photo while Matt looked around. "I see nothing except generic old lady stuff," he said after a minute of quickly inspecting their surroundings. "We've gotta go upstairs. If she's got anything arcane, it isn't stuff she'd leave out in open."
"Fine, the quicker we move the better," Jemaul added reluctantly. He looked worriedly out the window. "She's never in town for long, but I don't know if she leaves for anything else." As thrilling as it was to be breaking into someone's house, he was still hearing the the voice yelling 'THIS IS A BAD BAD BAD IDEA, IDIOT!' in his head.
Matthew and Jemaul left the mundane first floor and made their way to the second, taking separate sides of the hall. The first door Jemaul checked was a bathroom, the second a bedroom that looked set up for a child. "Anything on your side?"
Matt shook his head as he closed the first door he had opened. "Just a bunch of musty old coats and a few hatboxes in this closet." He made his way over to the next door and opened it; his eyes widened as he grinned. "Jackpot mate! I think I got her room!"
"Finally," Jemaul said in relief, hurrying over. "Can we just grab something? A comb, hand mirror, notebook bound in human skin..."
"You don't take the necronomicon, haven't you ever seen Evil Dead," Matt replied as he quickly slipped inside the room. And he couldn't help but let out a low whistle at what he saw, "damn... Just damn."
In contrast with the rest of the house, the bedroom certainly fit their expectations. The room was large enough to take up perhaps half the floor, and only a small portion was dedicated to being a traditional bedroom. The rest was steeped in the occult. Numerous candles, each one thick and slightly misshapen as if hand made, were set on shelves, some further marred with the melted wax that had run down their sides and hardened, others looking trimmed and cleaned. There were a few animal skulls and several large jars with unidentifiable powders and herbs.
A small cauldron was set neatly to one side, surrounded by a commercial bag of coal, a small round barbeque and a camp stove. A bookshelf, crammed with a wide assortment of reading material, familiar and strange alike, also held a tome on that side of the room. They could make out what looked like a university level text on biology beside an old looking tome with its spine marked with some cursive characters they couldn't understand, a series on Flora and Fauna of North America mixed with some hand-labelled with the names of various native tribes.
Without a word, Jemaul snapped a few more pictures.
Matt's jaw hit the floor as he looked about the room dumbstruck. "Well... I guess she had to hide it all somewhere. We gotta find something that won't easily be noticed." With that, he went over towards a shelf and started looking through its contents.
"Again with the fingerprints," Jemaul muttered, pulling his sleeves down to serve as impromptu mitts as he pulled a book from the shelf and read the title. "Third Notations on Spirit Calling, Aboriginal American Volume. Yeah, I wouldn't call this hidden away."
"Well, she's gotta keep it all somewhere," Matt repeated himself under his breath as pulled his sleeves over his hands as well, "Anything over there?"
"The basement would have been more traditional," Jemaul argued, putting the book back and looking for something else. "But considering the camp stove, this is clearly a modern witch. Huh. How about this?" He pointed to an amulet of sorts that apparently got knocked off a shelf. It looked like a greenish stone that someone had carefully scratched spiral runes into. A few bands of wire were coiled around it as a setting, and it was attached to a braid of leather cord and a somewhat cheap looking gold chain.
"That'll do," Matt quickly said, "grab it and let's get out of here. This room's already giving me the creeps." He gave a small shudder; he didn't want to stay in there anymore than needed.
Nodding, Jemaul slipped it in his pocket, awkwardly because of his sleeve-gloves. He took one last look around the room and at the bookshelf. There had been one book that interested him, and they were already breaking, entering and stealing… He left it behind though. Stealing because of blackmail was different from stealing because of greed. "Time to make like… nevermind. Let's just go."
Matt nodded. "Good, I swear these skulls are looking at me," he gave another shudder.
"Hopefully it's your imagination and not some weird security," Jemaul muttered, pulling Matt out of the room and closing the door behind them before heading for the stairs. "Back out the window. We can move the table back behind us, then use the other tree. Hopefully she won't even realize it's missing."
Matt nodded in agreement, silently happy to leave that creepy room behind. "And then it's a straight shot to Justin's casa, and our social lives will still be in existence on Monday."
"Remind me to slap you next time you invite me to one of his parties," Jemaul muttered as they headed for the stairs. "His or any other member of his little posse."
"I hate them too but I can't help if I'm trying to keep you from being a recluse," Matt sighed. "You literally have, like, five friends that aren't online."
"And yet, my great foray into the vast world outside my home and books has landed me right into criminal activities." Jemaul rolled his eyes. "Aside from being the stereotype of the 'nerdy black kid', I get to be 'that bad black kid', and I'm also proving that yes, friends are bad influences who get you into trouble. Well played, Matt. Well played." He silently and mocking applauded. “May as well let my pants sag and wear gold chains.”
Matt just quietly rolled his eyes as they silently made their way to the top of the stairs. "See I'm teaching yo-".
A door downstairs closed with a solid thunk! Matt's blood ran cold. "Shit! She's back!" He quietly hissed, his eyes widening.
"Oh Fuuu-," Jemaul bit back his curse and silently motioned for Matt to hurry while slowly creeping down the rest of the stairs, trying to keep from making any sounds or stepping too heavily.
Matt quietly followed, basically tiptoeing his way down the stairs as he practically hugged his friend's back. He bit his lip to keep from swearing any more.
One step as a time, they crept across the hall, barely keeping their panic under control as Granny Rags moved about in the front room. The stairs were in the hall, which had entrances to the front room, the living room, the kitchen and the sitting room they originally got in through.
"You go first," Matt whispered, gesturing for him to do so, his eyes darting to the door to the front room every few seconds.
"So I can catch you when you fall?" Jemaul sassed in a low tone that was in somewhat poor taste. He carefully pulled the table he shifted mostly back into its spot under the window and climbed unto the window sill. "Come on."
Matt nodded and quietly started slinking towards the window. As he drew closer, he got out of a crouch and returned to a standing position, ready to take Jemaul's place when he was outside.
"And who are you two?"
Matt stiffened up like a deer in headlights, his eyes growing wide and his blood running cold as, slowly, he turned around, his eyes falling upon the figure looming there in the doorway.
It was Granny Rags.
“Um… h-hi!?” Matt stammered lamely, his voice functioning without orders from his brain.
She wasn't very tall, and she certainly, wasn't very pretty. But her razor sharp eyes, set below her wrinkled brow and above her narrow nose, pierced the darkness and bore straight into the boys’ eyes as a frown stretched her thin lips in a line. She stood without any hints of a stoop, apparently strong in her old age, just as the pictures had hinted. She had her hands crossed, with two large rings on her left hand and on on the right, glinting as she tapped a finger on her elbow. She wore the 'I am very disappointed' look, and she wore it extremely well.
Jemaul didn't know where she came from, or when she got in that position. He was certain he was watching out, but she was just there… and damn, but that look of hers suddenly brought to mind every misdeed, bad word, and bold-faced lie he had ever told in his life. It nearly made him want to fall to his knees and spill his guts, confessing to and begging forgiveness for every small misdeed performed in the past seventeen months that would have brought about this disappointed look. Fortunately, he was also good at being apathetic to lecturing looks, just the same as many other teenagers around the world.
"Book it!" He yelled, “jumping” out the window, though it was more a “controlled fall” and tumble into the flower bed.
Matt didn't need to need to be told twice; in the blink of an eye, he lept for the window and landed outside on the ground with a solid thunk before quickly getting back on his feet. "I'msosorryma'am," he hollered back to the window as he started making his way back towards the tree, running with all the grace of a wounded gazelle wearing high heels.
Jemaul, with adrenaline pumping in his veins and terror flashing in his mind, did his blood proud, and proved that Usain Bolt was just one of many sprinters to come from the island. Faced with the witch in person, he remembered all the horror stories he had grown up with about magic, obeah, voodoo, witchcraft, the Dark Side of the Force, and…
He reached the tree before he could mentally complete the list, tapping into the secret art of 'Panicked Mother Moves Cars' to almost fly up the tree, only remembering Matt when he was half way there. "Dammit!" he yelled back. "Move it!"
At that, Matt picked up the pace and reached the fence in a matter of seconds. "Come on! Let's get the hell outta here!"
"Then do it already!" Jemaul gave Matt a rather aggressive yank up into the tree before he dragged Matt up. After that, he kinda just abandoned the guy to his own skill and jumped over the fence.
Matt quickly clambered up the tree and over the fence. Surprisingly not falling on his face, he landed on the ground in a crude roll before getting up and running. He didn't stop till he found himself under the same street sign as before. When he got there, he doubled over, his heart thumping like crazy in his chest as he panted like mad.
Jemaul ran past the sign then doubled back, sitting on the ground without any reservations. "Dear Lord, that was terrifying."
Matt nodded, still panting heavily. "T-that w-was too damn close, man...too damn close!"
"I looked a devil in the face and I did not cave," Jemaul giggled, giddy from the post-rush crash. "I mean, did you see the look on her face? It was like she was looking at my soul and ready to… do... all sorts of… wibbly… wobbly… timey-wimey things to it."
"Let's just give that damn necklace to Justin and get back home..." Matt said, standing back up, looking visibly calmer than he had before.
Jemaul pulled out the amulet and dangled it in the air. "I swear, having a social life better be worth this..."
"I hope so, too," Matt said, simply nodding in agreement.
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The rumours had been around for while, and she had been content with them. Less so with the moniker 'Granny Rags', but every boon had a catch to it. She had little need or reason to leave her land and little patience for any prolonged interactions with the townsfolk in general. The urban legend of her and the whispered tales might not have been truly believed by most adults, but it was enough that they would still avoid her the best they could. The stories had long since ensured her privacy, and a few of her charms secured it.
Sometimes it was easiest to hide the truth in the truth.
She didn't lurk or skulk around seeking pets to steal away and use in some crude blood letting ritual or cast curses on children that wailed selfishly when they didn't get their own way, but she did practice magic. Her wards fed off and built on the fear and unease the stories planted, keeping her home nice and private, people too uncomfortable to get too close. It made getting her deliveries a pain, but it was a minor grievance when compared to the security and privacy such bewitchments provided.
But then there was Halloween. All Soul's Eve. Samhain. Hallow's Eve. Whatever you called it. The walls between the mortal world and the planes naturally thinned, having mixed effects on all forms of magic. Most times it made her wards even stronger, her entire home too terrifying a prospect to even consider without warm blankets, a fire or light source and good company, preferably in hushed tones.
"Of all the years for the wards to fail, it would be the one time some brats tried that dare." Granny Rags, or to be more correct, Delilah Daphnes, fumed as she skulked through her house, trying to determine if anything was damaged. "Hooligans!” she huffed, “The lot of them!"
She set a candle at few of the windows, lighting them with a flick of her fingers, continuing to mutter to herself. She headed upstairs to her private room. "Maybe it was just a 'break into the witch's home' dare. Would be the first one to actually work. Of course, it would happen when I wasn't around to actively dissuade them."
"Still… takes spunk to get through the wards, even if they were waning. And to run instead of giving up or freezing under a Gaze. Maybe I should let them have their little victory." She chuckled to herself and put away the new supplies she purchased and got things together for her own celebrations.
Her opinion changed when she realized what was missing.
Matt couldn't help but laugh smugly as him and Jemaul made their way to their homes. "The look on Justin's face man! He looked like he shit those stupid ass eighty dollar jeans of his when you showed him those pictures! Idiot probably thought we'd have chickened out!"
"I wish I could have gotten a picture of that one," Jemaul snickered. "Over-entitled jerk was too chicken to check out the place himself and didn't think anyone else would. Let the record show: Jemaul always rises to the challenge. And… Mathew, too… I guess...," he added after a moment.
"I'm so happy that you think so highly of me as to mention me at all," Matthew said sarcastically, playfully punching Jemaul in the arm. "The ever-honorable Jemaul... Oh, and Matthew too."
"Every great individual needs another great one to stand beside them," Jemaul acknowledged with a sober nod. He grinned. "I, unfortunately, had to settle for you. It was a half-off sale."
Matthew just rolled his eyes again. "Well at least my folks are outta town for the weekend, so I don't have to answer any of momma's questions about why I'm out so late and have her read me like an open book." He looked up the street sign and couldn't help but smile a little; only two blocks till he was back in the warmth of his home.
"I told mine I was going out somewhere for the evening for once," Jemaul said with a shrug. He didn't add that 'don't do anything to get in trouble' was one of the stipulations. Thankfully he and Matt had avoided breaking that one, however narrowly.
"Well either way, I'm just ready to get out of this damn cold," he said, shivering slightly. "Thank God my costume has a great coat; otherwise I'm gonna freeze tomorrow night."
"You've been complaining about the cold more than usual," Jemaul said, shaking his head. "And for you, that's saying something."
"Well this darn jacket is absolutely worthless at keeping anything but the slightest of breezes out," he said flatly. "Hell, the only reason I still got this is sentimental value." He stuffed his hands a bit deeper into his pockets with that.
"Make your excuses, I won't judge much more than I already have." Jemaul patted Matthew on the shoulder. "Which, admittedly, is quite a lot. Anyway, got anything else planned for tonight, Oh Great Guide to the Vast World of Social Activity?"
He shook his head. "Nope, just gonna go home, fire up my Xbox and play some Fallout before hitting the sack." Only one block left to go before he got back home.
"Alright then, I'll head home too. I need to iron my suit for tomorrow and stuff anyway," Jemaul said, lamenting his costume choice once more. The three piece suit looked good on him, but it took so much effort.
"You could always just do that tomorrow, you know," Matt said, raising an eyebrow, "because, knowing you, you'll be working on it till it's two in the morning."
The duo stopped as they stood in front of Matt's home. It was a rather simple one story brick home with a fairly well kept yard and a small driveway, currently empty. "Well, see you later, dude," Matt said, quickly giving Jemaul a hug.
"Yeah, have a good one, Matt," Jemaul responded. "I might as well swing by after breakfast. No school is best school."
And with that, Matthew turned away from his friend and made his way into his house.
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The sounds of shotgun blasts and animalistic roars filled the poorly lit living room as Matt sprawled out across the living room sofa. Once or twice a month, his mom would have to leave town for a weekend due to her job and it was during this time that he was king of the household. Lord of the land. Emperor of Golden Sofa! He could do whatever he wanted as long as there was no evidence when his mom got home.
And tonight, he was plopped down in the living room playing one of his favorite games. Humming to himself, he almost jumped out of his skin as he felt something jump on his legs.
A pair of yellow eyes stared up at Matt from the his feet and he couldn't help but mentally facepalm at his unneeded jump. "Damn it, Trouble, you nearly gave me a heart attack," he said to the black cat now curling up on top of his legs. The cat just looked up at him and meowed before putting his head down.
"Laziest cat ever," Matt muttered under his breath, chuckling to himself as he got back to his game. There was plenty of nosalises that needed some buckshot facial reconstruction and he wasn't about to deny them that just because the family cat had curled up on his legs.
After a few minutes, and during a lull in the game, Matt's shoulder suddenly felt itchy, and without missing a beat, he reached back and scratched it before returning to his game. Within a few seconds, a spot on the back of his neck started itching, and he reached to back to scratch that as well.
However, it did not stop itching, so he started scratching harder. After several seconds of vigorous scratching, he stopped and it still hadn't gone away. And as soon as he stopped scratching it, a spot on his right forearm started to itch as well, painfully so, and when he scratched it the pain only seemed to increase.
"What the fuck is going on?" He hissed, scratching his arm as more spots of painful itchiness started popping up all over his body. Trouble let out a hiss and hopped off of Matt's legs as he got to his feet and hurried to the bathroom, scratching himself like mad. He needed a mirror now!
By the time he had reached the bathroom a few seconds later, it felt as if he had a million ants crawling about under his skin, biting and stinging the muscles underneath. When he flipped on the light, he let out a surprised scream at his reflection in the mirror.
