Journey to a place of magic... just not the magic the builders intended.
To mark a new year, Tom, Jimmy, Katrina, and some new friends have decided to meet up at Universal Studios in Florida to have some fun and forget about the world for a while. They even have some new friends to join them on the way.
Unfortunately, life never lets them rest easy, and the problems that manifested themselves during the WDW incident are about to flare up again...
A story written for, and with the permission of, my friends. Check them out below!
The snow continued to fall gently in the city. It had been this way out in the Midwest for a few weeks now, and showed no signs of stopping. Out in a city centre cafe, protected from the snow and the cold, two men sat opposite one another at a table, talking to one another. One of them was a fairly big man, with messy brown hair and a neckbeard who looked utterly ridiculous in a suit, who was currently engaged in pushing his glasses back up in face. The other looked as though he was born for the world of finance, standing at well over six feet.
"And that's all, Mr Inkwell," the other man said. "If you could provide some extra funds for the startup Tom and I are trying, it would really help us out."
"So I see," Inkwell (or Ink for short) sighed. Life as the CEO of a multinational corporation did have many perks, extensive wealth being one of them, but it did also have some shortcomings, one of those being high levels of stress and a tendancy for strangers to ask for large donations and investments. He sipped some more of his coffee and sighed, running his hand through his short brown hair and adjusting his bowtie. Of course, he did not carry out each and every one of those actions at once, or else quite the mess would have been made that day.
The first man looked at him. "Could you do with a break?"
"What was that, James?" Ink asked in return.
"Jimmy," James corrected. "I prefer Jimmy. You seem to be tired and a bit stressed. A friend of mine from Britain, Tom, is planning a get together of some of our friends from across the world. We'll be meeting at Universal Studios in Florida, for six nights. All expenses covered, day hopper tickets for both parks, unlimited Express tickets, and food covered. Would you at least consider it?"
Ink nodded.
"Good," Jimmy answered, and left both a ticket and a piece of paper with a number written on it. "This is my number," he said. "Do call me when you make your mind up."
That evening, Ink took to his mobile, and dialled the number given (01896 19202122). He waited for the line to connect before speaking. "Jimmy?"
"Hello Mr Inkwell!" Jimmy replied. "How can I help?"
"I'm in. I'll be flying into Orlando Airport tomorrow morning."
The very next morning, the plane touched down at Orlando airport, and Ink hopped off the flight and walked into the baggage reclaim. He kept his exceptionally smart suit on no matter what the circumstances, and this was probably what instantly marked him out in a crowd. After collecting his luggage, he went to collect the hire car he had hired the night previous, and once he had the keys and was happy with the setup of the seats, he started the engine and set off for the Hard Rock Hotel, getting there within the hour. He parked his car and went indoors, dragging his case along with him that contained washing essentials and some spare clothes. In the lobby, a group of people sat talking. In amongst them was Jimmy, but two brown haired men whom Ink didn't recognise were talking amongst themselves, as well as a girl with blonde hair and blue eyes, dressed (oddly) in a large shirt that didn't quite seem to fit her, baggy pants, and a pair of red trainers.
At that moment, Jimmy spotted him and got up. "Ah, Ink!" he exclaimed. "Glad you made it!"
"So am I," Ink sighed. "Flying overnight is never fun. I just hope I'm not too jetlagged. Holidays are never fun when jetlagged."
"At least you did fly," Jimmy said. "When I moved from Alabama to North Carolina a few years back, I drove the whole way. 10 hours and 37 minutes on the road (with two overnight stops), and 754 miles with absolutely tons of stuff in the back."
"Makes my runs between London and Nottingham seem short," one of the brown haired chaps grunted.
"Don't mind him," Jimmy continued. "Those two guys over there? The one on the left is Tom Haddington, the chap who organised this. John Rooke's the other. The poor blighters flew in from Britain on Saturday."
"BLIGHTERS?!" John exclaimed. "Honestly Jimmy, you're turning more and more British every time I see you!"
"Thanks," Jimmy replied. "The girl is Steph. She joining us for the first time from somewhere in the North. I never did figure out where."
"Hi!" Steph replied. "Is this the new guy?"
"Yes," Tom told her. "Jimmy, that's Ink, right? CEO of PrintCorp?"
"The same." Jimmy turned back to Ink. "There's one more member of the gang that hasn't arrived yet. Katrina texted me that her flight was having issues and has only just landed. She's getting a taxi here now (she's not a very confident driver) and-"
"Sorry I'm late!" called a voice. The group all stopped their conversing, and looked up at the source of the voice. Standing before them was a girl with brown hair (with pink and blue streaks), and had a pair of brown glasses upon her face. She was perhaps dressed most appropriately for the weather, currently clad in jeans, solid shoes, and a dark blue jumper sitting atop a collared long sleeve shirt.
"Ah, Kat!" Tom exclaimed, as he stepped up to shake her hand. "Glad you could make it."
"So am I," Katrina replied. "My flight got delayed due to a bird on the runway. I thought I wasn't gonna make it at first!"
"No worries," Tom answered. "Ready for six days of relaxation and fun?"
"Yea!"
Ink looked at this scene in confusion. "Are those two roman-"
"NO!" Tom and Katrina shouted at the same time.
"We're old friends, that's it, OK?" Katrina continued.
Ink nodded. "Forget I asked," he said. "Well, then shall we go to our rooms?"
Packing away of things had at last been done. They were in rooms 101 to 106, which meant they could all easily reach one another if they needed to. Ink chose not to change, although he looked like one of the Blues Brothers, and set off for the park. He reached the entrance plaza and walked in through the entrance gate, a huge archway with the words UNIVERSAL STUDIOS FLORIDA set into it, and headed off for his first ride (the first one he wanted to polish off, that is).
As he walked through, he went through the Hollywood section of the park. One thing a lot of people did not realise about the resort was that it was still an active film studio, and as a result some areas of the park were off limits unless you happened to be on the studio tour.
On the way, Ink decided to purchase something to eat. One of the stands was a taco stand, which sold (not too unreasonably) tacos. The name of the stand was Taco Tuesday, which not only sounded familiar, it also seemed innapropriate. It was a Monday, after all. He went forth to order a taco, and purchased it.
Then he took the taco... AND ATE IT!
Once he had finished, he had a very satisfied smile on his face, but that smile soon vanished when he suddenly got stomach cramps and ran for the restrooms. "What was in that burrito?!" he exclaimed, before running into a cubicle and slamming it shut.
He happened to catch a glance in the back mirror on the door, and his jaw fell off. His jacket was starting to shrink and change in size as his bow tie vanished into nothingness. The collar shifted around his shirt as the buttons vanished from the jacket, replaced by three chords that held it in place, with six pegs to hold it in place also. His shirt shrank, the collar and top button vanishing, and disappeared well below the line of his jacket, of which the front of the top of the collar now stopped around the top of his chest. As he looked about in shock, his pants changed colour to pink, and then began to slither up his legs, stopping around the halfway point of his thighs. The zip and button vanished, and changed in favour of elastic to hold it in place. The legs merged together, changing it into a mini skirt. The jacket then joined in on the changing game, turning purple expect for the inside of the rolled up collar and the cuffs of the sleeves, all three of which turned to a lighter purple. His shoes suddenly lost their laces, the missing spots covered with leather. They turned white on the front, and the remainder turned purple as they began to grow up his legs, turning into boots that stopped just around the tops of his calves. The inner part of the boots was a lighter purple than the rest.
"What is going on?" Ink asked, not noticing he was reaching for the sleeves and rolling them up to his upper arms, which was followed by two spiked bracelets appearing on his wrists. A black necklace appeared around his neck, with a ruby medallion attached via a golden clasp.
Then it all suddenly seemed to speed up. His boots and feet shrank in size, followed by his legs getting shorter and thinner. He grimaced as the bones in his hips began to move, encountering some form of resistance before there was an audible pop as his hips burst into the shape of a womans. The skirt had expanded so as not to get torn, and his manhood was sucked into his body as her butt suddenly started to inflate.
Her waistline suddenly narrowed and the jacket compensated. Seconds later, the jacket shifted again as her chest began to increase in size, swelling into a pair of breasts. Her eyes turned purple and her skin blue as her torso and arms got shorter and thinner, increasingly looking like a teenage girl. Her hair grew forward over her forehead and down her back, before suddenly getting swept up into a ponytail as more hair grew down behind her ears. Finally, her hair turned a light blue, followed by dark blue streaks appearing in it.
Ink saw it was at last over, but was peturbed to say the least. "What... the... hell?" she asked, seeing in the mirror that she had changed into an exact duplicate of Sonata Dusk, one of the Dazzlings. This new body felt so weird to her, but first she had to find a way to escape from this bathroom without anybody noticing.
After succesfully escaping from the bathroom and avoiding any odd looks, Sonata headed for her planned attraction. Or was it? She seemed to be a bit dopy today. At last, she arrived in Springfield, and joined the line for The Simpsons Ride, a motion simulator attraction that had replaced Back to the Future. As she queued, she learned the basic plot (not being too familiar with the Simpsons). Essentially, Krusty the Clown was opening a theme park, and the Simpsons had been invited to test run the first rollercoaster at the park. Only problem was, an evil clown was blowing the place up as they rode on it, and she bore witness to the mayhem as she was hurled through curves and bends on the motion cars, and through demolished rides whilst groaning at Homer's incompetence.
When the ride ended, she stepped out into the sun. "If only I understood what was going on," she sighed, and went for a stroll around the Wizarding World of Harry Potter.
As she walked past the unloading area for Escape from Gringotts, she heard a panicked voice cry out.
Whilst Ink strode off with confidence into the park, John stayed in the lobby as the others conversed with one another. As he glanced about for signs of anybody talking with him, he suddenly noticed Tom and Katrina walking over to him.
"Hi John!" Tom called, waving to him and reaching for his hand. "It really has been a while, hasn't it?"
"Given we live in the same country, that you see Katrina more than me is quite the achievement," John sighed. "Oh well. Is Ink normally that antisocial?"
"I barely know the guy," Tom replied. "I'll ask Jim-" He turned around. "-my." For Jimmy had suddenly and mysteriously vanished, leaving a very confused Steph behind.
Katrina shrugged her shoulders. "If he gets one thing this trip, it's the Houdini award for disappearing."
"Should we all walk together?" John suggested. "I don't know if we are all in the same park today, but it would be nice to catch up on the way."
Tom, Katrina, and John all strolled out of the Hard Rock Hotel (which, fun fact, is owned by the Seminole Indians) and into the blazing Florida sun. Despite it being winter, it was still fairly warm, which explained why it was so popular with holidaymakers all year around and from all countries. As they walked into the plaza that separated the two park entrances from one another, Tom waved farewell to Katrina, who headed into Islands of Adventure for her ride of the day. Meanwhile, Tom and John (almost rhymes) walked into the same entrance that Ink had proceeded through earlier, and started to chat.
"So, what's been going on in your life?" Tom asked.
"Oh, the usual," John replied. "Work, life, all the usual crap." He stopped, as if keen to change the subject. "Tell me, how did you find the money to set this all up?"
"Renting a cottage on the Isle of Wight proved to be too dear, so I scrimped and saved," Tom replied. "Rather like that time we were meant to be going to Walt Disney World but you had to drop out."
"Poorly timed family emergency," John admitted. "Sorry about that. How did the trip go? I understand that Katrina was with you in my place."
"Sure was, and the trip was great, thanks," Tom replied.
"Hey, are you and her a-"
"No," Tom cut him off. "Knock it off. I am not in a relationship with her. OK?"
"Sheesh, just asking," John sighed. "What are you going to do?"
"I was going to explore Diagon Alley, and see how accurate it is to the real set," Tom answered. "I've been to the studio at Leavesden a few times, and the amount of work that went into it is incredible. It took me years to realise that Diagon Alley is a play on words on 'diagonally'."
John thought for a moment, and then groaned, only just having realised it himself. "Wow. Ha ha." He then glanced up as they approached the section of the park devoted to a certain wizard. "Well, I'm off to Gringotts. Wish me luck!"
"Have fun!" Tom called, as he vanished toward the Leaky Couldron for some butterbeer (don't drink it. It is vile).
When the Harry Potter books had arrived in the United States at the end of the 1990s, they had taken the country (and indeed, much of the world) by storm, as children and adults alike devoured the tales of Hogwarts' most famous resident (even if the books were banned in a few States). The films had only increased that fascination even more, and Universal and Disney had engaged in a fierce bidding war to secure the rights to Harry Potter in their theme parks. Universal won the fight, and set about constructing a replica of Hogwarts and Hogsmeade in Islands of Adventure, entitled The Wizarding World of Harry Potter, opened to great acclaim. Even if the replica of Olton Hall caused some consternation in the railway press in the UK.
Then they had a bright idea. Why not add London as well, in the other park? So, they tore down the old Jaws ride and built a replica of Diagon Alley, King's Cross, and several other landmarks from the books. The centrepiece of this was the Gringotts Bank, the main place where wizards and witches alike stored their cash (which must have made accesing it via ATM difficult). This featured a ride, and this was where John was headed. Entering under a dragon who had the rudeness to blow fire at everybody (John didn't particularly know the films), he wandered through the queueline, impressed at the level of detail and work in it, complete with the Goblin bank tellers (clearly, they hadn't invented machines for counting money here). It was shortly after this (well, OK, a long wait) that John entered the pre-show area, where a goblin and a man were talking about something or other that he didn't really understand. The doors at the other end opened, and John brushed against a wall, suddenly feeling an odd electrical current run through him.
"Ouch!" he cried. "The- the hell?" Seeing people moving forward near him, he chose to follow through and wandered through some more corridors, past some offices and into what seemed like a lift.
"Excuse me miss, could you please move up a bit?" asked a guest. When nobody replied, she adressed John directly. "Excuse me miss, could you please move up a bit? There are more people trying to enter."
"You must have the wrong person," John replied. "I'm a guy."
The guest looked confused. "Not with that hair you aren't."
John assumed she was making a joke. The doors closed, and the lift mechanism started up (in reality a very convincing projection). During this time, John caught a brief view of his reflection, and did a double take. His fringe had moved forward onto his forehead, and his hair hung down the back of his head and in a long ponytail held in place with a turquoise hairband.
"I must be on something," he said quietly, though with the ride noise you'd struggle to understand him no matter what volume he spoke at. He caught a brief flash of light, and his eyes were suddenly purple.
The lift stopped, and the doors opened. The riders filed out and boarded their ride vehicles, listening to the safety video as they did so. John, however, was finding it almost impossible to focus on anything else as searing pain went through him, his shoulders suddenly snapping inwards as he took his seat, his arms shrinking in length and his hands becoming much smaller, like those of a girl.
He pulled the restraint back, and was surprised when is suddenly no longer fit. He pulled it forward again, then suddenly noticed two blobs on his chest that hadn't been there before. His hand suddenly turned pink as he reached to see what they were. Not only did he suddenly have breasts, but his torso had decreased in height and width, muscle having melted away like hot wax.
"What the hell is going on?" he whimpered in fear. If his upper body looked like a girl, that meant-
The ride car suddenly jolted forward, and so much happened that John barely understood. He couldn't really focus on it anyway, as his manhood abruptly popped into his body to be replaced by the female equivalent, her hips widened, and her legs and feet grew shorter and smaller.
Before any sense of comprehension could be made, they were at the start of the ride again, having flown through tunnels and steep drops with projections of various people all over the place. Again, John, not being a fan of Harry Potter, had no clue what was going on.
The lap bars rose, and John climbed out into the sun. He stopped when he saw himself.
Or should I say, herself. John did the only reasonable thing a guy who suddenly found himself a girl would do.
Scream.
"WHAT THE HELL HAS HAPPENED TO ME?!"
Sonata heard the loud scream from nearby, and sprinted in its direction. As she reached the area, she saw a girl with light pink skin, purple hair (done up in a ponytail with two turquoise bands) and eyes, a white shirt with a neatly pressed and folded collar, an orange jacket with yellow buttons and puffed up sleeves, a blue skirt with a symbol of a cupcake on it, turquoise socks, and a pair of white trainers. The poor girl was hyperventilating and seemed to be in a state of shock.
"Are you alright?" Sonata asked, in a slightly confused and somewhat adorkable way.
"WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU THINK?" the girl replied, the expletive sounding hilarious in her adorable voice.
"Hello, there's no need to be rude! Sheesh, there are families here!"
"I'll handle this," said another voice. Sonata saw it was Tom, who stepped forward confidently. "Terribly sorry everyone. This is my cousin, and she's just not used to fast rides, that's all. She'll be OK in a moment, won't you?"
The girl didn't reply.
"Won't you?" Tom repeated, this time through gritted teeth.
The girl nodded.
"Very good," Tom smiled. "Follow me Sugar Belle, I think a ride on the Hogwarts Express will help sooth your nerves." And he pulled her away before she could even protest.
Steph was suddenly left on her own, as the others had, for some inexplicable reason, offed and left her on her own as they wandered into the parks. This she found rather annoying, as she'd been hoping to catch up with John a bit, not to mention finally get to meet Tom. She had heard a lot about him and Jimmy from Troy Creed, an old pen friend, and was aware they had had some quite amazing adventures. Having said that, her suspicions had been raised when she had phoned him whilst in Brentwood, trying to keep up with his antics, and had been confused when a different voice had answered her each night. She simply put it down to a bad line, but later on she found that Walt Disney World had seen a strange series of occurances involving Equestria Girls characters turning up in the parks, including a video that went viral entitled 'MAN TURNS INTO VAPOR TRAIL'. Though they couldn't be real, right? It was clearly some sort of elaborate prank!