His skin had turned almost black! "T-the fuck," he quietly muttered in confusion to himself as he reached up to touch his face and felt hardly a thing from either his finger or cheek. He pressed down and his cheek didn't budge, it held firm and through his deadened touch felt harder.
"The fuck is goin-," the rest of his sentence was drowned out a strangled scream as he doubled over in pain, clutching his stomach. His insides felt like they erupted in fire as he staggered away from the mirror, the back of his legs hitting the edge of the bathtub before he lost his balance.
With a panicked yelp and the sound of ripping plastic, Matt was flat on his ass in the bathtub, his feet over the edge and the now ripped privacy curtain underneath him. Clutching his stomach as his insides continued to burn inside of him, Matt watched his legs in morbid fascination as the darkened skin seemed to take on a more glossy texture as what almost seemed like carapace plates from an insect started for-
*Crack Crack*
One of Matt's hands shot up to his mouth and he bit on his knuckle hard in an attempt to suppress his scream of agonizing pain, tears forming in his eyes, as he watched in abject horror as his legs brutally snapped into a new shape. His knees and ankles seemed to move up his legs before his eyes as his feet felt like they were hit with a sledgehammer; his bones mashing together into one mass. He could taste copper- or was it blood?- in his mouth as his nerves were frying themselves on the pain as he started to feel dizzy.
He pulled his wounded hand away from his mouth and stared at it for a moment, his thoughts sluggish from the overload as he watched his fingers, deadened and numb as they were, curl into a fist despite his brain screaming the command for his hand to open up. The nails of his fingers dug into his darkened skin hard enough to draw blood. He lifted up his other hand from his pained stomach, only to see the same thing happening to it as well. His fingers seemed to be melding together, just like his feet had moments earlier.
His vision started darkening as several of what looked like large boils started to form on his forearms. And with his last few moments of consciousness, he saw one of the boils burst only to see clear through to the other side of his arm as his skull started to warp and change.
----------
It was getting late, but there were still people out and about on the street. Jemaul wished he had brought his bike so he would ride home rather than having to foot it, but since he hadn't, and he still needed to get home, and so he alternated between jogging and walking, keeping up a steady clip, still a bit invigorated from the thrill of what happened. His tire was punctured anyway.
Of course, he was praying that Granny Rags didn't file a police report. He had still had his hood up when they were spotted, so maybe if he shelved the top for a few months he would be good. It was a shame, he really liked that hoodie. Still, he was one of the only two people to actually get into Granny Rag's place. Assuming the rumour mill worked properly, it would stay within the school kid circle and not seep outside. That… would pass cool and go into 'oh crap.'
"Okay, maybe I really should have reconsidered. Social life be damned..." Jemaul swallowed, a new panic smothering his elation and slowing his steps as he made his way home. he was still in a downer mood when he got home.
"Hey, I'm home," he called out as he closed the door behind him.
"Jamie's back!" someone hollered just before crashing into him with an energetic hug. His little sister Lori clamped her hands around his waist and attempted to squeeze the life out of him. A fluffy afroed head buried itself in his gut before it turned, aiming a beaming face, a gap in the smile, at him. "Hi Jamie! Mommy said I can stay up late tonight!"
"Hey, Timbit," Jemaul said, ruffling his little sister's head. She clung to him as he headed to the kitchen. "Mom, you around?"
"Hello, Jamie. Had a good evening?" their mother's voice came not from the kitchen, but the living room. Their entire family had nicknames. His came from Lori, who took forever to learn how to say his name, calling him 'Jamie' for everything. It stuck. Their mother has the weirdest one. Carl. Apparently she had been a tomboy.
"Um, yeah," Jemaul said evasively. He poked his head in the room. "What's this about the Timbit staying up late? And where's Dad?"
"Just half an hour," Mom answered. "After her class’s halloween party, she's going trick or treating with the Donovans and having a sleepover. Your father already went to bed. He's leaving for work earlier tomorrow. Any plans for you?"
"Um… the party, hanging out with Matt, sleeping the day away?"
"I figured as much," Mom chuckled. "I might be gone by the time you wake up. Just make sure you two don't get yourself in trouble."
"S-sure thing Mom," Jemaul winced. A little too accurate, there. "I'm gonna go now… get my costume ready… and stuff..."
On that less than enthusiastic note, Jemaul slipped away and retreated to his room. He didn't want to get caught up in that cycle of fret and worry, so he put his costume and all it's elements together somewhat haphazardly, tossing the duffle in a convenient spot. Pulling his shirt off and leaving it hanging from his closet, turned off his ceiling lights and crawled into bed with a book, switching to the bedside lamp, fully intending to lose himself in the words. At some point, he gave in to the inevitable and dozed off, falling asleep.
He was back in the witch's house. Granny Rags loomed over him, layers of old cloth and ragged flesh hanging off her body, her chest vanishing into obscuring shadows. A hand emerged from the gloom as her eyes blazed with matchless detail, casting a light that partially revealed the rest of her facial features. A bony finger pointed at him and opened her mouth, wordless rage pouring forth, the volume pushing him back. Jemaul turned and ran.
How dare you!
Dogs chased him down the hallway, barking and wailing with police sirens as he raced towards the window at the end of the hall. They nipped at his heels, additional motivation to keep his burning calves pumping. The window was closed, but he didn't slow down, hurling himself through it, arms protecting his head.
I punish you!
Glass shattered and crashed around him, cutting his clothes and flesh, drawing out painful hisses, his momentum carrying him right over the edge as blood poured from the numerous wounds. He started falling to the mixed doom below—roiling darkness, tossing flames, waves crashing against the jagged wind and sharpened rocks so far below, quickly drawing closer as he hurled down.
I curse you!
He spun in the air, tumbling, eventually looking back in the direction he came. Granny Rag's cold piercing eyes glared judgement at him and her massive hand, ivory nails like talons, slammed into him, driving him into the-
"AAAAH!" Jemaul yelled, almost flying out of bed in a tangle of sheets and crashing heavily onto the ground. His entire body was a collection of pain and aches, his clothes and covers filled with his sweat as he took shuddering breaths.
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry," he muttered over and over. Dreams normally didn't terrify him, but that one did. Even worse, the pain wasn't fading fast enough. His body felt covered in the countless lacerations the glass shards caused, even if it felt more like stinging scratches from wrestling a vicious thorn bush than gashes.
His back was by far the worse, battered to an extent he never experienced before. Whimpering, Jemaul struggled out of the covers. His shorts got pulled down some, and he kicked them the rest of the way off. They were too sweat soaked anyway.
"What kind of dream was that," he moaned, heading to his dresser to get a face rag and a new pair of shorts, but instead, he grabbed his towel. A shower would be better. It was late, the clock putting it just past midnight, but as sweat soaked as he was, it would be more comfortable. Keeping the lights off so he wouldn't wake anyone else in the household, he navigated with the night lights they had out for Lori's sake and relied mainly on memory to find what he needed before stepping under the shower.
The cool water did help ease his frayed nerves and soothe the stinging pain some, and he spent maybe a minute of just standing under the spray. He was clean and feeling a lot calmer. The pain was still there though, but he mostly able to ignore it, letting the water work on it. His back still felt twisted and pained, but it was still better. He didn't realize anything was wrong until he started washing.
There were things on his skin. He didn't pay much attention to them at first, but he kept finding more, and they stung when he brushed them. Like picking at a fresh scab. Stupid dream. What kind of dream left that kind of lingering pain? Shutting off the water, he reached for his towel as he slid the curtain aside, freezing as the night light provided enough illumination to clearly make out his arm.
Pale stripes of something covered his arm. Correction, his whole body. Shock stealing his voice, his thoughts helpfully connected the stripes with the pains he was still feeling. As if acknowledgement was the trigger, the pain doubled, dragging another muffled cry from him as they darkened and started growing, gaining width and length. It was some sort of hair. More like fur. Spreading out from where he got cut in the dream, feeling as if scalding water was being poured on his flesh with each inch it progressed. He scrambled out of the tub, hyperventilating from his efforts not to scream, his wild movements knocking bottles of body wash and shampoo down, almost pulling the curtain down as a shift sent him tumbling to the ground.
Muscles started rippling and sliding cross his body in the most nauseating sensation, and only the pain that came with it kept the contents of his stomach in place. He collapsed, curling into a ball as if it would help ease his suffering, either the bath mat or his towel wadded into his mouth to muffle his cries. He refused to wake his family for what he feared was the retribution of a witch. He shuddered and spasmed, trying to find consolation in the mantra 'It can't get worse.'
It got worse.
It was as if someone stabbed him in the back with red hot spikes. A initial jolt that made all his thoughts pause and wonder 'was that pain?' Only to spiral into a unanimous agreement that 'Oh fuck that hurts!' as something forced it's way out of his body, ribs and shoulder blades creaking, maybe even cracking as inch by painful inch they emerged. Even as it forced it's way out it still hurt, the new parts of his body a mess of new muscle and nerves that stung from the very air, much less anything it touched. The lesser pain was from the base of his spine as bones sprouted from there. But even that was like saying it was only a small bullet.
It almost drowned out the sensations of the bones in his limbs stretching, fragmenting and reconnecting, grinding against each other as they fused in places. His face burned as his skull warped, bulging in places, twisting in others, cranial structure splitting and rearranging before coming back together.
By the time the the pain started fading, Jemaul was out of tears, his new muzzle soaked with them, the mat he cried into wet with both tears and drool. He might have blacked out, or just zoned out from confusion and pain, he wasn't sure. He lay there, twitching his new legs, eyes still wide with panic and fear.
"I'm sorry," he finally managed to croak out, curling up tighter, pulling the hooves his hands had become close to his barrel, the wings he didn't yet realize existed pressing close to his body. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry… Please make it stop hurting..."
"Hello?" a curious voice called. "Is someone there?"
Jemaul instantly snapped back to what passed for sanity for him when he heard his sister calling. He scrambled to his feet, hooves initially finding little purchase on the bathroom floor, as the door opened. Lori peeked in, and their eyes locked, both parties frozen. For his part, Jemaul made a lot of observations. He seemed a lot shorter, though that could have just been because he was standing on all fours. He was able to see a lot better than he should have. The room seemed more or less regularly lit, despite it being in darkness before. The muzzle just at the lower edge of his vision was purple, which bugged him for some reason. And finally, Lori was grinning.
"Pony!" she shrieked, leaping at him and tackling him with a hug. "Oh my gosh where did you come from! Are you from Equestria? Why are you in my bathroom? What happened to your cutie mark? Do you work for Princess Luna? What's your favourite colour? Can you stay for breakfast? Are you my guardian pony? Can we be friends? Can you take me flying?"
Jemaul's head was spinning, and Lori's gush of questions wasn't helping. He managed to cover her mouth with a hoof. "Be quiet Timbit! You're gonna wake Mom and Dad!"
Her look of elation was replaced with confusion. She pushed his leg aside and stared. "Jamie?" He nodded. "OH MY GOSH JAMIE! You're a pony! Why are you a pony? Were you always a pony? Am I a pony? Is Mummy and Daddy a pony too? Are you from Equestria? Are we all from Equestria? Did we move here because some big meanie took over and all the ponies had to run away to other worlds through the forest of pools and we came here to be safe and now it's time to go back and be heroes and save everypony with the magic of friendship and family?"
"Calm down!" Jemaul yelped, covering her mouth again, his ears folded flat. He gave her a look of disbelief. "What are you… I mean, where in the world did you come up with that? And the forest of pools is from Narnia, and you need rings."
She licked and slobbered the bottom of his hoof. He quickly moved it away with a shudder and she met his glare with a grin.
"Okay…. maybe the old standing closet mummy got from grandma?" Lori asked innocently.
"Still Narnia, still no!" Jemaul groaned. "Why aren't you freaking out?"
"You turned into a pony! That's so awesome! A bat pony! Luna is best princess!" Lori said happily.
Jemaul just stared at her with increased confusion. Here he was, having suffered through being transformed into something, and his little sister was going on about crazy things that didn't make sense. "What are you-"
"Kids? What are you doing up?" a baritone voice called.
Jemaul paled, even through his new fur. He covered Lori's mouth again, ignoring the frustrated look on her face. "Morning Dad! Lori woke up and needed to use the bathroom!"
"She shouldn't be up this time of the night," their father scolded. He sounded like he was right outside the door.
"I know that, I don't plan on- HEY!" Jemaul yelped as Lori bit his leg.
"Hi Daddy! I'm going back to bed soon." Lori said cheerfully. "Jamie's just helping me clean up… I sorta made a mess… But I got to say hi before you left for work and I went to the sleepover! Yay!"
"I suppose that's true," their father sighed. "Just make sure your sister is back in bed soon, Jamie. And don't make too much noise to wake up your mother. She has work in the morning."
"Okay, Daddy!" Lori beamed, though their father wouldn't be able to see it through the door.
"Sure, Dad," Jemaul groaned, awkwardly rubbing the spot where Lori had bitten him.
"Good. Have fun at your sleepover, Lori," Dad said.
Jemaul took a chance. If this happened to him… "I might spend the night at Matt's tomorrow. Is that cool?"
"It's fine with me. I'll let your mother know. Now go back to bed, kids."
Their father's footsteps faded as he left. Jemaul exhaled and raised an eyebrow at his sister. She grinned back before whispering in a sing-song voice, "you owe me, Jamie."
"I… fine. Whatever," Jemaul facepalmed, and hurt himself when he found a hoof was harder than he expected. Lori giggled as he groaned. "Okay, just… tell me what you mean by pony..."
Jemaul was both furious at his sister, and rather proud of her. For an eight year old, she was remarkably good at keeping secrets, and she was quick on the draw for making up tales. Both were traits she picked up from him, which left him with mixed feelings, but it also meant he could count on her not to spill the beans until he decided to. It only cost him most of his allowance for the next month and a half. And a picture. And the promise of a 'pony ride'.
He settled for furious. But she did help. Mostly. Apparently he was something from a cartoon she liked? It didn't make sense the way she explained it, but between setting up the age old padded covers trick and figuring out how to walk properly, they didn't have much time. The only bright side was that it was late enough that pretty much everyone was holed away in their houses for the night. His new night vision was also a plus.
His inner monologue kept skipping tracks between blathering fear and paranoia, impotent rage, frustration at Timbit, and concern about how the hell they were supposed to get out of the situation. First things first—find Matt. Skulking through the night he managed to get into Matt's backyard and dug out the hidden backdoor key. Hooves made actually getting the door open almost impossible, and when it finally did open he took a tumble into the room.
"Matt? You around?" Jemaul called out, pushing the door shut behind him and picking his way through the house. He followed his ears to the living room, but it was empty, with only the television on, displaying a game on the pause menu.
On the sofa, curled up in a ball was Matt's family cat, Trouble. The black cat looked at the new creature, curiosity in his big yellow eyes, before just apathetically putting his head back down.
Jemaul looked at the cat with uncertainty, unsure whether to take his disinterest as a good thing or not. He sighed, entire body language dejected, wondering if Matt had freaked out and run off. He might have himself if Lori hadn't showed up., His ears were twitching of their own violation, tracking sounds, and one in particular caught his attention. It was soft, but regular. With no other leads, he followed it to the bathroom, nosing the door open. "Matt..?"
The sound was exceptionally quiet, but Jemaul's new ears were able to pick it up as clear as day. It was crying and it was coming from the bathtub. At the foot of the tub was a pair of black basketball shorts, while the blue privacy curtain had been ripped from its hooks and now decorated the inside the tub like a tarp.
"Go away," a voice called out quietly, sounding rather pathetic; it seemed to have some sort of strange scratchy, hissy quality to it.
Jemaul thought about it for a moment. "No."
"I might be contagious," the voice said, letting out a defeated sigh. "I guess I deserved this..."
"Damn right you did. Let you talk me into pissing off a witch," Jemaul hissed. "Now get your fuzzy flank out of there before I decide to never leave my room again!