Steph brushed these thoughts aside as simply as she brushed some hair out of her eyes, finding herself in the New York section of the main park. In the olden days, when the park still had its original complement of attractions, this place had been home to Kongfrontation, a ride based on King Kong (and more than a little inspired by the ride of the same name in Hollywood). However, owing to constant problems and power failures, the ride was eventually closed and the building remodelled, and it was this which Steph stood in front of now.
The Museum of Antiquities, or rather... Revenge of the Mummy: the Ride.
Steph checked her watch. The queue line didn't look too bad, and so she went and joined it, figuring some of the others would be back by the time she was done.
To say the 1933 film The Mummy is one of the most influential films ever made would be something of an understatement. From the visual effects to the themes of the long dead returning to wreak havoc on the living, many films and novels have taken bits from the pot of Imhotep. So much so, that a remake was released in 1999 to mixed reviews and box office success. This then spawned two less than brilliant sequels and an awful reboot. As well as this ride, which was well received.
As Steph stood in the queue line, they had suddenly moved to a set of a film, being set up as a sequel to the 1999 one. There was also some discussion about a curse being real or something like that. Steph was not much of a horror film fan, and most certainly had not seen these films, so she would have a hard time trying to understand what was going on. Basically, all she really needed to know was that an evil old dude called Imhotep was trying to kill them. Or something like that.
As she stood in line, seeing Brendan Fraser shout for coffee for the one millionth time (did the guy think he was Suri Polomare or something?), the queue suddenly turned into a 1940s excavation site of an Ancient Egyptian tomb. Now this was more like it, as Steph had learned about Ancient Egypt at school and had been deeply fascinated by it. As they entered, a door suddenly banged shut, and a voice spoke in her head.
"Such an airhead," it said. The voice was oddly familiar. "I highly doubt you'll even know I'm here."
Steph looked about her in confusion. "Who's there?" she asked. It was then she realised that the queue line was suddenly completely empty. Nobody was around. The corridors were dark. There was no light. "Where am I?"
"So, you can at least hear me," the voice said. "You seem at least to be a bit smarter than I thought. You may know me. I am Queen Chrysalis."
"How are you even talking?" Steph protested. "You're a fictional character!"
"I exist because of walls in the dimensions," Chrysalis replied. "I was locked in stone by the arch-monster Discord and his cronies Celestia and Luna. They even locked two others in with me. The monsters."
"I've seen the Season 9 finale, you know," Steph replied, before a searing pain cut through her head. "ARRRRGH!"
"SILENCE, FOALISH MORTAL!" Chrysalis boomed. "Good. My strength and will were enough to survive the entombing process, but Tirek and Cozy were not so lucky. They both died instantly. It's quite horrible when you think about it. When they crack them open in a few thousand years time, they'll only find corpses. But I digress. I'll tell you what I want. My species is in ruins. My hive is destroyed, ruled by the traitor Thorax and the rest of his disgusting kind. But I shall build a new hive on Earth. My body may be gone, but I can simply take a new one. Yours will do nicely."
"Wait, what?"
"This won't hurt a bit," Chrysalis laughed.
Steph screamed in agony as Chrysalis hijacked her body, forcibly starting to change things around and edit what she disliked. Her fingers began to merge into hooves, and a horn exploded out of her forehead.
"Why are you resisting? Can't you see this is good for you?"
"I'd rather die than live a monster!" Steph replied. "Now... GET... OUT... OF... MY... HEAD!"
The two engaged in a battle of wits, until Steph's transformation began to slow down, and even stopped completely.
"What?"
"I may not be able to stop this," Steph groaned, "but I can force you out and redirect it!" With that, her front hooves shattered, opening up into fingers once more, and the horn started to retract into her forehead.
Her skin darkened to a grey shade, and then her eyes flashed green as a tangled mess of blue hair fell down her face and into her eyes briefly, growing both in front of and behind her head. Her shirt shrank onto her body, followed by the sleeves shrinking back to change it into a green tank top. The gradient of the green became lighter the further down it you went. It was soon complemented by a black jacket on top, which itself was followed by her pants shrinking up her legs and merging together to create a black mini skirt, partially held in place by a black belt with a silver buckle. Her socks morphed into a pair of leggings with holes in them, with her trainers also turning black and morphing into a pair of black army boots.
Her height increased slightly, and her clothes expanded a bit as her hips widened a bit.
"You may have fought me off, but your soul will be mine!"
Steph quickly looked over her new form, before realising that she was suddenly back in the queue line. Everybody looked at this new arrival.
"Wow, you are HOT!" said a random guy.
Chrysalis decided to just roll with it. "What?" she grinned, trying her hardest to flirt. "You think you've got what it takes to ride with the best?"
After a bit more waiting, they boarded the ride, and the cart moved deeper into the tomb. A man called Reggie called to them. "Are you insane?! Get out of here! The curse is real; this whole place is a trap! He is after your souls!"
Suddenly, a figure in bandages appeared, smashing a sarcophagus open. This was the Imhotep of whom they had been warned. "Silence!" After killing the human trapped nearby, he turned to the riders. "With your souls, I shall rule for all eternity!"
Chrysalis rolled her eyes. "You don't scare me, bandage man!"
Imhotep seemed to take offence, and the car suddenly rolled into another room, filled with gold. Imhotep suddenly appeared from nowhere on a screen. "Serve me," he said, "and savor riches beyond measure; or refuse, and savor a more bitter treasure."
A girl sitting next to Chrysalis looked at her. "I somehow think we won't get a choice."
She was indeed right, as the car suddenly blasted forward, then stopped, to be pelted with scarap beatles. Or bugs, you could say.
I'll see myself out.
The car suddenly reversed, plummeted through a steep drop, and then stopped, before turning 180 degrees. It then blasted off again, as Imhotep shouted some nonsense about a 'Mejiy', and flew through curves, drops, stops, and past Mummies spitting fire, before it suddenly stopped at an unloading station.
"We hope you have enjoyed your ride. Please remain seated until your-"
The ride attendant was suddenly and inexplicably killed by Imhotep, who appeared in the control booth. "Prepare to forfeit your souls! Death is only the beginning!"
The train suddenly blasted forward again, fell through a steep winding drop, and then-
It was over.
Chrysalis sat outside, and glanced about her. "Was that it?" she asked. "I would have enjoyed that a lot more if I had any clue what was going on." She sighed as she got wolf-whistled for the fiftieth time. Suddenly, her phone beeped, and she answered it.
"Hello? Who is this?"
"Steph?" Tom asked. "Don't tell me it's happened to you too!"
Chrysalis was about to reply, when suddenly another call came in on the same line. From Jimmy. "Hold on, Jimmy's calling me."
She switched to that call, only to be barraged with broken English.
To describe Jimmy as a Harry Potter fanatic (or a 'Potterhead') would be something of an understatement. Unlike Tom or John, whose knowledge of the franchise can be politely described as sketchy, Jimmy had a comprehension of the films bordering on encyclopedic. He had read each book at least three times, seen the films heavens knows how often, and had even avoided incorporating certain characters into his TF lists based on who they were played by in the Harry Potter franchise (a certain princess springs to mind...). Anyway, Jimmy was now proceeding into the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. As previously discussed, this was really two lands. The first of them was in the main park, and recreated scenes from the muggle world like Diagon Alley and Platform 9 3/4. The other part, in Islands of Adventure, was a recreation of the legendary Hogwarts Castle, and the adjoining village of Hogsmeade, complete with replica of 5972 Olton Hall which blew steam periodically. Of course, there was also the Hogwarts Express train ride, which ran from here to the main park.
Jimmy knew exactly what he was here for, as he wound his way through the winding streets and cobbled paths of Hogsmeade, dodging the enormous queue for Hagrid's Motorbike Adventure (which had broken down for the fifth time that day). Walking past a street vendor and helping himself to some butterbeer (yuck!), he walked toward a queue line he knew very well.
When this land had opened (and had defied all expectations that Universal had) it had not had many attractions; a quick retheme of Dueling Dragons, a quick retheme of the Flying Unicorn, a quick retheme-
You're probably seeing a (re)theme developing here. Anyways, the signature attraction was Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey, a dark ride with incredible immersion and high speed adventure through the films that captivated audiences everywhere. Jimmy checked his Express slot, and saw that his number had come up. So in he went.
"So far, so good," he said, noting that no liquids today had given him electric shocks or produced random kirin. As he stood in the queue, he looped around trees and under bright lights as the line eventually wound its way into the castle proper. Inside were strange things like statues of trolls, before he emerged onto a patio with a very out of place ice cream stand. Looping back indoors, they walked through a recreation of the moving staircases and some of the moving paintings. At long last, the actual ride proper loomed before him, so when it was his turn he got on.
The ride vehicle began to move off, and suddenly, as Hermione appeared, it flew into the air and through a tunnel full of green. They went around curves, and past a rotating screen with projected footage of Ron and Harry (the latter of whom was filled in for using unused audio, as Daniel Radcliffe declined to reprise his role). Then a dragon attacked them, and the ride vehicle moved away from the screen. They were in the rafters of an old building, before a dragon appeared from nowhere and attacked them. They suddenly went into a forest, and were attacked by a moving tree, before appearing in front of another screen. This time it was projecting a Quidditch match, with Harry leading them, before more high speed death-defying maneuvres later, they were back in the station once more.
"WHOO!" Jimmy exclaimed, as the lap bar rose and he got out. "That never gets old!"
"Speak for yourself, neckbeard," another rider grumbled. "Why don't they update it sometime? The story doesn't even make sense!"
"It's a good ride, OK?" Jimmy retorted. "If Jimmy say it good ride, it good ride. Understand?"
"What's with the broken English?" somebody else said. "You were fine a moment ago."
For reasons best known to himself, Jimmy chose to ride the ride another 6 times. 6. TIMES! Probably because 6 times plus one time equals seven, which is not only a lucky number but also the number of books in the series. As he went through each run, he progressively began to change, slowly and imperceptibly at first, but soon it caught up with him.
His shirt and pants merged together to create a single garment, which soon morphed into a light blue and grey dress which was coloured in strange patterns. A red scarf tied itself around his waist, tied at the back with a bow, and a green shawl appeared around his neck as his shoes morphed into high heel boots that reached forth unto his mid thighs. Two more bows appeared in his hair on either side. All of this he noticed not.
Suddenly, the ride jolted to a stop, just enough for him to notice the skirt starting to slide back up his legs and stop above his knees. "Why here, of all places? What is it with badly timed major metamorphoses?"
Just as suddenly as his realisation of his predicament, his waist sucked itself in as years of accumulated muscle melted off his body and his hips were forced outward with a bang. His manhood vanished forth, and her legs and arms reduced in width and length to create shorter and slimmer ones, with smaller feet and hands and thin, narrow fingers and toes. Heads and shoulders, knees and toes. Knees and toes.
Her hair turned brown, falling all over the place as two loops formed on either side, looking like pretzels as elaborate bangs formed over her forehead. Her eyes changed to green, or teal depending on the light, and she gained brown eyebrows, it only just having occured to the narrator that Jimmy had no eyebrows.
With one last act (and to clean up the random fogginess in her vision), Yona grabbed the glasses and removed them from her face. "Yona not bothered by blurry thing!" she exclaimed. "Yona can see clearly now!"
A passenger looked over at this strange person. "I assume English is not your first language."
At the end of the ride, Yona decided to call the Steph person in her contacts to see how they were. There was some ringing briefly, and then the call connected. "Yona say the ride in Hogwarts is best ride! Is Steph likely to agree with Yona?"
"I have no idea what you just said," the voice of Chrysalis, and not of Steph from earlier, replied. "Please repeat that in grammatically correct English."
Yona had an idea. "Why, my fairest lady," she answered, inexplicably going all posh. "I must admit to having the finest of dalliances on that fair attraction found in that Castle with Warts and Hogs."
"OK, broken English was better," the other voice said. "This has happened to you too?"
"This always happen to best yak!" Yona replied. "Sometimes on Mondays!"
"As if life couldn't get any crazier," Chrysalis groaned. "We'll talk later. Right now I've got some jerks to brush off."
Tom leaned himself against a wall and dialled Steph, all the while keeping a very close eye on Sugar Belle. The last thing he needed was her causing yet another commotion in the middle of a busy park.
"Hello? Who is this?" asked the voice on the other end of the line, who sounded not like Steph but like Chrysalis. Tom instantly knew something was wrong if she sounded like a fictional character and didn't seem to be freaking out.
"Steph?" Tom asked. "Don't tell me it's happened to you too!"
It sounded as though she was about to reply, when a beeping sound could be heard on the other end of the line. "Hold on, Jimmy's calling me."
Tom rolled his eyes. "What's the bet it's affected him too?"
"What's affected whom?" Sugar Belle asked.
"This ongoing series of things that happens to us," Tom replied. "Next time, don't throw a screaming fit in the middle of a public space. The last thing we need is attention being drawn to us, or else we may end up in some sort of testing lab."
Sugar Belle looked confused. "Next time? You mean this has happened more than once?"
There was a brief pause. "Remember that trip to Walt Disney World you had to pull out of last summer?"
"Yeah, but what does that-"
"This sort of thing happened to me, Katrina, and Jimmy for eight nights in a row. And there was that time in Brentwood before that with Troy as well."
Sugar Belle looked shocked, as she struggled to understand what was going on. "How? What in the world caused this to happen?"
"I don't know for sure," Tom replied. "My best bet is Equestrian magic, but I can't really explain it without Jimmy around. It's been happening to him for years now."
"Wow, loosing your man parts can hardly be fun for years."
"We don't always change gender," answered Tom. "Katrina has never ended up as a guy, for instance. But enough blabbering in the street; shall we go to King's Cross?"
In the Harry Potter novels and films, the majority of wizards and witches attending Hogwarts do so by catching the Hogwarts Express, a passenger service that departs from Platform 9 3/4 at 11:00 exactly on 1st September every year, returning to London in June at the end of term. The run takes the train up the East Coast Main Line as far as Edinburgh, where it swings over via Falkirk to Glasgow Queen Street, then taking the diversion line to Helensburgh. Then, it travels up the beautiful West Highland line, making a single reverse at Fort William, using the turntable there, and finally working all the way to Mallaig, where students transfer to boat to travel to Hogwarts (which is roughly where the Isle of Sky is in the Muggle world). This probably constitutes the longest non-stop steam run in the world, but the film take led to confusion.
Originally, Warner Brothers had wanted to use a Bulleid Light Pacific for the film, as 34027 Taw Valley had already been repainted into red for a promotional tie in for the release of Goblet of Fire. However, director Chris Columbus rejected this proposal as he thought Taw Valley looked too modern. Instead, they picked a relatively obscure GWR Hall, 5972 Olton Hall, which was repainted into a bizarre red livery complete with Hogarts Castle nameplates. The livery was striking, but it led to many jokes from railway enthusiasts.
Onwarts (sorry, onwards) to our story. When an expansion to the Wizarding World was proposed in 2012, it soon emerged that there was not enough space to fit it into the Islands of Adventure site. The solution was to slap it on top of where Jaws used to be, and it was then suggested a ride was built to transport guests between the main park and Islands of Adventure. The answer; the Hogwarts Express!
And so, Tom and Sugar Belle entered into the queue line for the Hogwarts Express, entering into a scaled down but uncannily accurate recreation of King's Cross station in London.
"Now this is scarily good!" Tom said, pointing out accurate details. "The operations board shows actual destinations that are served by train operating companies here, such as Hadley Wood and York! Though given when the novels are set, it should still be British Rail, not First Capital Connect or East Coast!"
"That was quite the franchising fiasco," Sugar Belle sighed, as they made their way through the queue and deeper into the station.
"A pity that attraction entrance sign spoils the immersion," Tom answered, with sighs of his own, as they walked into the attraction proper. All of the posters on the walls were authentic to Britain's contemporary railways, although it soon began to feel like a busman's holiday for the pair, who usually lived in Britain. After walking through a wall (and noting the lack of security cameras, most inauthentic), the pair suddenly found themselves walking through dark corridors filled with luggage.
"It must be from all the cancelled trains!" Sugar Belle joked.
"Trains are so ram packed you couldn't even fit your luggage in if you wanted to," Tom answered. "Why do they not have dedicated luggage vans on passenger trains anymore? They could move the mail that way and save on all those lorries."
After ascending a flight of stairs and seeing other guests vanish through a wall, they found themselves under the great arched roof of King's Cross, which was packed full of luggage and other useful items.
"Platform 9 and 3/4. We're in the right place."
Just then, a whistle sounded. Tom and Sugar Belle looked over in excitement as-
The connecting corridor of a Mark 1, followed by said Mark 1, backed into the station, followed by several more coaches and finally a replica of Olton Hall, which wheeshed steam and billowed smoke as the train rolled to a stop.
"Does it run backwards in the films?" Sugar Belle asked.
"The only time we see the return trip is at the end of the 1st film," Tom told her. "And there, Olton Hall was running tender first. Clearly this version of the Hogwarts Express is auto-fitted."
Moments later, the doors opened (inauthentic sliding doors), and the passengers were ushered into their compartments (because, of course, compartment stock). Tom and Sugar Belle had a compartment to themselves, and as they glanced over at the wall, they could see steam rising as the train readied to depart.