"I'm not fuzzy, Jamie. I look like a xenomorph screwed a horse," Matt called out from the tub, his voice panicked, "... And I'm stuck... Help?"
"And I look like dracula's little demon horse," Jemaul grumbled. "Why do I have to do everything."
There was a lumpy mass in the tub, Matt somehow having gotten tangled in the curtain like a shower burrito. "If I still had hands this wouldn't be an issue," Jemaul said. With his teeth, he gripped a random fold that looked loose and started tugging as best he could with hooves that proved tractionless on laminate floors.
"What the hay did you do?" Jemaul cursed half legibly as he struggled.
"I freaked the heck out when I woke up and saw I was a damn roach horse," the impromptu mummy said flatly.
Jemaul tried a new tactic. He propped himself up on his forelegs, wedging his hind legs against the tub, and took an involentary bite out of the curtain as he fell backwards . He landed a bit painfully on his tail and wings, but he took maybe a third of the curtain with him on the way down, and it wasn't as painful as when they first turned up. "Ow… that was stupid..."
After a bit of struggling, Matt managed to get himself free from the plastic cocoon and flopped halfway over the bathtub wall. His new body was the same in shape as Jemaul’s, but that was where the similarities ended.
His entire body was covered in plates of black glossy chitin, giving him an insectoid appearance, with the sides of his back covered by some dark green shell adorned with flimsy wings. Both of his eyes were completely green, and a fang poked out from under his upper lip, which was now dark, leathery skin. All the hair on his head was completely missing, replaced by some form of crest, while a black horn jutted from the top of his forehead. And most strange yet pointless of all were the several holes that dotted his limbs. Matt took one look at Jemaul and with a shove of his hind legs, fell head over heels, landing on his back and out of the tub. With a noise that sounded more like a headcrab's cry, he rolled over onto his belly. "...You weren't kidding."
"You aren't exactly the prettiest flower in the garden, either," Jemaul muttered, thinking unkind thoughts about wings and tails.
Matt's ears flattened against his head at that comment. "at least you don't look like a tyranid ate a horse," he snapped back, "I'm just waiting to realize that I got one of those mouth tongues." With that, he gave a small shudder of disgust as he looked down at his hole filled hooves.
"You look like a giant beetle lizard. You need more serrated edges, exposed ribs, layered exoskeletons, far more savage, possibly prehistoric dentition and spikes to qualify as tyranid, zerg or any other of that archetype." Jemaul smirked at him. "Besides, look at those delicate little diaphanous wings. My wings are more zerg and tyranid like than…
Jemaul rubbed his forehead with a hoof. "Tartarus spawn, I'm comparing wings…"
"I don't even know what ninety five percent of that even meant," Matt said flatly, "all I know is this hurt like son of a bitch... and I can barely feel anything." He kept looking at his forelegs, "and what the Tartarus is with th-" His eyes widened, "Tartarus!? What the buck is that supposed to mea- Buck! Why can't I say Buck! Bucking damn it!"
"Tartarus is basically gree-"
"I know what Tartarus is," Matt snapped before Jemaul could finish his sentence, "but why the buck can't I say buck or Tartarus! Gah damn it!" He slammed his forehooves on the ground in frustration.
"I'm going to go out on a limb and say it has something to do with our missing fingers," Jemaul deadpanned. "My sister says I look like a pony from a show she likes."
"A pony? Then what the Tartarus am I supposed to be!?"
"If I've got fangs, batwings, demon eyes and purple fur and still a pony, you're a pony," Jemaul said, rolling his eyes.
"I'm a giant bucking roach, I am no- you know what nevermind," Matt shook his head as he shakily got to his hooves. He wobbled for a few seconds before falling back on his flank.
"Roaches have six legs, bristles on their limbs, antennae nearly the length of their body, wings kept under shell, always forget what the proper name is, and commonly come in orange," Jemaul said. He poked Matt on the shoulder. "You've got none of those. Aside from the seriously weird holes and that horn, you look about as pony-like as I do."
"That's exactly why I said nevermind," he sighed as he tried getting to his hooves again only to fall over again, "to avoid a biology rant from you."
"Can you walk?" Jemaul asked him.
"I've spent the last few hours wrapped up in the shower curtain," he replied dryly, his voice dripping with sarcasm, "I've had plenty of damn time to learn how to walk."
"Considering your wings and mine, and the different tails," Jemaul continued, ignoring the sarcasm with the ease of one who developed an immunity from personal use, "you're going to have to figure out your centre of balance on your own."
"I'll get it in a bit," he replied, getting to his feet and surprisingly didn't fall down as he took a step and fell flat on his face, "...damn it."
It took several more tries and a lot of falling but after about ten minutes, he was walking. Even his gait were more akin to Frankenstein's Monster.
Jemaul took on the role of 'coach', providing motivational 'encouragement' from the sidelines. "You couldn't walk out of a paper bag like that. No wonder a curtain bested you."
"Well, excuse me for not being a quadruped 24 hours ago," he quipped as he slowly made laps around the living room. "I don't have a little sister who just so happens to watch a cartoon that just happens to be what we changed into."
"A witch apparently turned us into cartoon characters. I'm purple." Jemaul huffed and sat on his haunches. "I'm not questioning anything anymore."
"Purple is the color of royalty if that's a plus," Matt said as he kept going, "but at least you're something that makes sense. You're kinda like those horses from Harry Potter that pulled the carriages. I'm a weird bug horse hybrid thing."
"Thestrals are hairless skeletal reptilian creatures… do I look like I don't have fur?" Jemaul hissed, bristling slightly. "You look more like a thestral than I do."
"Whatever," Matt just sighed as he plopped down on his haunches in front of Jemual. "We both know where we need to go," he said, a serious look on his buggy face, "we gotta go and make her turn us back!"
"No!" Jemaul snapped, his wings flaring, fangs bared and a hoof stomping the ground. He closed his eyes and exhaled, calming himself. "No, we are going to ask her. Politely. Civilily. Nicely. After apologizing for breaking in."
Matt let out some manner of scared bug noise and fell back at Jemaul's outburst. "I know that," he said, getting back up, "my option is last resort dude."
"Sorry for yelling," Jemaul said after a long pause. "But… she just saw us, and look what happened. Whatever she did is even messing with our heads. What do you think she would do, could do, if we started yelling in her face?"
Matt was silent but nodded, way too many ideas ran through his head ranging from just flat out death to mind control and far worse.
Jemaul wilted, huddling into a slightly trembling mass, legs, wings and tail pressed tight to his body. "I don't wanna be a pony… I wanna be me..."
Without a word, Matt went over to his friend and put a hoof on his shoulder, "I do too Jamie...," he sighed. As Matt stood by his friend, he noticed something he hadn't before. He could almost feel Jemaul's panic, as if it was an actual object. It felt like butterflies had practically filled his stomach.
Jemaul closed his eyes again and focused on calming his breathing. It wasn't that he was prone to anxiety attacks, but that he was prone to his emotions cascading. It worked both ways. He might spiral into pointless worries, or get over excited about mundane things. He generally tried to keep to a more level outlook. He took the panic and put it back in the box Lori inadvertently helped make. "Sorry. Sorry. I'm fine."
"Today's just been... Interesting," he said simply, "come on, we know where we need to go."
"Yeah. Let's go to the witch's house in the wee hours of the morning," Jemaul mumbled. "Brilliant..." It wasn't as if they had any other choice. But it didn't make it any less stupid. He looked at Matt and paused, his ear twitching and tail flicking. "Um… I just realized something."
"What?"
"I've been naked this entire time… and I never noticed, and it didn't bother me," Jemaul said slowly. The closest thing to clothes he had was the gym band his phone was in. "Still doesn't."
"Great," Matt groaned, facehooving and wincing slightly as he remembered hooves were hard, "now I can't not notice that..."
Jemaul shrugged, then shuddered. "Okay, this is one freakishly powerful witch..."
Matt simply nodded before sighing, "I shoulda listened to Daud."
"Um… Daud?"
"Never make enemies with a witch," he said flatly. His eyes widened slightly before he looking down between his front legs and let out a relieved sigh before looking back up, "thank Faust."
Jemaul raised an eyebrow, but the answer presented itself and he let out a bark of laughter. "Okay, that would have been evil. Hilarious, but evil."
"I just had to make sure," he muttered quietly, clearly embarrassed, "but we seriously need to get to her house."
"And we'll politely go to her front gate and maybe front door," Jemaul said. He hesitated. "Maybe we should bring something to eat?"
"Our fridge is basically empty," Matt simply said, "and what exactly would we ever bring her?"
"Something for me to eat," Jemaul sighed. He supposed he could suffer to go a few hours without a snack. "But whatever. We should avoid the main road. Maybe cut through the park... "
Matt nodded in agreement, "thank Faust, it is dark outside."
----------
Getting out of the populated part of the community was both the hardest part, but surprisingly easy. They tried to avoid street lights for the obvious reasons, which was easier since Matt's night vision was, through not as keen as Jemaul's in their new forms, still better than a human's. Their smaller size helped them sneak around as well. The only issue was hooves making noise on the concrete sidewalks and asphalt roads, but they couldn't do anything about that.
The feeling of unease and dread started building up again as they turned unto Jane Lane. Shadows seemed to stretch unnaturally. Overgrown bushes shifted and waved, with or without a breeze is seemed. The ambient sounds were soft, but something felt off about the rustling of the leaves and the random creaks and insect sounds. A shudder rippled down Jemaul's spine, his wings trembling slightly in the seemingly cooler air. "This place is so much worse at night."
"Now more so than ever," Matt said, nodding in agreement; his own night vision wasn't as good as what Jemaul's had become but he could still see fairly well.
"Come on," Jemaul murmured, casting nervous glances around, as if expecting something to jump out from every shadow.
Matt took a deep breath before continuing onward; his mind started playing tricks with the shadows. He could almost swear that he saw some of them moving of their own accord. "Probably just my nerves getting to me," he muttered to himself.
"Or her getting to your nerves," Jemaul added, over hearing the comment. Overgrown and ill-kept or not, the road shouldn't look as spooky as it did. "You know, if this was a horror movie, I would be facepalming and muttering that the characters had no common sense."
"But here we are, coming up to a witches home as Dracula's pet daemon horse and a xenohorse," Matt said quietly. "And you're the black guy so you'd be extra bucked,"he added a few seconds later with a small nervous chuckle.
"It's why I'm the voice of reason. The Samuel L. Jackson of our cast of hapless heroes," Jemaul responded. Talking was helping. It helped draw attention from the surroundings, it distracted them, making progress easier. "Besides, I'm purple now. You're the black guy at the moment."
Matt's eyes widened at that, "well... Buck." He couldn't help but chuckle nervously again, "I'm boned if she decides to do anything else to us."
Something screeched in the trees, a shrill cry cutting abruptly through the air. Spooked, Jemaul's wings flared and he hopped closer to Matt; who nearly jumped out of his skin at the sudden noise.
"Let's hurry... Now," the bug pony said, now clearly panicked as he started to move once again, his pain quicker now.
"Quick march?" Jemaul chuckled nervously. "Because I could totally get behind a quick march right about now. Totally not running scared. Just… an expeditious charge. Quick march."
Matthew simply nodded in agreement as they kept moving forward. His eyes darting about even more now than ever before. Almost every shadow seemed to take on a sinister role and every hoof-fall seemed as loud as a cannon. Their speed steadily increased, their quickly march just shy of actually running. The wrought iron gates of the Granny Rag's estate where an almost welcome sight.
The unfamiliarity with the bodies kicked in again. Particularly when Jemaul found his attempts to stop running morphing into a scarcely controlled stagger. Unconsciously, he flared his wings, which only made it worse as the wind they caught lifted his forelegs off the ground and he found himself briefly airborne before crashing to the ground in a tumble.
Matt simply collapsed on the ground in front of the the gate panting heavily, "that... Creepy.. Not going back... Till sun up...."
Jemaul spat out a mouthful of dirt and grass. "Just… open the gates or something."
Without responding, Matt got back to his hooves and went over to the gate and before he even touched it, the gate opened on its own with a squeak. "Well," he said after a few seconds, "that was creepy."
"And expected, to be honest. I would have been disappointed if it didn't," Jemaul groaned, getting back to his feet. "Still, even if it met expectations, that's like saying a shark ate the penguin. Still freaky."
"What's next? Spooky scary skeletons?" Matt laughed dryly as he started down the path to the porch. His eyes not leaving a single turned on light on the second floor. "She knows we're coming," he said to himself.
"Don't get carried away, Scooby. I don't have any scooby snacks." Jemaul hesitated, but propped himself up and hit the knocker a few times.
"Well, we aren't Scooby Doo monster either."Matt said, plopping down on his haunches.
"The monstered were really a few times," Jemaul pointed out, his ears perked and head tilted slightly to the side as he listened for any movement inside, but not hearing anything.
"So... Is she coming?"
"I don't hear anything..." Jemaul said slowly. He knocked again, a bit harder.
Matt just let out an annoyed groan and laid down on his belly, "great, now we play the waiting game...yippie."
----------
Five hours. That's how long they waited. No matter how hard they knocked, how much they called, and despite Matt's horrible singing that stretched for about twenty minutes, there was no reaction from in the house. Jemaul refused to even entertain the idea of breaking in again, and if the idea of throwing a rock or pebble passed through the thoughts of either one, neither voiced it. Jemaul dozed off around sunrise, curled up on one of the chairs on her porch, sucking on his tail. Matt had passed out long before Jemaul had. He was asleep on deck itself, his tongue hanging from his mouth and a small pool of drool on wood.
A sharp crack woke them both, jolting them from whatever dreams they were having and back into the land of wakefulness. "You two turned out better than I expected."
"Huh? Wha?" Matt groaned as he yawned, opening his eyes to his forelegs. He frowned, "damn it, that wasn't a dream." He then looked up and saw Granny Rags looking at him and he let out a scared bug noise.
She took another picture of Matt, quickly catching Jemaul as he too yawned before freezing up at the sight of her. "But that's enough of that. Come in and have some breakfast." She turned and trotted back into her house, leaving the door open behind her.
Matt just looked over at Jemaul in surprise, "I think we should follow her," he said slowly, unsure of what to make of the situation
"That… actually scares me almost as much as what would happen if we don't follow," Jemaul said, hopping off the chair and hurrying after her with Matt quickly on his hooves.
The fact that they knew the way to the kitchen was a bit guilt inducing, but sure enough, there were three places set with plates, bowls and utensils around the breakfast table, one chair and two stools. The center of the table set with all the fixings of a diverse, those relatively normal ,'serve yourself' meal. Cereals, milk, oranges, avocado, blue and black berries, sausages, tomatoes, salsa, scrambled eggs, waffles, flat bread, hummus and carrots. There were a lot of choices, but not an excessive amount of anything.
She took the chair, leaving the two stools for them. Nervously, Jemaul climbed up on one.
"Eat, eat," she encouraged, spooning food on her own plate as if nothing were out of place. "Most everything here is homemade."
"Pardon my bluntness ma'am," Matt said quietly, "but how? We can't exactly lift up spoons here."
"Less thinking and more doing," she chided. "You won't understand to think is to do, so you must do rather than think. Work with limitations to work around them. Think of the goal and desire."
"Umm...okay," Matt said slowly exceptionally confused before he hopped up on the stool. "Any idea Jamie?"
Jemaul scratched his head with a wing. This old lady made no sense. He entertained the idea that she was going senile. He shrugged in Matt's direction. "I'm hungry, so I'm going to get food." Using both legs, he picked up the bowl of berries and awkwardly tipped some into his own bowl.