Tom reached for the steam heating handle and turned it. "Nope, doesn't work. You've got to admire the attention to detail though."
The compartment door closed, and doors banged up and down the train as they readied to depart. As the train pulled away, Tom frowned. "Where are the overhead wires?" he asked. "And why does King's Cross suddenly have semaphore signalling? Maybe this takes place before the 1960s refit of the station changed the signalling-"
Sugar Belle interrupted. "Or maybe this is a ride and you need to stop being a pedant."
There would be plenty for Tom to spot, as the train soon diverted from the ECML and onto a fictional alignment. Tom was about to speak again, when he suddenly jumped. "Damned electric shocks!"
"Are you OK?" Sugar Belle asked him.
Tom nodded. "I knew my turn would come eventually. I just need to relax and let this complete itself." As he said this, his formerly brown hair turned a golden shade, cut short at the back. It then combed over, and some of it stuck up in front. His ears were suddenly pierced, and his eyebrows turned the same golden shade as the hair, followed by him gaining amber eyes. His face softened into that of a teenage girl, but still had some edge to it, as if this was a tough girl.
His neck changed in shape as his Adam's Apple shrank back, followed by his vocal chords shortening, but not by too much. Sugar Belle looked on in shock and morbid curiosity as Tom continued to change.
His shoulders were suddenly forced inwards and his chest grew slightly, followed by his chest and arm muscles reforming to provide a surprising amount of hidden strength. Sports star, maybe? His arms and hands shrank, and his hips were forced out slightly, followed by his manhood vanishing, which never ceased to hurt no matter how many times a person went through this. Her legs got shorter, and thinner, and her feet shrank in size, leaving her clothes very baggy as her spine shortened. Then her skin turned turquoise.
Tom tried her voice as she looked at herself. "I wonder who this is," she said, as she glanced down. Her trainers changed to have a white base and a turquoise body with a white lightning bolt and yellow stars on each shoe. The laces vanished, and yellow straps appeared to replace them, followed by the coverplate popping up and her socks adjusting to match their new home.
Her slacks changed into a pair of skin-tight pants with a handful of utility pockets on them, and her T shirt, adjusting for her differently shaped upper body, turned a very light blue, gaining an emblem of three yellow stars being hit by a white lightning bolt. Finally, a black jacket with yellow lining appeared on her body, and with that it seemed to be over.
Tom glanced herself over. "Well, looks like I'm Lightning Dust now." She noticed Sugar Belle staring at her. "What?"
"How can you be so calm about this?" she responded. "We're fictional characters!"
"As I said," Lightning sighed, "I'm used to it. How long have we been on the rails? We must be in Hogsmeade soon." The pair soon realised they had been paying no attention to the ride, and just then the guard opened the compartment door.
"This is Hogsmeade, our final stop," he said. "Thank you for travelling with us."
The pair stood in Hogsmeade, waiting for Jimmy to arrive, when suddenly-
"Yona see friends!"
Suddenly, Sugar Belle was tackle hugged and held incredibly tightly by Yona. "Yona so happy to see friends! Yona want to go on ride with-"
Lightning Dust growled at her. "The only thing we'll be going to is a funeral if you don't let go of her."
Yona promptly let go, looking very embarrased. "Oops."
"Shall we go ride something?" Sugar Belle suggested.
"Hagrid's Magical Creatures?" Lightning Dust suggested, and then saw the board. "Closed? You have GOT to be kidding me!"
She took out her phone, and dialled Katrina, waiting for the number to pick up.
Night 1: Velociraptors? This is the Worst. Possible. THING!
Rarity was distraught as her phone rang, somehow still operational despite the horrifying wetness she found herself in. She removed it from her pocket and looked at it. The call was coming in from Tom, who no doubt found himself in a situation most vulgar as well. Taking it to her ear, she began to speak.
"Woe is me! Truly is this most problematic!"
"Sheesh, somebody is melodramatic," said a female voice, on the other end. "Greet me as Lightning now. It'll be less confusing."
"Well, I am all wet and my clothes are all ruined! And there were velociraptors too! THIS IS THE WORST POSSIBLE THING!"
There was a click as the person on the other end engaged speaker mode. "Sounds like somebody didn't like Jurassic Park the Ride," said another voice, which Rarity did not recognise.
"Yona want to know all about Jurassic Park!" added another voice.
Rarity sighed. "Well, it all began on a fair morning like today, with the-"
"Care to hurry it up a bit?" the one who identified as Lightning interrupted.
"Yes, yes of course, darling. You must understand that I was not Rarity a moment ago..."
APPROXIMATELY 2 HOURS EARLIER...
Katrina had made her way to Islands of Adventure, apparently unaware that Jimmy had also made his own way there. Having said that, this was probably because she had taken a left when confronted with the main lake, and Jimmy had taken a right, as that was the fastest route to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. She was headed for Isla Nublar, as she had been booked onto Jurassic Park River Adventure, based on one of the most beloved film franchises of all time. Although some of the more 'interesting' types in her friend circle disputed that dinosaurs ever existed on the grounds that they are not mentioned in the Bible, Katrina had pointed out that by the same logic smartphones do not exist, as they are not mentioned in the Bible either.
But enough random rambling. Katrina had a ride to ride, and she would not miss this. She had been reliably informed by Tom that this was one of the best rides in the park, not to mention it focused on a topic that greatly fascinated her. Just a nice, relaxing trip along a waterway with dinosaurs, right?
How wrong she was. She was in for a bit of a wild ride... just not the one she expected.
Joining the queue line and walking through the forest, Katrina basked in the atmosphere and production. Both Universal and Disney had a reputation for putting a lot of work into theming and immersion. It was not enough for it to seem like you were there; it had to feel real, as if you were actually there. Then, you would enjoy the experience a lot more. And Universal had certainly made it feel like you were on a tropical island (although the temperatures certainly helped). As she stood in line, some water flew through the air and hit her.
"Agh!" she cried. "What fiend did tha-" She immediately put a hand to her mouth. Her voice sounded wrong, like a heavily stereotyped English aristocrat. She certainly knew what time it was.
"Is this fated to follow me wherever I do go?" she asked, watching as her skin turned unhealthily pale, as if somebody had splattered her arms and neck with white paint. Her hair tumbled down her back and fell to her rear, piling itself up into multiple locks and curved bits that seemed to defy gravity with their very existance (and the author also resisted the urge to reference Wicked). The colour purple seemed to rule the day in that unordered pile, emphasised by a messy fringe on the right hand side of her head and three diamonds set into her hair as a hairpiece.
Her previously hazel eyes were promptly replaced by blue ones, complemented with purple eyebrows. Two golden bracelets appeared on her arms as her shirt began to change. The previously high neckline dropped, forming a U shape from the edge of the shoulders to the centre. The sleeves grew in length slightly down to her elbows (accompianied by the colour of light blue appearing on what was now a blouse), and a chord formed around her jeans, held in on the centre by a pair of blue rings.
Her legs slimmed down slightly, and her fingernails were soon covered in varnish as her jeans shrank up her legs. All of this was going on whilst the queue was moving, which rapidly got awkward indeed. I mean, you try walking when every garment you're wearing is pulling a changing act!
Getting back onto topic, the jeans merged together to form a skirt, which turned purple and dropped to her knees, before suddenly seeming to poof outwards. Three more diamonds (or rather images of them) formed on the skirt, and her shoes suddenly began to morph into a pair of high top boots with even more diamonds set in around her legs. Padding formed at the top to reduce the rub on her legs, and the boots turned purple with dark purple heels.
Everything was suddenly very blurry, and Rarity reached up to remove the pair of glasses sitting on her face, which changed into a pair of red circle rims in front of her eyes, of the sort a stereotypical villain principal would wear. "Whyever was I wearing these whilst trying to walk?" she asked. "Was I trying to make a fool of myself?"
"Well, will you look at that!" said somebody behind her. "Universal must have the liscence to use My Little Pony characters!"
"I know!" said a woman next to the owner of the first voice. "I saw Sonata Dusk earlier today near Minion Mayhem! Weird, isn't it?"
Rarity smiled. "Well, yes, maybe. In the meantime, I shall partake of a grand voyage, into the place of the Jurassic times!"
"The queue's moving!" called somebody else. "Would you care to move up, Rarity?"
"Of course!" Rarity replied. Now was no time for tardiness. Everything had to be efficient and proper, especially queuing. She shuddered as she remembered working for Vignette Valencia. That person had been the definition of disorganised and chaotic.
Boarding the boat, the vessel set off into the sea, and passed by several dinosaurs that seemed very friendly indeed. As John Williams' theme and score swelled to the forefront, many species could be observed, such as the marvellous Ultrasaurus, the playful Hadrosaur and Parasauralophus, and even Dilophosaurus. But then, they were turned off in the wrong direction, as warnings began to play over the speakers about the Raptor Containment Area. The viciousness of the predators was shown by them... fighting over a T shirt.