Mimicking Jemaul, Matt, went for the closest food to him and dragged the plate of sausages over to himself. Using a fork and one of the holes in his forelegs, he managed to drag one or two over to his own plate before leaning down and sniffing them. They seemed to be ordinary breakfast sausages but Matt couldn't quite put his finger on it as to why they seemed off to him. He leaned down and took a bite of one before slowly chewing and swallowing, "nothing. I've tasted bread with more flavor than this sausage." He looked more confused that freaked out by this statement; his own panic levels being sapped away several hours ago.
"Really?" Jemaul been fumbling with getting a bit of everything, sans the hummus and salsa, figuring out how to balance a utensil between his hoof and pastern. He sniffed at the sausage before nippling it. He reared back in surprise. "Wow… that's pretty good."
"It's the apples, garlic and oregano," Granny Rags commented simply. "Your shape must just not be able to taste it. Unusual. It shouldn't have done that much."
"What do you mean that much?" Matt asked, confusion clearly evident in his voice, "whatever you did to us?"
Granny Rags ate a piece of orange before responding. "Come now, that's not the kind of talk to have over a nice breakfast. And you need a better poker face," she added, pointing at Jemaul. "If your friend it going to insist on bring up serious things, you might as well both speak up."
Jemaul shrunk a little more on his seat. "It's just that… you scare the horseapples out of me and confuse the Tartarus out of me to."
She frowned, giving him another look that had him pale. "The table is definitely not the place for that kind of language. Few places are."
"Sorry," Jemaul squeaked.
Matt couldn't help but snicker slightly but stopped as soon he got a glare from Granny, he let out some manner of chirping sound as he his ears folded back against his head; "Sorry ma'am," he said quietly.
"Better. Now, are we going to enjoy a lovely breakfast, or talk about serious things?" she asked, still with her level authoritative tone.
"I'm not really hungry," Matt flinched under her gaze, "Jamie?"
Jemaul looked down at his plate and couldn't help the rumble that his stomach made. It had been nearly half a day since he last ate. Longer actually, since he had been too spooked after the pinching to eat when he got home. He looked up at her and shuffled his hooves slightly, speaking up softly, "both?"
Matt just facehooved at that.
She sighed. "Fine. I suppose we should start with introductions. Name and just a little something about yourself."
"Well, I'm... Matt," he said slowly, unsure of what to say, "and... And...." He couldn't look at her as he tried to think of what to say.
"My name is Jemaul, but my friends and family call my Jamie half the time," the guy in question said after swallowing a mouthful of waffles. He added in a mutter, "I've got a little sister that enjoyed this way too much."
"I am Delilah Daphnes, a rather skilled practitioner, I can say without bragging," her countenance darkened as her smile dropped. "And you two brats stole something very important from me."
Matt let out a small squeak of fear and shrinked in his chair, "we know," he practically whispered.
"You do? Excellent," she smiled as she sipped her cup of tea. Jemaul stared at it. He was almost certain there hadn't been any tea on the table. "So, what will you be doing about it?"
"What can we go about it?" Jemaul muttered into his food a bitterly. "I mean, after what you put us through..."
"A simple lesson your parents should have taught you," Miss Daphnes snorted.
"Simple?!" Matt slammed his forehooves on the table, causing a few dishes next to him to shake, "a species swap is not akin to a spanking!" After a few seconds of awkward silence, Matt's eyes widened and he decided that staring at the partly eaten sausage would probably be the best course of action.
"Perhaps you rather felony charges for breaking and entering, burglary and grand theft?" Miss Daphnes didn't seem provoked by Matt's reaction. "While I find the sentimental value of that item the important, its material value is still high enough."
"So torture and forcing us to wait outside half the night is your better option?" Jemaul spoke up.
"Yeah!" Matt looked up, suddenly feeling courageous again, "I got to feel my legs snap and reform! That should have killed me!!!"
"What?" She asked curiously. "It was a simple transformation spell. You stole an amulet my granddaughter and I were working on, so it seemed amusing to turn you both into something from her favourite cartoon. Quick and simple and gives you motivation to come here. Better than a newt or a toad."
"Quick and simple?" Jemaul echoed in disbelief. "I blacked out when these wings grew in!"
Matt nodded in agreement, "Miss Daphnes, I don't know what your definition of quick and simple is but this was neither of those things!" He frowned, brow furrowed as he stared at her, his wings buzzing slightly behind him.
"Impossible. That is from a completely different spell," Miss Daphnes said dismissively. "You'd have to have been on wavering borders..."
"Wavering borders? What the heck are you talking about?"
"I cast a transformation spell that would warp your physical form into something else. Relatively painless and quick," she huffed. "The only way that could have changed was if there were enough connections between the targets and the concept. Even if the veil is a bit thin this time of year."
"If you mean the show with the ponies, my sister likes it," Jemaul offered.
"I didn't know it existed till... This," Matt said a few seconds later, gesturing down at himself:
"I only found out this morning," Jemaul grumbled.
"So you say it was painful and lengthy?" Miss Daphnes asked.
Matt simply nodded.
"The spell must have changed somehow. I'm not sure how, maybe the amulet itself." She looked thoughtful. "You should still consider yourself fortunate."
"Fortunate? You just admitted you don't know what the bu- what happened to us!" Jemaul said, his eye twitching, narrowly avoiding swearing again. "What part of that is fortunate?"
"The part where you are still alive and sane. Do you know how fortunate you are that you stole what you did? Quite a few of the trinkets I keep can cause a good deal of harm if they were improperly handled. Had it not been for the shift in the season, the wards on my home might have lashed out at your mind for breaking my threshold." The kindly old lady aura was replaced with something sharp and cutting. The air in the room seemed to become charged, prickling at Jemaul's fur and Matt's wings as some force seemed to weigh down on them. The light from the windows seemed to distort, casting false shadows as the temperature in the room fluctuated.
"Even the spell itself, had I controlled my anger, could have broken you rather than merely leave you in a new form. You broke into my house under some childish motivations with less than moral intentions. You stole something precious to me and my granddaughter for no other reason good reason. The only reason you still sit there eating my food is because for all I am, I am still fond of the mortal world." As quickly as it came, it was gone, and the atmosphere snapped back to normal.
Jemaul valiantly managed to avoid peeing himself, quivering on the stool, wide eyes locked on her. Power. That was power. It was one thing to know it, but to see it demonstrated live in front of them? Neither of them would soon forget they were sitting in what might be the heart of the witch's power.
Miss Daphnes ran her finger over the rim of her cup and steam started wafting from it once more. After taking another sip, her tension melted away, and the kindly elderly lady was back.
Matt, however, was not as prepared as his friend was. Eyes wide, and shaking like a leaf, he stared at Miss Daphnes in utter terror. Suddenly, Matt erupted in green flame and once it disappeared. A small dark green pony with a shaggy brown mane sat in his place, looking on the verge of bawling as he barely looked over the table. "B-but can you fix this," he said, his voice now high and squeaky like a child.
Jemaul stared at Matt in horror, his jaw hanging to the table. He pointed a shaky hoof at the colt. Miss Daphnes snorted. "No, I didn't do that. He did it himself. It seems the spell really did change. You shouldn't have actually had the magic of the ponies."
"I… what?" Jemaul stammered, unable to look away from Matt for long.
"A changeling and a bat pony. From season two. And yes, I should be able to fix this," Miss Daphnes said contemptuously. "But you'll need to return what you stole first."
"No! Fix us now!" The little colt shrieked, slamming his forehooves on the table. "We can't get it back like this! Justin won't give it back!"
His little tantrum upset a few of the items on the table, a box of cereal tipping over, some of it's contents scattering. She frowned at his little display, waving a hand at the spilt serious almost as an afterthought. Flakes skittered back into the box that proceeded to right itself as she spoke. "While I won't pretend to have made my own follies in this, it starts with the choices you two made, entangling yourself in the magic on Samhain of all days! Magic is of power, of will and of emotion. The amulet you stole is tied into the spell, partially by my own feelings and attachments, largely by your own guilt!"
Jemaul whimpered again as her bearing started slipping from 'Grandmother' into 'Witch' once more. He actually knew what Samhain was. More than once or twice in the past he, from an interest spurred by some novel he was reading, read up on ancient traditions and practices. Once even as his chosen topic for an assignment. "But… I… we... " he swallowed. "What if we can't get it back?"
"Then your outlook is less cheering," She said simply.
"B-b-but I don't wanna be a bug...." Matt muttered quietly, sniffling as he looked down at the floor.
"Then you should try your best to get it back," Miss Daphnes said in a much more compassionate tone. "I do apologize for taking the curse too far, but I was not lying when I said some of what I have could have killed you both."
"Killed?" Jemaul's eyes widened again.
Matt's eyes widened for a second before he shook his head. "Umm... One question though," he asked, his eyes still red with tears, "how do I turn back to normal?"
"I don't know," she said simply. A raised hand forestalled any questions. "I am not attempting to be difficult. What you did was simply a trait of who and what you became now. I will have to check a few things to be sure, but if the spell shifted in the manner I believe it did, you should know how to undo it if you merely sit and reflect on it some."
"Oh...okay," Matt said quietly to himself before going silent as he was lost in thought. After nearly ten minutes or so and passing gas once, green fire once again erupted around Matt and he was back to his normal buggy self. "Yes! A resounding success!" He cheered to himself.
In the time Matt spent on introspection, Jemaul and Miss Daphnes had a somewhat productive conversation. Mostly after she insisted he finished eating while she tossed a few questions at him and examined his magic aura. They learned quite a lot during the wait. Such as the fact that Jemaul actual knew how to fly.
"Finally figured it out?" Jemaul asked. They were in the room on their own, Miss Daphnes have left for something.
"Yeah," Matt nodded, "I just had to clear my head and think of my 'normal'," he did air quotes with his hooves, "form and boom, I'm bug again."
"And it took you ten minutes to clear your head," Jemaul snickered. "I know you don't think that much."
"Oh ha ha," Matt laughed sarcastically, "you try to figure out something you don't know how to do yet did anyway."
"I can fly," Jemaul said with a solemn nod.
"What," Matt blinked in surprise.
"I realized I knew how to fly," Jemaul explained. He flapped a few times, lifting himself off the chair before landing awkwardly. "Would have been more useful earlier, but still."
Matt looked back at his insectoid wings before looking back at Jemaul, "I'd much rather stay in the ground thank you. So what else did she tell you?"
"We have less than a day," Jemaul said hesitantly, his ears lowered.
Matt's eyes widened at that. "Well, let's get going then! I'm not staying a damn roach my whole life," he said, stomping his forehooves in determination.
"Says the magic shapeshifter," Jemaul said with a roll of his eyes. He looked around for Miss Daphnes, who had left after her initial pokes and prods to do other things. His twitching ears faintly detected her muffled footsteps from the second floor, though it sounded further than it should have have to him. "And how? It's bright daylight outside. We don't exactly blend in.
"Last thing she told me was that the time of the year messed up her spell, so instead of making us look like ponies, it actually made us ponies." Jemaul pawed anxiously at his seat. "The spell is pretty much permanent, but she can reverse it if the trigger for the original spell, the amulet, is returned, but only while it's still Samhain, but before sunrise tomorrow."
"So we're stuck in the house of a old lady who scares the living daylights outta both of us," Matt said flatly, "great... Just bucking amazing."
"At least she's willing to help us," Jemaul sighed, resting his head on the table. "Mostly. It could have been worse."
Matt nodded in agreement before sighing sadly, "it's been one tartarus of a day hasn't it Jamie? Brutal transformations, sneaking around, and getting scared shitless by a little old lady." He laughed dryly.
"And now we have to somehow get back a valuable trinket from a rich jerk, who lives in a penthouse on the other side of town, all before sunrise tomorrow." Jemaul snorted let his head roll to one side. "When did we sign up for the Urban Fantasy Adventure expansion to life, and can I opt out of this campaign? I think I'm too low leveled."
Matt just laughed dryly, "yeah, when the buck did we end up in an episode of Grimm."
"When it turned out the rumours about a witch were real, most likely," Jemaul sighed. "You gonna eat anything?"
Matt shook his head, "not really that hungry. And it doesn't help that all this tastes like cardboard."
"Maybe it's because of what you turned into?" Jemaul proposed. "Because it tasted pretty good to me."
"Yeah, that's probably why," Matt frowned, "all the more reason to get that damn necklace back. I wanna be able to eat food again and like it!"
"The point is, we still can't go out in the open like this. Nothing looks like us," Jemaul commented. He chewed his lip thoughtfully. "For the most part. Maybe we could pretend to be pets in costu…. no, that's dumb. Only a kid would fall for that."
"Let's just wait till it's getting dark outside and use the alleys and whatnot to get to his building then just go up the fire escape to the top," Matt said matter of factly. "And knowing him, he's probably away at some 'party' getting piss drunk with his chums."
Jemual got up roughly, upsetting the stool as he started pacing. "I would thank God that it was halloween so we have a better chance of sneaking around looking like this," Jemaul waved a hoof at himself vaguely, "but then, none of this would have happened if it wasn't halloween."
He glared at Matt, a faint hiss of irritation and frustration escaping him. "Of if I hadn't let you convince me to do this in the first place!"
"There's no point in bitching about what has happened Jamie! We got bigger fish to fry at the moment!" He got to his hooves and trotted over to the window to look out of it, "like the fact we could end up like this forever if we buck this up!"
"I know, I know, I know! You think I don't know? But, Tartarus Gates… We can't do anything but wait it out!" Jemaul kicked a stool with his hind leg, knocking it part way across the room as his wings twitched. "If we get spotted, someone's gonna call Animal Control. Animal Control. Because that's what we look like. Some beasts that will, I dunno, kill kids and drag them off to the underworld."
"For you at least, they'd think I'm some damn mutant roach or an alien of some kind and send me off to the MIB," Matt just plopped down on his haunches and visibly slumped. "This is just insane, utterly mental!"
Jemaul took several shuddering breaths, each one coming slower than the one before, as he calmed himself down. "Sorry… yelling at you isn't going to solve anything. We just have to… to wait till it gets dark. Then we can go out and, and try to find it."
Matt nodded in agreement, "yeah, well, at least she has a TV so we're not just sitting here twiddling our non existent thumbs." With that, Matt got to his feet and started making his way to the living room.
"Actually, I do have thumbs," Jemaul said, wiggling the thumbs of his wings at Matt. "I'm going outside. I plan to get used to these."
"Whatever," Matt said as he trotted into the living room, "I'm gonna see if she has Netflix."
"Let me know if she has anything good," Jemaul called after him.
"I will; Who knows she may have the show on too," Matt laughed to himself.
"Yeah," Jemaul said thoughtfully. "Definitely call me if she does. It would be good to know what we're supposed to be able to do. Lori wasn't all that helpful."
"Will do Jamie."
----------
Though she keep her motives to herself, Miss Daphnes allowed the pair to remain on her property for the day. She didn't spare much time for them. Aside from not stopping Jemaul from shadowing her as she touched up her wards and giving Matt access to her neflix account. After that, she plucked tail hair from both of them and retreated to her room to do her own thing with them. She did let them know which episodes their kind appeared in. They made sure to watch them.
Jemaul wiped out a few times as he worked out a familiarity with flight. The curse gave him an advantage, and he was more than willing to try and exploit it. It wasn't exactly the easiest thing, but he kept at it. Matt, more or less ignored everything and holed up in the house watching netflix.
"So I'm basically a Zerg minus the big pointy bits...." Matt said to himself as he started walking to the door out into the backyard where Jamie was. He had just finished watching the episode where changelings, as now knew, first appeared and it was definitely something.
Jemaul was carefully brushing bits of shrubbery and dirt from his mane. While he 'knew' how to fly, that was mostly instinct. Actually flying under his own directive has been a learning curve. He thought he was doing rather well for himself, but landing was a tricky, as was maintaining his flight. It didn't help that his awesome night vision came with sun sensitivity. He nodded at Matt when he emerged. "Almost time?"
"Yeah it is,"He said, the sky already darkening, "and on a side note, I'm a bad guy and you're the guards of royalty."