"Well, I never!" Rarity said. "Why can't those two dinosaurs simply share it?"
Nearby, a wrecked boat was floating, and it was all too obvious what had happened to the crew. The boat began to climb in complete darkness, with loud sirens and screeching echoing from all around. Then they were splashed. As the boat reached the end of the room, it happened.
Before them, looking very cross and exceptionally hungry, was a T Rex. Yes, they had a T Rex.
Rarity shielded her eyes. "Don't eat me! I have my best blouse on!"
Luckily, fate had other plans, and the boat plummeted down the drop and into a massive pool of water. They were safe, but very, very wet.
"...And so," Rarity finished, "we escaped, but I'm now absolutely soaking wet. WOE IS ME!"
"Sheesh, quit being such a drama queen," added a new voice that had not previously been there. "Especially when you have a real Queen here."
"Hey Chryssy," Lightning interjected. "How was the Mummy?"
"I've faced more fearsome foes."
"HOW IS QUEEN CHRYSALIS HERE?" Rarity exclaimed.
"Don't ask," said the mystery voice. "Just try to act normal, and we can discuss a suitable course of action over breakfast tomorrow. Kay?"
"Why, yes, breakfast. That is a most marvellous idea!"
"Yona say we ride Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey again?"
"For the love of Mike, how many times have we ridden that thing?"
"At least 14 times, because Hagrid's Motorbike Adventure is STILL not working."
"Catch you all later," Rarity said, and ended the call. She looked at her still dripping wet self. "I ought to dry out quickly, but I daresay it will be terrible to go about with see through clothes. Is there anywhere I can change?"
"Hello, the bathrooms are right over there!" said a voice, and Sonata suddenly appeared, eating a taco. She shovelled it into her mouth, chewed, swallowed, and burped.
"Honestly Sonata!" Rarity said. "Must you pollute the air with your buffoonery?"
"I can't eat off a china plate and use silverware whilst walking!" Sonata retorted. "Why not go change, then we can go ride some more stuff. Just don't use the one on the left because somebody barfed up in there and-"
"I did NOT need to know that!" Rarity interrupted, and sped off in that direction with haste.
The next morning, the sun rose upon the Hard Rock Hotel, and light glimmered (but did not Starlight) through the curtains of room 103, Sugar Belle slowly stirred, rubbing her eyes. The last day had been extremely taxing on her, and she sat up.
"At least I had a nice ni-" she stopped. Glancing down, she realised why her voice was suddenly so low.
Or rather, his voice was suddenly so low. He had changed back to good old John Rooke overnight, and his clothes had miraculously changed back to how they had been before he had changed. Goodbye to that blouse and skirt (good riddance to those). And, of course, he had something else back too.
He climbed out of bed. "Tom mentioned something about this happening for several nights. Does this mean I'm infected now, like them?" As he glanced over the mirror in which his reflection sat, he ran his hand along his chin. "Hmm, I need to shave," he said, before stepping into the shower room where he had left his razor and razor charger. He would also need a shower later. That was going to be fun. These hotel showers could be very unpredictable, to say the least.
John was used to scoring bargains, and this sometimes meant that the quality of his meals was less than amazing. However, he was thoroughly enjoying breakfast this morning. Although it was self service, the quality was mind blowing, as he usually associated hotel food with tasting like regurgitated crap (I am aware of how disgusting that image is; it accurately reflects what eating at most chain hotels is like).
All around the table, the six friends, all back to normal after yesterday's shenanigans, sat chatting about the upcoming day.
"So, where is anybody going today?" Jimmy asked. "I'll be off to Islands of Adventure again."
"Are you riding Forbidden Journey again?" Tom asked. "By the time we finished yesterday we could recite the attraction script word for word!"
"No, actually," Jimmy smiled. "I'll be riding Flight of the Hippogriff!"
"The one that used to be themed around unicorns?" Steph asked.
"Yes," Jimmy replied.
"Just make sure it doesn't get distracted by stairs," Ink joked. The table promptly started laughing.
"Another round of coffee, anybody?" John asked. "I'll be riding a rollercoaster, amongst other things."
"There are several in the park," Steph noted. "I'll be in the main park, because two guys are on a mission from God!"
"So, you're listening to the Blues Brothers?" Katrina chimed in, silent up until this moment.
"Yes!" Steph answered. "Then doing a ton of other cool stuff."
Ink then spoke up again. "I'll be on the only remaining attraction from opening day. ET Adventure."
"That's a nice one," Tom admitted. "I rode it when I was a lot younger and when Jaws was still around." He suddenly started fuming. "Never got a chance to ride that."
"Anyway," Katrina interjected, putting a hand on Tom's shoulder, "should we try and go in groups? Last time some of us got left behind."
"Good idea," John added. He then looked at his plate and realised how quickly he had demolished his food. "Wow, had no idea I was that hungry."
Just then, a phone went. "Great," Tom sighed. "Way to rain on the parade. Can I go answer that? It's my sister."
"Sure thing," Steph smiled. "We'll wait for you."
"No need, I'll catch you up!" Tom soon vanished into the distance as he headed for the lift.
"Shall we get going then?" John asked, as he stood up and wiped his mouth before burping.
Katrina facepalmed. "Oh not this again," she groaned, remembering Jimmy's less than stellar table manners at Disney.
John and Steph headed off together, as their ultimate destinations were not too far apart from one another and were relatively easy to get to.
"So, what exactly is Hollywood Rip Ride Rocket?" asked Steph, not being too knowledgable on roller coasters.
"Tom tells me it's an X Coaster," John replied. "And that doesn't mean you have to be 18 to ride it. It combines a vertical lift hill with sudden drops and inversions, and it even comes with a synchronised custom soundtrack. You get to select which song you listen to as you ride! Here's hoping it's not all modern crap."
"You're telling me!" Steph snorted, rolling her eyes. "Most days I can't turn on the radio because the music's so bad."
"It's almost as if the music industry has no clue what we want to listen to," John laughed, the sarcasm present in his voice. Moments later, they reached the stage where the Blues Brothers were supposed to be performing, but not yet. John bid Steph goodbye, and then set off on his way. But as he looked back, he spotted something odd. Steph seemed to be wearing a hoodie, which she hadn't before.
He shrugged it off. She probably had it in her bag at some point. As he made his way onwards through the streets, he at last came to it. Hollywood Rip Ride Rocket.
One of the few vertical lift hill rides he had ever been on, as he had ridden on Saw: the Ride at Thorpe Park, the structure towered over the entire area with its plethora of climbs, drops, and near misses. John joined the queue line and prepared for the wait.
"Hey there!" said an oddly young voice. John looked forward and did a double take.
The boy standing before him had sandy yellow skin and green and blue hair, and was currently wearing dark green shorts, a pair of white shoes, and a dark green T shirt. His green eyes seemed to glow in the relative dark.
"Sandbar!?" John exclaimed. "Alright, who were you originally?"
"Eh?" Sandbar replied. "I'm here of my own accord. Seen Ocellus recently?"
"Er, no, I haven't," John replied, before suddenly noticing his voice was off. It was no longer his own. It was the voice of Gallus.
His skin turned a very light blue, followed by his hair turning a darker blue with yellow strands at the front. These strands stood up on their own and seemed to float, countering gravity. His eyes shifted to dark blue, even darker than any blue encountered before, as his height and musclulature seemed to melt away. He was reduced to the height of a boy on the verge of his teenage years, complemented by a voice quite similar to that effect. "Well, this is convenient," he said, the sarcasm in his voice indicating the exact opposite as his clothes were suddenly a bit loose.
Thankfully, that was soon to be fixed. His socks turned white and his shoes turned to trainers with white laces, as well as black and white frames. His shorts turned to black with cream-yellow lines down the sides of the legs, and his shirt was joined by a blue hoodie with the same yellow-cream pattern on the front.
Gallus noted it seemed to be over. "Hey, I'm still a guy!" he said.
"Wanna ride together?" Sandbar offered. "It may take a while to get used to this one."
Hollywood Rip Ride Rocket has a unique loading system. Rather than have the trains stop to allow for loading and unloading, the trains never cease moving and instead the passengers have to get on whilst the train is moving. Sandbar seemed to be used to the setup, and took his seat, but Gallus wobbled over the platform and almost fell into his seat.
"Well, that went smoothly," Gallus sighed, before looking at the touchscreen. "Select song?"
"Yeah, it's pretty cool," Sandbar smiled. "You can create your own soundtrack for the ride. Neat, eh?"
Gallus scrolled through the options, and promptly selected Born to be Wild. The train, after the restraints were checked, began to climb up the first lift hill. "Now is a bad time to admit I'm afraid of enclosed spaces, right?"