"So says all of, what, thirteen seconds of screen time?" Jemaul muttered. "I can fly and pull a flying batmobile. Maybe call up storm clouds? That might have been Luna. Been trying, not cigar."
"At least we know why food has no taste for me now," Matt frowned.
"Yeah… um... just what have you been eating?" Jemaul asked hesitantly.
"I don't know," he said confused, "I guess I just haven't been hungry yet or I have some ambient absorption."
Jemaul shook his head, shuddering slightly. "That is all sorts of creepy. Think you could pull off what the queen did?"
Matt was silent for nearly a minute as he thought, "I doubt it; I seem to be one of the drones not a queen so no special mind control powers for me."
"You are still a guy, so there's that," Jemaul said, giving his mane a vigorous tussling to get the last bits out. "Still think you should have figured out flying. Can you do the wall walking?"
"I assume so, I was gunna try inside but she somehow knew," he said, a scared tone in his voice, "I'll admit she's nice but she scares me."
"The fact that she switches between nice and nasty so fast is what scares me," Jemaul admitted.
"Come on, let's just go and get it back now," Matt looked over his shoulder at the house and nearly jumped out of his skin when he saw Delilah standing at a window looking out at them. "Like right flippin' now!"
They still hadn't solved the issue of how they would get across town. Yet the witch glaring at them from from her window definitely put wind in their sails as the two quickly fled the premises and out the gates.
"Like I said nice but scary as buck," Matt panted as the two stopped after their brief panic filled escape.
"I can't even tell what she's thinking half the time," Jemaul admitted with a groan, his fur ruffled in places. "She hits us with the curse then gets upset we aren't working our flanks off trying to break it?"
"Maybe she's got a mental disorder too?" Matt said, looking about to see if anyone was out yet, "it could be that?"
"She's old too," Jemaul contributed as he shook his fur back in place.
"Whatever," Matt shrugged, "let's just get this over with and get back to our normal selves." He looked down at his hooves and frowned, "I'm already forgetting what fingers felt like."
"Okay, we should be able to use the fire escape to get up to Justin's place, but getting there is the real issue," Jemaul dropped to his haunches and thoughtfully tapped his forehooves together. "You turned into a colt earlier. Think you can turn into a human?"
"I was scared out of my wits," he quickly replied, "it just happened. I don't know how I did it but it just happened."
"Okay, that's plan A out the window..." Jemaul hummed. He clicked to himself a few times. "Never had much faith in 'Plan A's anyway. Can you use your shapeshifting at all?"
"Like I said before, it happened by accident," he groaned, "and it took me forever to make myself back into this."
Jemaul looked at him, his eye twitching. He closed his eyes took a few calming breaths. He was still pissed, but at least his tone was more or less level. "Matt… you literally had all day to try and work it out… you seriously wasted it all watching netflix? I thought you were joking about that and just wanted privacy!"
He let out a scared bug noise, "I-I... She had the show! I was doing research! I only watched one episode of House of Cards thank you very much."
Jemaul clenched his jaw and slowly stood up, his breath hissing out between his teeth. "Matt… I really, really want to bite you right now."
"I was doing research! How was I suppos-"
"Twelve hours! We have less than twelve hours to get to the other side of town, break into a rich flank stain's apartment, which I might add, will be packed due to the Halloween Party he's having, and get here, all while as some characters from some little girl's show, and you did BUCK ALL ALL DAY?" Jemaul let out an angrish screech, hooves stomping and his wings flaring.
Matt let out a terrified insectoid screech of fear and was almost instantly enveloped in green fire once again. Once it disappeared, the same tiny colt as before stood in his place.
Jemaul's cry cut off, but his expression was still venomous, though some of the tension left his jaw. He hissed softly, glaring at the colt. "Really?" he sneered, sarcasm dripping from the word. "Now you figure out how to do that?"
"Y-you scared me," he squeaked, hiding behind his forehooves, "it just Happened!"
"Of course I did," Jemaul ground out, pawing at the grass with a hoof. His wings slowly inched back down to their resting position.
"And we shouldn't be screaming our heads off so much," the small colt looked about cautiously, "someone could come and investigate!"
"Augh… okay, we should be fine… we are still too close to Granny D's place for most people to poke around," Jemaul tried not to think too hard about how he almost messed them up. "How long do you think you can keep that shape?"
"I... I don't know," he said after a few seconds of thought, "though may I ask? How do I look?" His big eyes wide as he looked up at the now larger Jamie.
"You look like a foal, now please don't look at me like that," Jemaul requested, rubbing between his eyes. He didn't want to admit it, but Matt looked pretty adorable like that. He held a hoof over the colt's head, measuring his height. "The green mane might stand out, but the brown coat is good. Might be able to pass off as an animal. Better than the bug get up."
"But I don't wanna be tiny!" He pouted as got to his hooves, "besides bug mode is a better disguise on tonight of all nights."
"Smaller means easier to sneak around. And considering you didn't practice flying or shapeshifting, walking is about all you can do," Jemaul grumbled unkindly. Mentally, he started assembling a map of the city. "Probably a good think you don't have wings in that shape."
"Why? Because I'm a flying ball of adorableness," he scoffed.
Jemaul gave Matt a bland look before shoving him off his hooves and thoughtfully walking off. "Okay… Jane Lane is on the east side of town… can't cut straight to the Gates. Too many major roads to cross… might have tried flying from rooftops since people don't often look up, but somepony," he shot a glare back at Matt, "decided to watch Daytime TV..."
"It wasn't daytime TV," he said flatly before rubbing his eyes. "I can ride on your back," Matt suggested after some thought, "with me as a pint sized little kid, I should fit just fine."
"GaaaaAAAAAaaaaahhh..." Jemaul said, coming to a sudden stop, throwing a foreleg over his face. His shoulders shifted as he inhaled and exhaled heavily. Lowering his leg with a sigh, he shook himself. "Okay… better now. I don't know. I'm still clumsy flying, and my landings are horrible. Don't know if I can manage with a passenger."
Matt frowned, "oh horseapples, well, I guess we gotta hoof it across back alleys across town."
"This is gonna suck so much… the community routes are gonna be packed with kids trick or treating. The downtown angle is always packed," Jemaul used a hoof to sketch out ideas. "Waiting till later pushes the clock..."
"We could always cut through the park and cemetery?" Matt suggested, "the park is on the edge of town and is only a block or two of closed stores away from the apartment. And the cemetery is a couple blocks from said park?"
"Three shorter danger runs," Jemaul murmured. "But a cemetery? On halloween? When we just found out magic is real? Damn, colt, you got some balls."
"Who knows maybe the spoopy scary skeletons are in the old graveyard outside of town?" Matt laughed, "knowing our luck that may just be the case."
"I don't have a better idea, and I wasted half an hour so far," Jemaul groaned. He looked at the rapidly setting sun, ears twitching to catch the faintest sounds of people. "Let's go avoid us some humans."
-----
Jemaul had to remind himself that no one else would be seeing their surroundings as clearly as he was while he watched the early batches of parents and little ones start their candy runs. Getting to the park still called for crossing a lot of property. "Backyards?"
Matt simply nodded as he scampered along after Jamie, practically having to jog to keep up with the bigger ponies strides. "This is horseapples! Slow the heck down!"
Though not without an irritated snort, Jemaul slowed his pace so the colt that served as Matt's only guise could keep up, keeping to the shadows as he angled for the rear of the lot. At least halloween tended to mean more shadows and places to hide. Stars forbid it was christmas, then everything would be lit up like… well; christmas. "Think you can climb a fence?"
"I'm like a foot tall and a half tall, I doubt I can," he huffed, "why the heck did I agree to this disguise business. I was all black! All I'd have to do is slink into the shadows and close my eyes!"
"You looked like a biker horse sans the spikes and skulls, have solid blue eyes, a somewhat polished shell and sounded like some distant relative of Belzebub. Lord of Flies version." Jemaul listened impassively. Using a hoof, he forced a hole through a hedge big enough for Matt. "The size is your own fault."
"I can't help that I don't know how to do size," he replied, rolling his eyes as he got onto his knees and crawled through the hole. "And you're not exactly sneaky too Count Horscula."
"True. But considering you refused to learn how to fly, having you fuzzy was better than…," Jemaul paused contemplatively. "What's the word for- oh, duh. Chitinous."
Matt just let out a huff of irritation as he was halfway through the bush, "well at least I have a horn too."
"That you don't know how to use." Jemaul tapped a hoof impatiently before turning and giving Matt a 'helpful' hoof to his rear to push him through. That done, he flew over the barrier the easy way.
Matt was glaring at him as he came over the top, rubbing his rump with a hoof. "I was getting through just fine you jerk," he mock pouted, "this is child abuse!"
"You look around eight ish, I can pass as your older, hot, brother," Jemaul said, 'landing' beside Matt and picking himself up. "Poor relationship and a lecture at most."
Matt just glared at him as he got back to his hooves, "come on, let's just keep going."
The possibility of trick or treaters reduced the possibility of people paying attention to their backyards to almost nothing. Their only close call was some random guy ducking out the back to have a smoke. Aside from them being outside the glare cast by the open door, he was draining a can of beer between draws.
"Yo, Kevin! You got anymore smokes?" someone called from inside.
"Yeah, you want one?"
"Fuck yeah, man. Gimmie a minute to grab another beer."
And that wasn't good. The moment 'Kevin' turned his attention back inside, Jemaul wrapped his arms around Matt's barrel and hauled him into the air.
The small colt let out a hell of panic as he was suddenly grabbed but quickly shut up as he realized that being loud would blow their cover.
"Don't flail," Jemaul advised, a mere portion of the panic he was feeling reaching his voice. Carrying somepony else while flying was completely different. His entire center of balance was off from what he practiced with, Matt was heavy and he was… horseapples, how was he supposed to land? They already cleared the road and were aiming for the cemetery.
"Umm... Jamie? You said you couldn't carry me earlier," Matt said, panic starting to set in his voice.
"And I probably should have listened to myself," Jemaul stated matter-of-factly as his flight continued a rapid deterioration. Jemaul was more that familiar with the signs of an impending crash landing by then, so he dropped Matt as they passed a convenient bush.
The small colt let out a quick scream as he fell to the ground and landing in the bush with a oof, his flank sticking in the air.
Okay, legs out, half roll, try not to- is that a headstone? Oh no, oh crapohlunaohbuckingtart- Jemaul's attempt at salvaging his landing were aborted by the stone hard truth that the universe liked picking on him as he crashed muzzle first into some overly large and ornate grave marker with a solid thud, hooves barely warding off some of the force.
As Jamie lay stunned in front of the tombstone, a voice seemed to yawn from somewhere below. "I swear to God Frankie! If you just woke me up I'm gonna kick your ass so hard you're going to die again!"
Jemaul tried getting up, but the world was spinning too much and he toppled over, falling on his back, his wings splayed and ears twitching. He groaned, wiping the blood on his muzzle. "I really need to work on that… And what was that you said, Matt?"
A groan came from the nearby bush, "I said nothing aside from 'OW' Jamie."
"Hey! I didn't bother you Johnny boy! I'm still over here," a different voice from before seemed to call out.
"Matt, hide," Jemaul hissed, leaping into the bush after him.
Matt let out a yelp as he was knocked on his butt but looked up at Jemaul, a confused on his face, "I see nothing but headstones and hear nothing? What the Tartarus has you spooked?"
"Shhh!" Jemaul insisted, pressing a hoof over Matt's mouth and looking around. "There are people out there. I can hear them talking."
"I hear nothing!"
"Then who the hell woke me up the Frankie?"
"Some weird animal hit your stone and hid in a bush," the other voice replied.
"Crap, they saw me," Jemaul muttered. He peered out the bush stealthily to see who was speaking.
Outside of the bush, Jemaul saw nothing but tombstones. He hesitantly crawled out a little. "Okay..?"
"I see it now," one of the voices said and before Jemaul's eyes, a pair of opaque blue man materialized in front of him. One wearing a dark suit and the other seeming to wear a far older fashioned white suit.
"Well, I'll be Frankie," the one in a dark suit said, a look of surprise on his face, "You weren't kidding. It is an animal but what the devil is it?"
"No idea Johnny boy," Frankie cocked his head to the side, "is it some new breed of dog?"
Jemaul's eyes widened, pupils shrinking to pinpricks, shell shocked into in inactivity. Ghosts. Two ghosts. Right in front of him. A faint high pitched whine issued from his throat.
"Frankie? I think it can see us." Johnny stated, as he knelt down, "Hey little guy, can you see us?"
Jemaul's whine cut off, strangled as he flinched back. Heaving, he filled his lungs, and the whine started again, his wings slowing extending, tail fluffed out.
"it has wings? The dickens is this thi-"
"Jamie Jaime? What the heck is going on!? What's spooked you!? Is someone out there, " Matt called out from inside the bush.
Both the ghost looked at each other dumbfounded for a moment. "There's another too!"
"It can talk!"
Fluid splattered on the ground as Jemaul's heroic bladder control called it quits, his tail pulling up between his legs and catching a bit of it. He ran out of breath again and inhaled once more. This time, his voice actually came out, a scream of sheer panic that started loud and quickly ascended into shrill territory before transcending that and peaking in the ultrasonic. "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!"
Matt crawled his way out of the bush, clutching his ears as with his forehooves as he fell to the ground. His disguise dropping and revealing his insectoid form.
"What the hell is that?! Some kind of alien!!" Johnny looked downright alarmed as he saw Matt on the ground, holding his ears in pain.
Jemaul ran. Buck the cemetery. Buck it sideways in a desert outhouse under the noonday sun. Forgetting everything about Matt, he ran all out, bolting through the ghosts, fur rippling from the sharp chill, and kept running. He forgot he had wings, leaving them on autopilot, spread to give his headlong gallop some balance, and his leaps over headstones more altitude and distance, but he didn't stop. Particularly as more and more spirits started showing themselves, his wail having disturbed even more than the first two.
"Ahhh! Ahhhh! Ahhh!" What started as a 'true as the arrow flies' run turned into a game of cemetery pinball as he jerked away from ghost to ghost. His already frayed state of mind got shredded and he driven to tears and ragged sobs. Eventually his hooves lead him to a familiar spot in the cemetery: his aunt's grave.
Tired, muscles burning from not only the run but also his hours of flight practice, hooves aching, and totally overwhelmed by the events of the day so far, he collapsed on the grass and curled up into a whimpering ball, hugging his tail as he trembled. "I can't do this… I can't take this any more..."
"Just when you think you've seen everything," a soft voice commented. Jemaul's ear twitched. "Just goes to show you, so many things under the sun to discover. So little creature, are you crying?"
Jemaul knew that voice, but that was impossible. He looked up at the figure crouched beside him. "A-Auntie Betty?"
Matt was pissed as he made his way across the graveyard.
Whatever had scared Jamie enough to scream loud enough to raise the dead and run hadn't even bothered Matt while he was disoriented by the ear bleedingly loud screech.
But no, his friend bolting wasn't what pissed him off. Not in the slightest, it was the fact he landed in piss.
Jamie's piss.
Now, Matt also had piss mud stuck to the side of shell and he was going to get Jamie back for it. He had been following the sound of screams, but those eventually faded, so he only had a vague idea of which way to go.
"Faust damn you Jamie," Matt grumbled as he quietly walked amongst the tombstones, "you are so bucked when I find you."
"Really? Grade Four? And you finishing high school? You grow up so fast."
"It's been a while. We're doing great, but we still miss you. Timbit really want to be in your class."
Matt's ears perked up as he thought he heard someone talking and started heading towards the sound. Maybe it was Jamie? The changeling started to head towards the sound.
"I would have loved to have had her in a class. But my time came, Jamie. I'm not bitter about it, and you shouldn't be either."
"I… I'm not it's just… I miss you. You were my favourite aunt….
Hey! Don't do that, it feels weird!"