"It's not really that enclosed if you think about it. We've got plenty of air and space-"
"I was talking about the restraint, genius." Gallus facepalmed. "It feels like somebody dropped Yona on me."
"You'll be glad for it. Here we go!" Sandbar put his hands in the air as the train roared down the first drop. "WHOOHOO!"
The train roared down a fierce drop, reaching 65 miles an hour. Gallus whooped as the airtime hit him like a ton of bricks. The train flew up into a loop, but the track rolled around to the right at the top, and then again when the train began to descend. The train went into a brake run, flew down another drop and into a banked bend, before jumping up and down repeatedly. After more drops and sudden left and right turns, they were back at the station.
"So, how was that?" Sandbar asked, as the two boys got ice cream.
"That was a lot more fun than I thought it would be," Gallus said. "I bet you Smoulder would have loved that."
"Silverstream would have spent too much time looking at the stairs!" Sandbar laughed.
Suddenly, a girl with orange skin, purple hair, blue eyes, and wearing a yellow shirt, orange hoodie, blue jeans and black and white sneakers ran over to them. "You guys!" she said. "I've got a problem. Tom's not picking up on his phone, and the others haven't seen him either!"
"Who's Tom?" Sandbar asked.
"A friend of mine you haven't met," Gallus replied. "Do you want some help? Cause if you could explain what happened to you, Steph, that'll help us unravel what's going on here."
The girl nodded. "It might be easier to call be Smoulder from now on..."
Standing on a nondescript street in a nondescript section of Universal Studios Florida, Steph couldn't help but check her watch. It is about 9:30 in the morning and the street itself was quite. Steph looked at her watch again, as she expected a ally of hers to approach and join her for this performance.
OK, who has been changing the settings in Microsoft Word? I need to go back and edit that, to avoid it looking this was written by a six year old.
Standing on a nondescript street in a nondescript section of Universal Studios Florida, Steph couldn't help but check her watch. It was about 9:30 in the morning and the street itself was quiet. Steph looked at her watch again, as she expected an ally of hers to approach and join her for this performance.
There. Much better.
Suddenly, a saxophonist walked across the street, playing music.
"OOoh!" Steph said randomly. "Pretty!" She then admonished herself for saying that. "That's not cool!"
Moments later, a car pulled up with a siren on the top. It was the pair that the crowd had been waiting for. It was the BLUES BROTHERS! Jake and Elwood exited (not excited, as that would be weird, and not werid) and headed for the stage as I can't turn you loose played over the speakers. The band members only had access to piped audio, with the exception of the saxophonist, so the sound was somewhat tinny. That, and they were performing in an open space.
Jake tossed Ellwood a key to unlock a briefcase that was inexplicably handcuffed to his wrist. He undid the lock and hurled the key absentmindedly into the crowd, where Steph caught it. And then, suddenly, oddly, bizarrely, it glowed. Steph's hand was closed, so she did no see the glow.
The Brothers started by performing Soul Man, and as they were performing, the crowd was too focused on what was going on to even see what was happening to Steph, who went unnoticed.
Her pants morphed into a pair of blue jeans that stuck to her form quite nicely, and her shoes were promptly replaced by a pair of white and black trainers. The process of them tying themselves onto her feet was what finally caught her attention, as they squished onto her feet precisely as shoes don't.
"What?" she asked. "Who is this even? At least they aren't girly."
It seemed that this process had not got the usual memo about clothes then body or body then clothes, as suddenly her legs got shorter, her feet shrank, and then it got painful, as her hips were suddenly forced together, narrowing to the width of a preteen girl. Her baggy shirt, which had a somewhat tenous connection to the rest of her form anyways (not to mention she now looked completely ridiculous) shrank onto her body and turned yellow with a relatively low neckline, soon joined by an orange hoodie that sat on top. She was quick to undo it, so that it hung open on her body. The hood hung back and flopped uselessly. Steph glanced down to see her skin turn orange, soon joined in hue by a pair of blue eyes. The low neckline soon proved to not be much of a problem, as her breasts shrank until they were nothingness, leaving her as flat as a board at the end of the day. Not long after that, her hair turned purple, and shrank back until it was shoulder length. Her appearance was the definition of a tomboy, and she found herself smiling as she listened.
"Blues?" she said. "Now this is my jam!" As the Blues Brothers launched into Shake a Tail Feather, the crowd broke into dance.
Somebody then looked at her. "Scootaloo?" they asked. "I saw you at Disney World last summer!"
"Who are ya talkin' about?" she replied. "The name's Smoulder!"
They ended the show with Jailhouse Rock, and promptly vanished into the crowd being pursued by the cops. Smoulder walked away and suddenly thought to check her phone to see if Tom had been in contact.
"Come on buddy!" she said, putting the phone to her ear. There was no response. The phone just rang out, and this concerned Smoulder greatly. Keen to see if any of her friends were around, she headed for an ice cream stand where she saw Gallus and Sandbar eating ice cream.
"That was a lot more fun than I thought it would be," she heard Gallus say. "I bet you Smoulder would have loved that."
"Silverstream would have spent too much time looking at the stairs!" Sandbar laughed.
Smoulder ran over to the pair, and quickly handed a dollar to the ice cream man, who started making a vanilla. Quite how he knew how to do this was a mystery, but he started doing it anyway. You guys!" she said. "I've got a problem. Tom's not picking up on his phone, and the others haven't seen him either!"
"Who's Tom?" Sandbar asked.
"A friend of mine you haven't met," Gallus replied. "Do you want some help? Cause if you could explain what happened to you, Steph, that'll help us unravel what's going on here."
Smoulder nodded. "It might be easier to call be Smoulder from now on..."
So, she told the tale of what had happened at the Blues Brothers show.
At the end, Sandbar blinked in disbelief. "So, you're telling me... they DIDN'T perform Everybody needs Somebody to Love?"
"Nope," Smoulder said.
"Should we go back to the hotel and see if we can find Tom?" Gallus suggested. "If he isn't picking up, he could be in real trouble."
"Agreed," Smoulder said. "Hey, there's lots of bubbles in this ice cream!"
"This stall has everything."
After making their way back to the Hard Rock Hotel, somebody soon stopped them. "Hey," a woman said, "can I get a photo of you with my kid? He really likes you guys."
"I'm a girl," Smoulder snorted.
Gallus glared at her. "Sure thing, ma'am. As long as it doesn't take too long; we're on a friendship quest."
The woman nodded, and soon the image was taken. As they walked away, she spoke to one of the park employees. "I must say, those cast members are so dedicated to their characters," she said. "They never broke character."
"Ma'am, the park doesn't have the license to My Little Pony characters," the employee replied.
Elsewhere, the trio stopped in front of room 101, in which Tom was domiciled. Sandbar knocked. "Excuse me?" he asked. "Are you in there Tom?"
There was no reply.
Gallus put his ear to the door and listened. On the other side of the door, he could hear quiet sniffling. "Are you OK?" he asked.
Still no response. Gallus looked to Smoulder. "Do you have that second key?" he asked.
Smoulder, without saying a word, handed him a key. Gallus popped it into the door, turned it, and opened the door. The trio stepped in, and gasped at who was lying at the foot of the bed.
As he had said he would, Jimmy found himself in the Wizarding World of Harry Potter once again. The colder weather (cold by Florida standards) had not affected him so, as he was fairly used to sudden temperature changes (one such incident before Christmas proved to be nearly fatal, something that Jimmy was not keen to repeat in any sense of the word). He wandered through that section of the park with a smile on his face and a spring in his step, only briefly diminished when he saw the queue for Hagrid's Magical Creatures stretch around the block and back again, as was the norm with new attractions.
"What silly people, simply running for the busiest ride," said he, "but this does work to my advantage. If they are all on that ride, that means that-"
"You are not riding Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey again!" the ghost of Chrysalis boomed. "We have been on that quite enough times!"
Jimmy laughed. "I wasn't planning on going there, silly," he said. "I was headed for Flight of the Hippogriff! If everybody is on Hagrid's ride, the queue for Hippo will be much shorter in comparison, so I can get on board and ride fairly quickly."
"That makes perfect sense," said the spirit in his head.
"That it does."
Suddenly, a voice spoke to Jimmy. "Who on Earth are you talking to?"
"For the convenience of the story, thoughts are being conveyed as dialogue," said the narrator. "Imagine having to read 'he thought' over and over again! How boring would it get?"
The park employee sighed. "Can somebody point a flashlight at that camera in the sky? I don't think that's allowed under FAA rules."
Islands of Adventure had something of a rough start. The park was designed largely by former Disney imagineers who attempted to incorporate ideas from the abandoned Beastly Kingdom into the park's mystical areas (hence the presence of volcanoes and mythical creatures), but to say the park's first few years were rough was something of an understatement, suffering from a chronic lack of focus and having only a handful of E ticket attractions such as Dueling Dragons (rest in peace. Remember that ride died for Hagrid).