"You're my favourite nephew too. And now you're furry and adorable."
Matt raised an eyebrow. That was definitely Jemaul but who was he talking too? "Jamie," he called out, "where are you!"
"Over here, my sweet! By the water! Come join me and we shall make-"
"For Pete's sake, Mannon, go bother someone else!"
"What?"
"Nevermind him. Isn't that your friend?"
"Oh, right... I'm over here," Jemaul called back.
With that, Matt ran towards where he heard Jamaul's voice and when he finally saw him, he was even more confused. "Jamie, who were you talking to?" He asked as he looked about seeing no one but him.
"I… Well… um…." Jemaul nervously rubbed his head. He sighed and gestured to the female ghost sitting on the headstone. "Okay… I'd like you to meet my Aunt Elizabeth."
"Umm..." Matt looked about, seeing nothing, "are you hallucinating or something? Your aunt died years ago man; you're sitting on her grave."
"He doesn't have the same spark to his presence you do," Aunt Betty commented. "He's not able to see any of us."
"Seriously?" Jemaul said, frowning at her. "Couldn't you have mentioned that earlier?"
"I wasn't sure. I'm still surprised you can see us. I don't think it's just the turned into a pony thing you mentioned either. There's something… not different, but more about you." Aunt Betty looked at him contemplatively, her ghostly gaze somewhat spine tingling. "Just tell him you see dead people."
"I thought you said you didn't watch that movie and didn't want to," Jemaul protested.
"I changed my mind."
"Umm... You're starting to creep me out man."
"Okay, look, here's the deal," Jemaul said, his wings dropping, "I can apparently see dead people. And the cemetery is crawling with ghosts..."
"Well that explains why you pissed yourself and ran like a filly," Matt looked about, "but...." In an instant, Matt pounced on Jemaul and started rubbing his dirty side on his friend, "I fell in your piss you dunderhead!"
"Tartarus no!" Jemaul yelped, trying to get away while the ghost of his aunt laughed. "Dude! Dude, stop! I got fur!"
"Take it like a stallion!" Matt proclaimed as he clung to his friends side, wiping against him.
"Jeeze that's just nasty!" Jemaul hissed, pushing Matt away and holding him at bay with a leg. "What the hay was that for?"
"I fell in your bucking piss! I didn't want that on me!" He replied matter of factly. He was silent for a few seconds before saying, "and pardon my language Ms. Betty."
"You think I want it? I never told you to fall into it," Jemaul grumbled. His attempts at getting the mud off just messed his fur up more, so he gave up on it.
"You're like some of my old students," Aunt Betty laughed.
"I'm surprised you believe me," Jemaul said softly.
Matt just sighed, "well, I was gonna roll on the ground but I don't wanna roll on top of a grave. And after you saying there's ghost now I'm really glad I didn't."
"It doesn't bother much, to be honest, but it can be annoying to watch when you are around," Aunt Betty commented sagely.
"I mean about that though," Jemaul asked. "How'd you believe me about the ghost thing so easily?"
"We've been turned into tiny horses from a kid's cartoon by a witch," he said flatly, "I'm letting my beliefs fly a little now."
Aunt Betty gave them both a once over. "You don't look like those My Little Pony toys I had. I don't remember any of the ponies having bat wings, and the flutter ponies didn't look like Matt here..."
"Really?" Jemaul looked at his aunt in surprise. "We saw the show. We look pretty much like them."
"This is a new style of it Man," he looked at Jemaul, "the first season started in 2010."
"And there's an answer," Jemaul shrugged before grimacing. He turned to the ghost and smiled at her. "Um, Aunt Betty, it was… weird seeing you again, but your talk helped. But we still have to get this done before daylight, and I already wasted a lot of time, but..."
She silenced him with a hug that had his wings flaring his surprise. "You two need to get going. It's good to respect the dead, but don't dwell on them. We aren't anything but an echo of a life that was that you can here at the right time." She ruffled his mane and did the same to Matt's fin as her body started fade. "I think this echo is fading away too, but you can still come by and tell me how it worked out. Bring Lisa with you when you do."
Matt visibly shivered as Betty touching him; his skin becoming icy cold at the touch. "Okay, I definitely felt that," he said quietly, "but come on we gotta go Jamie."
"I'm… aw, yeah," Jemaul said as his Aunt waved before fading away entirely, leaving only a faint cloud of glowing motes that drifted away. Jemaul blinked away the tears that threatened. "Yeah. Let's get out of this cemetery."
They lost a lot of time in the cemetery, but being able to race through the park at least gave the illusion that they were catching up on it. An awkward stop at the water fountain served to get most of the mud traces off them, though not the memory. Their earlier tactic of sticking to the backyard continued to work out and they thankfully didn't encounter any other dramatic situations, even with Matt in his true form. And soon the two reached the alley next to Justin's Apartment building.
Matt looked up at the fire escape ladder, nearly ten feet up in the air and far out of reach of the two. "Well horseapples," he said, stomping a hoof, "I forgot they keep these things up in the air."
"Ahem," Jemaul coughed, flapping his wings a little.
"But that's like ten feet up man!"
"Then walk up the wall," Jemaul remarked, eying the distance. Maybe he could drop the access ladder down?
"I don't know how to do that," Matt said as he walked over to the wall and put a hoof on it only for it to come off easily. "Darn it..."
"All because you didn't want to practice and watched daytime tv instead," Jemaul sighed. Without waiting for Matt's reply he took off strongly, if a bit unstable in his ascent. His wings pumped steadily as he rose past the ladder until he was even with the first landing.
"Hey! Don't leave me down here!" The bug hollered up at him, shaking a forehoof.
"Fly uup-oooh crap!" Jemaul panicked as his attempt to change his upward momentum into forward motion was a bit too successful and he almost crashed into the landing, barely managing to retain enough control the stagger unto it with a clatter of hooves. "Ha! No crash landing this time!"
"Good for you but you can still lower the damn ladder."
"Or you could fly up," Jemaul muttered. The catches were a bit tricky to work with hooves, but he managed to unhook it, sending the heavy metal ladder plunging to the ground. "Oh buck!"
The ladder slammed down on the concrete with a loud clang as Matt jumped out of the way with relative ease. With that, Matt went over to the ladder and after a few attempts managed to climb it up to the first level where Jamie waited for him.
"See, wasn't that easy?" Jemaul smiled. "Now we climb. So many stairs..."
"...yay..," Matt said flatly.
After the heart thumping excitement of dodging from yard to yard, and the blood chilling terror of the ghost inhabited cemetery, one would think climbing stairs would be boring. Not so much when hooves tended to make a racket on the landings and steps, and they had to be slipping by windows, some of which were lit from within.
"You hear something Marge?" a man's voice called from the third floor window.
"Probably just them kids sneaking around again," a female responded.
"If you'd just learned to fly," Jemaul hissed quietly.
"Well excuse me for researching," he retorted, "I actually kind of know something now."
"And what would that be?" Jemaul cast a glance over his shoulder, looking like he really needed something to distract him, his ears flat.
"That there is a town of pseudo communist cultists that rip off Harrison Burgeron," he replied matter of factly. As they approached the next floor, he began to sense something.
"And they have a brainwashing room too," he added before grinning, "I like them."
"Yes… Yes… Yes… Right there…"
"That sounds totally interesting and I would love to hear more!" Jemaul said with a forced grin. "Honestly. Please keep talk!"
"You like that? You want that? I got more for you!"
Matt couldn't help but stop as he felt something radiating from that room. And it felt... really damn good!
"Oh God yes. I want you inside me, Marco. You too Mario!"
"Why did you stop talking?" Jemaul cringed. He decided to hurry along and not stay to hear how it turned out.
Matt stopped and he sniffed the air, "This tastes really bucking good!"
"You think you can take the whole thing?"
"Shut up and do me!"
Jemaul missed a step and painfully smacked his jaw on the metal. After painfully clamping his mouth shut to keep in the swears, he rolled and stared at Matt in an expression of questioning disbelief, his high pitch soft whine making another appearance.
"What?!" He whispered quietly, "I'm hungry!?"
"I'm gonna go slow and let Mario set the pace, okay Tania?"
"I'm… I'm gonna keep walking," Jemaul stated in a level tone. He turned and made good on his promise. "I'm gonna keep walking and pretend I didn't and can't hear anything of this."
After a minute, Matt came up the stairs smacking his lips, "mmm... That tasted lik-"
"I REALLY don't want to know," Jemaul interjected quickly, raising a hoof and shaking his head quickly. Finding out what sex tastes like? Yep. Not on his to-do list.
"...like really damn good."
Jemaul shuddered again. "Just keep moving."
Thankfully, no one else seemed to be doing the tango that night, so the rest of the climb was uneventful. The fire escape eventually came to a stop, the last landing having a ladder leading up to the roof. The sounds of a party faintly drifted down to them, though Jemaul's ears were up and alert.
"Sounds like everyone is inside the apartment," he reported after a few moments. "Everything sounds muffled, like it's coming from a doorway. So he's not using the patio."
"That's great," Matt sighed happily, "so we get clean infiltration."
"Not really, I can still hear people and music and stuff," Jemaul continued. He closed his eyes and focused on sorting out what he was hearing, his ears twitching occasionally. "Sounds like what I guess a party would sound like."
"Well, let's just slip in and slip out."
"And how many people do you think are at this party for us to just sneak past?" Jemaul retorted, opening one eye to grace Matt's eye with a bland stare.
"I dunno," was Matt's reply.
"We could have you run in like a xenomorph," Jemaul mused.
"Oh ha ha," he laughed sarcastically, "why don't you just hover in the air?"
"While demanding they return was was stolen in a cliche horror movie voice?" Jemaul asked with a mocking roll of his hoof. He paused mid maneuver. It was halloween, after all. Hell, their whole situation was because of that fact. "That… might work actually."
"You're kidding right?"
"Nope," Jemaul grinned brightly at Matt. It was getting close to midnight. It had taken them far too many hours to get as far as they did. "Scare the hell out of them, get the amulet, run like hell back to Granny D's and sleep the morning away and pretend this was all a bad dream."
"Well, let's just bucking do it," he sighed.
"Let's not go into this one rashly," Jemaul opined, looking up towards what would be their next stop. He tapped a hindhoof on the landing thoughtfully. They had been speaking relatively softly, and he didn't want to give their position away. "Better we decide a few things before we stumble up and give ourselves away."
"Well what are they?" He raised an eyebrow as he quickly hopped over to the landing; his lighter frame not even making a sound as he did so.
"First off, we're gonna be the demons Granny sent to retrieve her possessions. If they ask about what happened to us, as in Jemaul and Matthew… they were taken care of." Jemaul grinned a bit malevolently. "Oh, and try to sound the part. We still more or less sound like ourselves. If anything, we stole the voices to communicate with the mortal kine."
Matt grinned. "yes, let us get back what they took," he said, his voice becoming extra raspy and insectoid.
"As our master bade us," Jemaul agreed, dropping his own tones into a measured, faintly hissing yet somewhat sophisticated timbre. He flared his wings, shadows seeming to draw towards him before pumping them, covering distance to the roof, perching on the edge, to the side of the ladder so Matt could climb after.
While he waited for Matt, Jemaul surveyed the area. It was more or less as he suspected. The apartment had a nice open to itself, big enough to count as a small yard space rather than just a patio or porch, and even had some potted trees and shrubbery to add to the illusion. Strings of lights provided a dim illumination, though it was clear as day to his eyes. Most of the party's action taking place inside where the music was playing and people were dancing, chatting and generally having a good time and getting liberal with the drinks by the looks of it.
Still, among the dimly lit trees was a patio bench, which had a lovely mood, one a giggling and whispering couple were making the best of. Jemaul grinned as a devious idea came to him. He slunk off the stone wall, not realizing the shadows and night wrapping and cloaking him in a passive exploitation of new affinites, whispering as he went. "It's halloween… and everyone knows not to make out or have sex when horrors lurk."
Matt couldn't help but watch quietly as he climbed onto the patio and slinked into the shadows, grinning like an idiot as he waited for the scared to come.
If the show was anything to go by, all ponies were magic. Maybe it was just a lingering effect of the spell, a benefit of the night, or just Jemaul's focused intentions, but that magic was working for him. He was going for a jump scare. Those were overdone and somewhat boring. He had other thoughts in mind as he circled, resisting the urge to snort at the smells or arousal and desire in the air.
The low hiss that he was almost subconsciously making, somewhere between intimidating and pleased, was the first thing to reach them. The couple shifted uneasily, looking around. "Do you hear that, Bobby?"
"Probably just a cat," 'Bobby' said, brushing it off. His confident look faltered when the steady clop of Jemaul's hooves put that idea under question.
"A cat?" She mumbled. "Maybe you're-"
"Give…" Jemaul hissed softly. "Give it back…"
"Jake… that's you isn't it?" Bobby called out. "Trying to get back at me for taking your beer? Nice try!"
"Return what was taken..." Matt added in his raspy voice.
"Jake, if this is you, this isn't cool..." the girl stuttered.
They stiffened when they spotted Jemaul's glowing eyes emerging. His form was still mostly cloaked in shadows, but he reared up, wings flaring, tossing stealth aside for the reveal. "Return the stone that was stolen from our Master!"
"Return what was taken from our master," Matt hissed as he opened his eyes, to reveal his glowing eyes as he stepped out of the shadows as well, saliva dripping from his mouth. "Return the necklace...."
The girl shrieked and ran back into the apartment, screaming her little head off. Her boyfriend yelled as he followed after her.
Matt just looked over at Jamie before nodding and approaching the door to the inside. The apartment was in confusion as Bobby and his girl ran back in, yelling about monsters. There were maybe fifteen, twenty people in the room. Most eyes turned to Bobby, thinking he did something improper, but Matt wasn't that far behind them. "Return what was taken..."
"What the hell is that?" someone yelled over the started and confused cries.
"The fucking shit are those things!?!"
"Is that a fucked up dog?"
"Sweet Mary, Mother of Baby Jesus it's devil horses!" someone cried out when Jemaul sailed into what was his best landing all night, coming to stop beside Matt.
"Somebody call the cops!" a male wailed.
Justin stepped forward, or was pushed forward, it wasn't clear with the press of bodies. "W-what the hell?"
"Return what was taken from our master," Matt said slowly, doing his best not to smirk: On the inside, he was laughing his ass off at the chaos Jamie and him had caused.
"Saint Peter save us they can talk!" someone cried out again.
"This is fucked up man! This is fucked up!"
"Silence, kine!" Jemaul snapped, growling slightly, fangs bared and wings flared, rewarded with a few jaws snapping shut. He hastily threw some lines together. "This visitation is not without purpose. We are but emissaries, messengers, harbringers. Return what was stolen from our master lest punishment befall thee this night!"
"W-what the hell are you talking about… demon… horse dude?" someone quavered. Recognition flashed in Jemaul's eyes. Joseph. One of Justin's inner circle of friends.
"Something was taken from our master," Matt hissed at Joseph, staring directly into his eyes, "Return what was taken lest you suffer the same fate."
"The same fate?" a girl asked. Nathalie. "The same fate as what?"
"What the hell are they talking about? What was stolen?" Jake asked.
"W-wh-what if it was the thing you made Jemaul and Matthew t-take from the w-w-witch?" Bobby's girlfriend, who Matt recognized as Tamara, stammered.
"Horseshit! She's a fraud!" a new voice, Frankie, yelled.
Jemaul decided to step in, stomping a hoof, the sharp sound cutting through the rabble. "The stone that would hang round our master's neck! The amulet that would grace her bosom!" Keeping up the voice was getting a bit straining, but he was managing. "Return that which was stolen, kine!"
"But we didn't steal it!" some girl yelled from the back.
"Yeah, that was Matt and Jamie!" Justin snapped, throwing them under the bus. "Go hunt them down!"
"We already have," Matt replied simply, grinning widely and showing off a mouthful of fangs, "They have been... dealt with."
"Once more I say, return what was taken!" Jemaul took to the air a bit, landing closer to the group, how backed further away. A few gave up all together and ran for the door. "Return the stone or suffer our price!"
Justin was pale, his face expressing clear terror. Those behind him were no better. "P-price? What's your price? I… I've got money! What's your offer!?"
Jemaul let a look of confusion slip across his features, but he schooled it into a snare. He could work with that. A text popped into his mind and an appropriate follow up. "Price? The price to dismiss your sin is the same as the price of failure. No flesh shall be spared…" He tipped his head towards Matt. "No spirit shall remain."
Matt grinned viciously as he licked his lips, staring up at Justin. The room was practically dripping with fear and he couldn't help but let out a malicious laugh, "I can still taste their fear; it was delicious."
"Dammit Justin! Given them the fucking thing before they kill us!" one David said, looking like he wanted to run.
"It's- It's in the mantle," Justin finally admitted.
"Then fetch it, kine," Jemaul hissed. "Only then shall you and yours be absolved."
Jemaul was glad when Justin quickly got moving. His will was starting to fray under all the pressure. Acting, trying to look haughty and arrogant, and above all being under that many eyes while taking the lead in the deception. Part of him was starting to regret the idea. He watched Justin with sharp eyes, not moving from his spot.
Matt kept his eyes moving across the crowd, grinning maliciously as he looked everyone in the face. He had to admit; he was having way too much fun making everyone here piss their pants in fear.
The familiar amulet was dangling from Justin's grip when he returned. Justin had impossibly paled even more in the brief absence. "I- I have it-"
"In the name of Jesus Christ!" it was the same voice as before. Hailey Jones. She was in the same class as Jemaul and Matt, and was from an extremely religious family. The fact that she had even been at a Halloween party would have been surprising. More surprising was the handgun she held clutched in her hands. "Die demons!"
Time seemed to both slow and speed up as she pulled the trigger, heedless of Justin's cries. Shots rang out and screams filled the air. Jemaul staggered, the sharp retort of gun fire in the confined space doing hell for his sensitive hearing. People scattered, some taking to the ground, some just running, a few freezing. One person tackled her as the final shot went off.
Matt jumped in surprise as the gun fired before looking down to see the amulet on the floor. Moving quickly, the changeling grabbed it by the string and bolted for the patio once again. Not waiting for Jamie or the chaos to stop.
Jemaul was slower to follow. He wasn't used to life fire from anything other than television, and his ears were still ringing, but he followed. Without thinking properly, he just followed the flight half of the flight or fight instincts, and then the actual flight instincts on top of that, leaping off the roof with his wings spread.
Halloween that year was certainly one to be rememberedthat was hard to forget. Three people ended up hospitalized in the aftermath of the Penthouse Shooting, one from a bullet wound, one from falling and hitting her head, the last from being trampled over. Hailey ended up in custody, as did Justin. Pretty much the entire group was suspected of drug use because of their claims that demonic horses had attacked after killing two school mates, who were found to be perfectly fine.
Jemaul carried a good deal of guilt on his part, even months later. The whole approach was his idea. It was only luck that ensured no one was killed by those stray bullets, and that only one person was hurt by it. Miss Daphnes, or Granny D as he officially took to calling her, used it as the basis of his first lessons. It was right out of marvel, but it was still an important one. With power, no matter what type, came responsibility to match.
It turned out he had magic potential of his own, one the curse and it's circumstances blossomed into a full talent that he and Granny D were still working on determining the full scope of. It was possible that was part of the reason her little punishment spell turned the way it did as well.
They had managed to get the amulet back to her despite all the excitement in the area. Jemaul and Matt had gotten split up in the initial retreat, the latter taking the stairs while the former fled on his own wing power. Between the police converging on the apartment for the reports of shooting, the ones that were in the cemetery investigating the reports of 'screaming kids' and even an animal control unit, there was a lot of hoofwork involved.
There was also another reason why putting the night behind them was difficult. The spell had turned into a curse of some power. Curses like that leave their marks. Jemaul didn't lose all of the night vision or keen hearing the bat pony form had granted him, nor did his fangs fully shrink. The odd attraction to salt he developed was just the icing on the cake. Aside from sharing the fang quirk, Matt didn't lose a changeling's ability to smell, or how ever it was they detected emotions. While it was muted, and he didn't seem to feed on emotions, or in the least need to feed, he was still an empath. Helping him adjust was another project Granny D was working on with them.
--------
Granny D swatted Jemaul with a folded newspaper as his eyes wandered from the small flame flickering in the tiny bowl before him. "Pay attention, boy! If you plan to finish this in time, you can't be glancing away every time someone giggles!"
"Can you blame him though Grammy," a little girl's voice called out, "this is really funny!"
In the next room, Matt and Delilah's granddaughter, Emily, were both on the couch with an episode of My Little Pony playing. The girl was not what Matt had expected when he first saw her. The little girl looked to be the same age as Jamie's sister but with a pale complexion and dark brown hair.
Matt couldn't help but snicker a little. "Come on Jamie! You can do it!" He then leaned over to Granny's kid and whispered, "totally can't," earning a giggle from the child.
Jemaul's face twitched as he held back a scowl, staring into the depths of the flame. It wasn't quite a normal fire, burning on kindling made from stripped willow that was steeped in moonlight. In short, it was far more magic reactive than a normal flame. He grit his teeth and tried to focus on the dancing flames.
"Elements are one of the primal ways to understand magic. Every act can be seen as having a basis in one or more elements, and it can help you understand personal limitations. Now, fire isn't a force you have a natural talent with, but you do have skills with air, and a breath fans the flame," Granny D lectured from behind him. "In turn the flames cast flickering shadows, which you also are drawn to. Find a link between the Air and the Flame and the Shadow and use the flame, use the flame to light the candle. Simple as pie."
"Air… fire… shadow... " Jemaul murmured. The tiny flame flickered in the light breeze as Granny D circled, and the tiny flames it cast shifted. Change: a change in the air leads to change in the fire which lends to change in the shadow. He chose that as his focus.
"Keep talking to it," Matt jeered.
This time Jemaul did scowl, but schooled it back. All he needed to do was light a fire… A tiny green flame caught on Matt's hand.
Matt out a yelp of surprise as he saw the fire appear, quickly attempting to swat it out with his hand. "Jamie!!"
The flame grew, feeding off not only Jemaul's talent, but the trace magic in Matt and the power of his emotions. As it did, it left behind not charred flesh, but a familiar black carapace. Jemaul started panicking too. "Oh crap, what did I do?"
Granny D sighed and whopped Jemaul with her newspaper again. "Didn't I tell you to focus?"
"Umm Jamie! I'm turning into a bug again in here!" Matt hollered, desperately smacking at the flames.
Jemaul tried to shift to that special 'spell vision' he had been taught, but he couldn't focus enough to make clear sense of it and just tried pulling back the spell. A flame started up on his own hands. "Ah, come on!"
"I'm trying to teach how to do something aside from changing back into ponies," Granny D complained. She brushed off one of the chairs before sitting, ignoring the panicking teens and her cheering granddaughter. "Honestly. There are times when I can't tell if you are a talented student, or a hopeless one. Nothing you can do but wait for it to play out."
"What!?!" Matt stood in the doorway; his entire right hand already turned into a hoof.
"Seriously?" Jemaul had tried rubbing out the flames, but that only spread it to the other hand, so he just stared at the slowly spreading fur in resignation. "Can't you do something about it, Granny D?"
"Consider it the penalty for not completing your assignment properly," Granny D chuckled. She pointed at Matt. "And yours for distracting him during his lesson."
"Well buck me," Matt sighed in defeat.
"Didn't Jamie turn you into a changeling last week?" Emily asked innocently.
"That was an accident!" Jemaul said quickly. The bright side was that those 'accidents' only worked on himself and Matt. Thanks to the curse, they counted as having another self. Granny D did say there was a slim chance it might work on something like a werewolf too, but he wasn't in any rush to test that one. Still, it meant he wasn't able to just turn someone else into a pony, much to Lisa's displeasure. He deliberately kept that fact that because of his magic he had to periodically go pony from her.
"Right," Matt scoffed as he sat down on the floor, "I swear if I become your test subject; I'll bite your flank so hard..."
"How was I supposed to know I could throw a spell that far with my wings," Jemaul said, resisting the urge to scratch as the flames fused his fingers together. "At least this version doesn't hurt. Just feels warm, is all."
"I suppose it's a good thing your family couldn't make it for dinner after all," Granny D remarked as the two bickered. No one had expected her to have opened up as much as she did. As she put it—taking apprentices changed people.
"Yeah, feels almost nice," Matt mused as he watched as his shoes fell off flat as his feet melted into hooves.
"It's not fair Grammy," Emily pouted, crossing her arms and stomping adorably. "How come I don't get to be a pony?"
"You're not old enough, Millipede" Jemaul said reflexively. It was the stock response he gave to Lisa whenever she asked, and to Emily as well. When the Millipede and the Timbit teamed up though…
"Honestly, I have no clue," Matt simply said as he winced slightly, the joint in his arm shifting to its new position. "Well that hurt far less this ti- OW OW! Nevermind!" He hissed as he looked down to see his legs starting to shift.
"I apologize for that," Granny D huffed, slapping the paper on her knee. Maybe one day she would actually read it. One day. "My magic is focused through the earth. The earth does not change easily, nor without suffering. And I was upset at you when I cast it. Emotions affect magic as well.
"Jamie-boy here is more talented when it comes to transformation kinds of magic. It's why his slips tend to turn you two back into ponies." she continued. "It's the first spell his magic remembers."
"Oh yay me," Jemaul muttered.
"And I'm sorry, honey," Granny D said to Emily. "If I tried, you wouldn't like it. Maybe when Jamie gets better you can ask him nicely."
Emily turned and looked pleadingly at Jemaul. In a flair of flames his wings appeared and flared in shock, pushing his shirt up to his neck. He jabbed a hoof at her, a few tongues of fire still lingering in places. "No way! Don't try that look with me, Millipede! Timbit does it all the time."
Emily's puppy dog eyes didn't cease one bit as she pooched out her lip, "please!!"
Matt couldn't but laugh a little as he watched the display before him. "Thank Faust I don't have a little brother." The majority of his skin had already turned into carapace as the flame started creeping up his neck. "Though I probably was like this for my own bros when I was her age."
Probably because it was his own spell, Jemaul's changes finished first. At least the flames were more representative and hadn't damaged his clothes. True, he and Matt kept an extra set or two in one of the empty drawers in one of the guest room, but still. He shook his head and pulled his shirt off. "Still no."
"But please," she pleaded, getting eye level with the now batpony Jemaul, "you're so adorable! I wanna be adorable too!"
"Come on, let the kid have her cake," Matt said, still laughing to himself as the change finally finished, leaving a changeling in a now very baggy T-shirt and jeans.
Jemaul muttered something under his breath. "Granny D, can you please explain to them that I can't do anything like that?"
"Not yet, anyway," she agreed.
Emily sighed in defeat, "well pooh, but I still wanna be a pony sometime." With a huff and a pout, she left the room.
"It has to be an age things," Jemaul sighed. "The only reason Timbit is worse is because I live with her."
Matt just shrugged before he managed to pull off his shirt with minimal difficulty. "Your sis likes me, so I don't know what you're talking about," he said with a shit-eating grin.
"Just wait till she wants something from you," Jemaul muttered. Anything further was cut off when an all too familiar newspaper whacked him about the ears, making him yelp.
"Don't forget you messed up your lesson," Granny D scolded.
Matt couldn't help but snicker but that was quickly cut short by a look from Her. Even if Matt still knew Granny Rags better now, she still scared the ever living piss out of him when she went witch mode.
"Still… I suppose we can use this chance to get you two colts in shape," she smiles slowly. "Let's start with ten laps around the estate, hmm?"
Matt's eyes widened in alarm. "I can barely run three as a human!"
"No use complaining," Jemaul sighed as Granny D got up and walked off humming happily. "She's all for you magic users being at least moderately fit, and you know you can't stop her when she get's going. At least we get a little stipend from it."
"Hurry up, you two!" she called out.
"But I hate running!"
A totally abandoned R63 sequel idea we dropped after writting a chapter
"Damn it's colder than a witch's tit out," Matt said, shivering like hell as he shoved his hands deeper into his coat pockets. Despite his thick winter coat and brisk walking speed, he was still chilled to the bone as he and Jamie made their way to school.
"I'm not gonna ask how you know what temp Granny D's nipples are," Jamie grinned. Between his leggings and undershirt, a thick hoodie was warm enough for him. "But seriously, what is with you and the cold?"
"You seem to forget that I'm originally from Texas man! We don't get snow down there! Only ice and heat! I can handle a hundred degrees like Canadians can handle the cold but below freezing is a negative ghost rider!" He said simply.
"I'm fine in both heat and cold," Jamie bragged with a smug grin. "And I still complain about the heat less than you do.
"Well you got the tropics in the blood Mr. birthday boy," Matt couldn't help but smirk as he quickly gave Jemaul a playful punch in the arm.
"Jeeze, Matt, you don't need to make a big deal about it. I'm a year older. Wee," Jamie rolled his eyes, but he still had a grin on his face.
"You're eighteen now man; the big one eight! Hell if I could convince my brother, I could have him take the two of us to a club," Matt said with a cheeky grin. "Remember the party my bros threw for me for mine back in September!" He laughed, "he's still finding stuff all over his yard!"
"Dude, that is not an endorsement of any sort," Jamie sighed, massaging his nose bridge. "And we found you in a tree. Half naked. And the wrong half was naked."
"And from what I heard it was one hell of a party," he laughed, ignoring Jemaul's statement on purpose, "or I could always just see with mom if we can bring out the inner Irishman in you."
"I don't have an inner Irishman," Jamie snorted. "And what's that supposed to mean anything? Luck of the Irish or Bar Regular?"
"It's means let you get drunk but not too drunk," he said flatly, "and besides, mom's got some Captain Morgan she bought after she first saw me turn."
Jamie winced inwardly at the memory. That one had totally been his fault. Well, most all of Matt's transformations were his fault, but that one had been a particularly poignant case. "You know I avoid coffee, much less alcohol."
"But come on! It's your birthday man! You're only eighteen once!"
"If you wanna be technical… I'm eighteen in," Jamie looked at his watch and did some calculations, "ten hours, twenty seven minutes and about… fifteen seconds."
Matt just rolled his eyes, "you nerd."
"Mostly when it annoys you," Jamie grinned broadly. "You know, you could let me test out the 'endure elements' spell on you again. I promise it won't set your shirt on fire this time." That had been a… memorable day for all involved. Who knew that the strip spell he came up with as a joke would come in useful?
He shook his head, "no way on God's currently frozen over earth am I letting you do that to me again! I liked that shirt damn it!"
"Well… to be fair… I did tell you not to wear clothes you really like when we are practicing," Jamie said sheepishly.
"But I wasn't expecting flipping spontaneous combustion!"
"The revised version doesn't use heat directly anymore. Just air, and principles of insulation and convection," Jamie said. He'd been surprised how much application general science had in magic.
"You still set me on fire," he said slowly, glaring at Jemaul.
"Your shirt," Jamie muttered.
"Fi- You know what? Let's can it till we get to school okay?" Matt asked, "too cold to think and too annoyed to care." Regardless, their friendly bickering continued all the way to school where they were mostly lost in the flow of students making their way to classes. Mostly. There was always someone who found them without fail.
"Do you two ever leave each other's side?" Justin sneered, he and two of his lap boys lurking near homeroom. It had been two months, and Justin still found cause and reason to harass them. Ever since the part and their professed ignorance of anything that might have contributed to the wild stories, he had it in for them. He still swore they knew something about it, even though everyone else was half convinced it was drunken delusions.
Matt just let out a dry laugh, "well excuse me for having an actual friend unlike your little entourage who'd gladly suck you off if you asked them to."
"Better than licking the bottom of the barrel," Justin snorted. His minions jeered on cue. "Not that either of you could do better."
"Oh and how's everyone calling you a 'loony' been? Seen any more daemon horses lately?" Matt asked sarcastically.
"Died off about as quick and people calling you two 'legends'," Steven retorted.
"Shame. Justin's face was fun when they did," Jamie sighed. "All scrunched up like he ate a sour skittle."
"Well, are you just going to give us the same usual crap or are you going to do something different? Maybe throw in a nice bundle of sticks as well?" Matt asked flatly as he glared at Justin.
"As if I'd risk suspension because a pair of faggots grew a pair," Justin waved his hand at them.
"Oh I have more of a pair than you do dickwaffle," Matt laughed a little, before grinning cheekily, "or is that why you're dating Molly? To make up to your lack of skill?"
"Molly might be a slut, but I've been the only guy to please her," Justin smirked. "She didn't even bother trying you out. Not that you'd know what a pussy looks like."
"Well I'd rather not use the village bicycle."
"City mercedes," Justin didn't even look concerned. Molly's status as 'she who's been with three quarters of the senior class' was pretty much common knowledge in the student body. "Luxuries you still don't get."
"Keep telling yourself that bro," Matt scoffed, "but I'll say I told ya so when your dick falls off."
"Coming from the dude who gets horny with trees when he's wasted," Stephen sneered.
This earned him a death glare from Matt, "well you twits weren't even invited! Y'all just showed up!"
"Well, this has been productive. Justin continues to show not even a heavy wallet and education can treat ignorance, and Matt continues to be sandpaper," Jamie applauded lightly. "Can we get to class already? Maybe pick up at lunch?"
"No no no," Justin's gaze turned to Jamie, "we haven't even started with you Supernerd."
Jamie groaned, a bit annoyed that he drew attention to himself. "You know, I've never quite gotten it, where's the line between nerd and geek again?"
"Oh? Where to begin: buying those dungeon and dragons books that cost like seventy bucks a pop, knowing shit that your friend calls you a nerd for, wearing that costume for Halloween two years back; you were the only one to know what that was from anyway," Justin replied with a sneer, counting off on his fingers. "Do I need to go on?"
"So… what makes someone a geek?" Jamie asked after nodding.
"Yeah, that makes you a damn geek," Steven chimed in.
"So… Geek and or nerd, entitled rich ass, something," Jamie pointed to himself, Justin and Matt in turn, but hesitated when it came to Steven and Charles. "Um… I guess faceless, directionless minions one and two?"
Both Steven and Charles growled at that and glared at Jemaul but soon fell silent as Justin raised a hand. "Now now, You can't help the fact that you're poor."
"Middle class," Jamie corrected. "And you can't help the fact that, while lacking any actual biological impairments, your social skills and general intellect are something of an insult to those around you. Can we go now?"
Justin growled in annoyance, "well fuck you too Mr. Self-entitled dickwaffle!"
"HEY! That's my insult!"
"Can it dipshit," Steven said, shoving Matt.
"Now, now, there is no need for violence," Jamie said, trying to get between Steven and Matt. "Just because my dick is likely larger than all of yours doesn't mean you should be jealous and take it out on Matt."
Justin growled again; but instead of a snide remark, he balled up his fist, before reeling back and punching Jemaul in the cheek with all the force he could muster:
Jamie reeled, almost falling over before Matt caught him, but since Matt was already somewhat unstable, they both fell. His hand quickly reached to his injured jaw. He felt blood.
"You fucking cun- What the hell was that for?!" Matt growled as he quickly got to his feet, fists clenched.
"He fucking insulted me that's why!"
"You've been doing that to us for the last five minutes you shitface!" Matt snarled before punching Justin in the stomach.
Steven was the first to react. He punched Matt in the face; this caused his glasses to come off his face just in time for him to hit him once again in the stomach. As Matt staggered back, Charles grabbed him by the shirt collar before throwing him to the ground.
Jamie contributed a timely kick to Charles' gonads. Heel first, with a lovely upward angle to his approach, hissing as he did. The crowd that had been gathering got roiled up, though none came in to try and break them apart. Jamie clamoured to his feet, blood dripping from a cut lip and his nose, and tackled Justin, slamming him into the lockers and biting his biceps.
"What's going on here!?"
Charles, still clutching his family jewels, froze like a deer in headlights before turning and bolting, shoving his way through the crowd with Steven in close pursuit. Matt got up with a groan and looked towards the teacher who had just shown up, "well crap."
----------
"So much of my life… wasted… never to be regained," Jamie groaned. "And my spotless academic record, marred by a… a… a feeble minded prokaryote!"
"One, we only had to stay there for like four hours," Matt said annoyed, "two, he struck first so it was self defense. And three, using words like that got you into this mess in the first place."
"It's a simple single celled organism," Jamie explained absently. "I should have said 'cro magnon', but I choked for a moment."
"I know what it is but you can't expect everyone to have paid attention in biology."
"Like I said, I choked." Jamie buried his face in his hands. "It's on my permanent record. I'm gonna get grounded. Again I've gotten grounded way too many times this semester."
"Calm down man," Matt sighed, "it's not the end of the world." He paused for a second, "you're still spending the night at my house right?"
"Dad's still freaking over the magic thing, my allowance got cut back so far it's not even funny, I can't even get a part time job outside of a day at the grocery store with the amount of time Granny D demands for her lessons," Jamie went on, still in the woes of his situation. He let out an exasperated breath of air. "And yes. They at least accepted the 'didn't strike first' part, so they're still allowing that. Grounding will come after."
"Well, I know just the men to cheer you up," Matt grinned.
Jamie looked at Matt, confusion on his face. "That's… a euphemism for alcohol, isn't it?"
He simply nodded. "Come on, it's your birthday we still gotta celebrate!"
Jamie rolled his eyes but didn't reject the idea. "Whatever. The only reason I'm agreeing is because today sucks, and it's the weekend, so we don't get into more trouble for showing up wasted."
Matt grinned like an idiot, slapping Jamie on the shoulder, "Atta boy! Besides, I'm kinda curious about how you are when drunk?"
"How should I know?" Jamie snorted. "Unlike some people, I've never drank before. Drunk. Drunk before?"
Matt let out a mock gasp, "well it's time you become friends with the bottle. It'll be a learning experience for the both of us! You get to drink and I get to see how you act under the influence!"
"Yeah, I can tell this is gonna be a bad idea already," Jamie muttered under his breath.
"That's what booze is for in the first place! To let the stupid out and to forget the worries of the day!"
"Knew I should have biked to school today..."
"I shill don't get what the big deal with drinking is," Jamie slurred slightly, examining the beverage in his cup under the light. He looked over at Matt from the side of the couch he claimed. "What did you say this was again?"
"Yours? Is some rum and nuk- I mean coke man," Matt couldn't help but let out a little giggle, "man, you hasn't even finished one glass and you're slurring. You're suck a light weight!"
"Weird colour for coke," Jamie said, swishing it a little. "I thought coke was black. Or white. Not… this weird… bronze? Is it spartan coke? And I'm not slurring! I'm perfectly elegant! Eh, ele- eloquent!"
"Spartan coke! Artyom! Ve must get to Polis Station!" He suddenly burst out laughing to himself for a few seconds before downing the rest of his glass in a single gulp. "That's ze booze silly," Matt said after coughing for a second, "besides cola is brown anyways."
"No, it's red!" Jamie finished his drink before he got up and waved his hand. There was a clatter from the kitchen. Frowning, he waved again, the clatter improving to a commotion. "Come on you stupid..." he turned, about to stalk into the kitchen but stopped when he spotted a half empty coke bottle on the table.
"Haha!" Jamie extolled before pointing and gesturing at the bottle, which proceeded to leap off the table and dart halfway across the room to smack him in the face. "Fudge boskets!"
Matt burst out into laughter, dropping his empty glass on the coffee table as he pointed at jemaul. "The coke jus hit jew in the face man! It made you it's birch!" After a good thirty seconds of laughter, he picked up the bottle of rum from the table as he righted the glass to pour himself some more.
"Okay… that wusn't supposed to happen," Jamie grumbled as he rubbed his nose. Most of the pain came from the fact that the bottle landed a glancing blow against the bruise he got in the fight rather from the mostly empty bottle itself. "I worked hard on learning that summon charms! Haven't had anything hit me in… weeks! Stupid bottle… stupid fight..."
Jamie suddenly froze. "Wait, I should make sure my magic is working!"
Matt stopped mid pour, his eyes widening as he sat the bottle down. "No no man! I don't wanna be turned into somethin' by dunk you! You may make me a hedgehog or a turban or.. Or... Or a lady horse! I don't wanna be a m-m-mare, I like my bits!"
Jamie, meanwhile, was snapping his fingers thoughtfully and trying to properly arrange his somewhat inebriated thoughts into spells, with only moderate success as wisps of purple magic danced from his fingertips. A cushion leapt off the couch and spasmed in the air before plopping to the ground when hit. The lights flickered when a wisp sank into the bulb. The DVD cabinet shuddered and threatened to collapse before the wisp slipped out and hit the stereo which belted out what sounded like K-pop. Magazines either tried flapping their pages or got caught in wild winds and strewed themselves around the room
Matt let out a terrified yelp as a pillow flew and hit him in the face. "Make it stop man! Make it stop dude," he said as he hid behind the pillow.
"Make what stop?" Jamie hesitated just before snapping again to throw Matt the question. The magic built up as a wafting glow barely contained in his hand, the cross between mist and flames that his magic had adopted billowing around it.
"Everything man!"
Jamie looked around the room, confusion on his face. "Matt… someone totes wrecked your place, man..."
"You did man," he yelled from behind his pillow shield, " just stop the magic man!"
"For reals? No way man, that's more something Justin would do, the ass" Jamie snagged the bottle Matt had set down in his free hand. Sniffing at it, he took a swig, before looking at it in surprise, and taking another. "Huh… not that bad… Kinda stings though."
"Just make it stop!!" Matt was still in panic mode, hiding behind his soft shield against the arcane chaos going on around him.
"Right! I was practicing the new TF spell!" Jamie said, snapping his fingers at the insight. It also set off the overcharged spell, a swirling wave of magic blanketing the room before fading away.
Matt poked his head out from behind the pillow, a panicked look in his eyes, "I-iz it done now?"
"I… don't think that right..." Jamie stammered woozily, a bit drained from wasting that much magic at once. He slumped to the ground with a yawn and looked at his hand, digits starting to fuse together. He giggled slightly. "My fingigers look funny. And feel tingly."
Matt looked down at his own and groaned as he saw they were doing the same thing, "darn it man. We're turning ta ponies now!"
"That just means it works!" Jamie cheered a tad weakly. The changes were progressing smoothly and quickly, a chill numbness spreading throughout their body. Even with that buffer it still wasn't possible to hold back all of the pain, stinging pins and needles in every muscle as the were reshaped. Jamie rocked slightly as he held his gut. "I think I'm gonna throw up..."
"D-damn it man," Matt groaned, clutching his stomach as well, "that ain't normal. W-what is with this spell? Am I gunna turn to a hat or somethin'."
"No way! That's silly," Jamie dismissively waved a fully formed hoof at Matt. "Didn't'a tell you I work best with Elements and Principles? Don't even think living to inanimate is a thing." He squealed when his wings started wiggling out from his back. "Oo, that's still nasty! Anyway, I just make the world think yu should be something else. And since we're both ponies and peoples, it's easy to tell it that."
He tried to get up and only ended up toppling over, unbalanced on his still changing rear legs tangled in his pants. He laughed at the table he just missed hitting. "That would have been nastier!" A bit of squirming got him upright, but he noticed something off. Another wiggle reinforced the wrongness, so he took a peek. "Umm…. Matt…"
"Yeah man?" He looked over at Jamie, wincing as the holes started to appear in his limbs. "What's the deal man."
"I think my dick ran away!" Jamie gave Matt a distinct look of distress. "You got to help me fin' him!"
"Wha man?" Matt said slowly, before his eyes widened with revelation and he burst out laughing. "Damn colt! You made you a mare!?"
"Jayjay… where are you?" Jamie was too busy trying to get a proper look at his nethers. More or less fully transformed by that point, he was chasing his longer than normal tail first one way, then the other as if it would get his closer, before tripping and taking a spill that left him on his back with his legs spread wide, confirming that he had in indeed stumbled on the way to become her.
Matt's laughter roared to into high gear but as he laughed, his voice started to change. Instead of just adopting the scratchy hissy tone. His voice seemed to raise a few octaves as well. "D-damn it Jamie ," he managed to say between his laughs, "or should I say Jemimah!"
By now he was fully changed as well, though there was some differences. The fin on his neck and head seemed to be longer and there was no fang sticking out from under his lip. He also seemed to be more thinner and lithe in his build.
Jamie rolled over awkwardly got up, shedding his shirt as he did. While he wasn't the most huskily built stallion before, there were quite a few more curves, and his pale purple and grey mane was much longer, matching the tail. He still hadn't earned a cutie mark, or even knew if he would get one, so whether that would have changed or not was a none issue. He awkwardly lifted one hind leg then the other. "It's weird having nothing back there… really weird… I miss Jayjay..."
Matt just kept laughing at him; his laugh was far more airy and lighter sounding that before. "I can't believe you did it colt! You're a mare!" As he laughed, he decided to get his clothes off. He had to get off the couch and after minimal effort but he managed to kick his jeans off. But while doing so, he gave his friend a full view of his backside as his tail flicked about.
Jamie flapped absently a few times, trying to get a feeling for the spell from the lingering traces and failing big time. The alcohol in his system wasn't helping either. He snorted and glanced over at Matt, only to smirk. "Looks like the spell hit you the same way, princess."
"What are you talking about," Matt asked, quickly turning about to face him, "you're the one who's the mare not me." He paused for a second to bite his shirt collar as he sat on the floor and pulled his shirt off. "I not a lady horse. You are silly."
"You were so tiny you don't notice it's gone?" Jamie teased walking over and swatting Matt's flank with his tail.
"Buck you pal," he said with a glare, "you had genetics on your side. Tropical and black is the instant plus on your side. 'Sides, your geekiness cancels that out."
"You sound like Justin." Jamie narrows his eyes and hissed. "Why'd you have to bring up that rat face bastard Justin!? He ruined my birthday!"
"Hey man, you still say I'mma mare! I not a mare! And I didn't bring him up, you did!"
"This whole night is his fault! It was going to be a good day! Do day things! Then do night things! And do birth things too cause it's the birth day! Now I'm fought and detentioned, and I think I'm drunk and I'm a mare cause he's full of haystacks!" Jamie set off on a little tirade and rant. His wings were half extended. More concerning was the magic that was starting to seep from him as he paced. He tripped on one of the books that had gotten scattered and irritation spiked, wing and magic flaring with it.
Matt let out a startled yelp and took a few steps backwards. His backhooves smacked into a book as well and he tumbled head over heels till he landed on the ground. His hindlegs in clear view and his eyes widened at what he say. "J-Jamie...," he said slowly as he looked up at her, "I... I'm a mare."
"And you think admitting that will make everything sunshines?" Magic billowed in an aura around Jamie, flowing off his tense body and wings to collect in a halo above him, the air warping slightly, gaining an intensity similar to when Granny D was in a mood of her own, even the lighting shifting as if the glow cast by the magic was shallowing rather than making light.
Something shifted in the room, like cabin pressure equalizing, and everything snapped back to normal, all of Jamie's magic imploding on the halo leaving him looking dazed and confused. "Huh… I think… I think I need nappies..." he mumbled before his eyes rolled back in his head and he toppled over.
"I....I'm a mare," Matt said slowly. He looked over at the now passed out Jamie with a glare, "you cheeky ponyfeather." And with that, he fell to the ground out like a rock.