However, one ride did do well; the Flying Unicorn, which took the riders on a magical journey on the back of a unicorn through the forest (but no, it was not Twilight Sparkle). The ride was a big success, and as such was incorporated into the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, with one major change; the ride vehicles were rethemed to represent hippogriffs such as Buckbeak (and not a certain flying creature obsessed with verticle parambulatory devices). The ride layout is identical on both versions, but what started life as a short term stopgap has become a permanent fixture of the land, even being duplicated at Japan and Hollywood. Not bad, eh?
Anyways, Jimmy intended to ride this as he had a plan to ride each and every Harry Potter ride at the park (tie your hair back, dude. Watch out for windy holds!). He stood in the queue line, before it began to move, and then suddenly moved forward. As he rounded a bend and prepared to stop once more, suddenly his hand fell on a golden brooch!
Nothing happened. But it happened quite suddenly, mind you.
Anyways, Jimmy continued onwards, as he went through the queue line, and at long last reached the front of the queue line, which was where he was meant to be.
"Hello!" said a voice behind him, and Jimmy turned. He couldn't have just heard Lauren Jackson, could he?
And then he saw her face and he was a believer. Before him stood a somewhat hyper looking girl with light pink skin, ice blue two tone hair, purple eyes, and a necklace around her neck. On her feet were a pair of purple flats, a pair of blue pants, and a light purple shirt. She grinned. "I've seen you around!" she said. "Jimmy Hook, right?"
"The same," Jimmy replied. "I'm guessing you're Silverstream?"
Silverstream laughed as the train stopped. "Yep! Of course, you're the seapony guy! Possibly the wierdest thing I've ever seen!"
"That's pushing it," Jimmy said. The train had opened the restraints at this point, and they boarded the train. The lap bars dropped, and the train moved off. Just then, Jimmy's hand passed over a nail.
"Ouch!" he said, as the object released a static charge into his finger.
"Are you alright?" Silverstream asked. And then she noticed that Jimmy's normally brown hair had begun to turn to varying shades of orange and red. "Oh. That is pretty weird."
The show building of one of the other rides came into view as the hair on Jimmy's face was done with the vanishing, and his hair was now a mess of orange and red flipped up into the air as if he had been riding a rollercoaster going very fast (this is why people need to have haircuts). His eyebrows were now orange, and his eyes joined them, turning to an orange shade with his blue skin, looking as though he had frostbite. Jimmy was then next afflicted by his shoulders narrowing, followed by the sudden and very dramatic loss of most body muscle, making him look like a deflating bag. There was also some purple eyeliner near his eyes for some reason.
"This sucks," he sighed, as the train reached the pre-drop camera, which snapped him mid-change. Next up, his hips widened and his manhood was pulled into his body. Or her body, when it was done. Her legs slimmed down and got shorter, which now meant the lap bar was set wrong.
Silverstream pulled it down, but she didn't seem to be scared by what was happening to the person next to her. Instead, she looked on in morbid fascination at what was going on, seeing Jimmy's pants morph into a skirt, a black one, and one of the shortest she had ever seen. It then joined forces with Jimmy's shirt, which shrank back until it ran along the front of her newly formed breasts, and the sleeves were only just running along the top of her shoulders. The skirt had a petal pattern to it, and had three buttons set into it, and into the fronts of the sleeves as well. The glasses flew off and crashed into a nearby rock. Not that it mattered.
The golden belt from earlier flew around her waist, and with that it was done, as the train roared into the first drop. It fell through a long spiral loop, up a bunny hop, and then around two spirals, each facing the opposite way from one another. The train then climbed into another spiral, and then hit the final brake run into the station.
Sassy Saddles rolled her eyes. "Well, bust my buf- buttons!" she said. "I would not have queued more than five minutes for that."
She was interrupted as Silverstream grabbed her arm and pointed. "ESCALATORS!" she cried.
As they got off the ride, there was a beeping from Silverstream's phone, which she answered. "Hello?" she said. "Oh, hi Gallus! What? You need to get the band together? Sure thing! I'll be there in a jiffy!"
She ended the call, touched one of the fragments on her necklace, and suddenly teleported away.
Tom sighed in annoyance as he heard his ringtone start up. He flipped open his phone and looked at it, suddenly noticing that the call was coming in from Rebecca. "Great," he sighed. "Way to rain on the parade. Can I go answer that? It's my sister."
Steph glanced over to him, a smile on her face and warmth in her eyes. "Sure thing. We'll wait for you."
Tom hopped out of his seat and headed for the elevator, turning his head around as he walked off. "No need, I'll catch you up!"
He opened the door on the elevator, and stepped out a few moments later, heading for the room in which he stayed (room 101, most ominously) and slotting his key into the door. A lot of hotels used keycards to control the doors. They were unreliable, difficult to use, and most notably the card readers often didn't work. But a traditional key- sturdy, reliable, and would often work in the key, able to be turned in the slot as he went in. He rotated the key in the lock and heard the satisfying sound of the tumbler turning in the lock. The door opened, and Tom stepped in, locking the door once he had crossed the threshold into his room. He then answered the call. "Rebecca, you specialise in calling at the worst possible time."
"And you never seem to be around!" Rebecca retorted on the other end of the line. Tom was five years older than her, and no longer lived with her or his parents. They were still in London, but Tom was established quite firmly in Nottingham, where his job was before endlessly transforming became something of a side job. The others didn't know, of course.
"Well, we do live three hours apart," Tom answered. "How are things in London?"
"Well, dad's still working in the city, mum is still running most things for church, and I'm starting GCSEs. How's America?"
"It's great," Tom answered. "Universal's really pretty, and the people are nice. My friends are enjoying it too, and the locals are really nice too."
"Including your girlfriend?"
"Katrina is not my girlfriend," Tom grunted. "So stop saying she is. OK?"
"Sure thing. Still, it's hilarious you all bonded over the fact you like My Little Pony." The irony of this was that Rebecca was a pegasister, but neglected to mention it here.
"It is not funny!" Tom exclaimed, then stopped in horror. His voice was extremely high pitched, like that of a young girl.
"Do you have somebody in the room with you?" Rebecca asked, confused. "Could you put my brother back on?"
Tom had realised what was happening. He dropped the phone, which smashed on the floor, as his hand had started to shrink in size. It was his turn again, only his folks had undoubtedly heard what was going on. "This is the worse possible time!" he continued, in that incredibly high pitched voice which sounded oddly familiar.
His body continued to shrink in size, his clothes piling up on him like several tents, and he fell onto the floor as his shoulders and hips were forced together, his legs decreasing in length and all traces of his facial hair vanishing. He would miss that fine moustache.
His skin turned blue. "Who is thi- AAAARGH! Fuck that hurt!" Tom's manhood had decided to pull a vanishing act. That was never a fun experience, but it seemed to be especially bad now in terms of pain. The growing mountain of clothes was added to by her socks falling off and her shoes landing on the floor. Briefly aware of a fragment of pink hair, Tom suddenly ran her hair through it, and saw his hair had fallen to shoulder length by looking in a nearby mirror. Not only that, it was pink, and stook up in the middle as if gravity had no effect on it. His brown eyes then suddenly flashed blue.
Lying in amongst this mess, Tom was suddenly aware of a glowing light. The shirt began to shrink in size onto her body, and then merged onto the pants, which were lying further down. Other garments were reduced in size, which, as per Jimmy's tales, we shall not dwell upon for reasons of taste, and the pants merged into a skirt. The skirt then shrank up to her knees, and the resulting dress turned red. Tom barely noticed the sleeves shrink back slightly and puff up, nor did he notice the skirt puff out slightly. Her socks turned white, reduced in size until they fitted perfectly, and slid up her legs until they were about three quarters of the way up her thighs.
Tom slowly leaned forward, and reached for the trainers over on the floor. Both of them morphed into black shoes. Thinking it would be a good idea to have footwear, Tom pulled them on, doing the strap up on them to hold them in place. She still had no clue who she was. Then, glancing in the mirror, she suddenly got a clue from all the colours.
"Ocellus?" she asked. "Of all the characters, they had to hear Ocellus!" The darker element soon hit her. They had heard it all. They knew what was happening. They knew she was a freak.
Ocellus had little else to do other than cry.
Ocellus had no idea how long she sat there sobbing quietly. Moments later, she became aware of knocking on the door.
"Excuse me?" she heard a voice ask. She wasn't sure who it was.
"Are you in there Tom?"
Ocellus decided not to reply, simply continuing to look at the floor.
"Are you OK?" another voice asked. This one she did recognise. Gallus?
Seconds later, she heard the key turn in the door, and the door opened. Ocellus looked up to see Sandbar, Gallus, and Smoulder standing there, looks of shock on their face.
"What happened?" Gallus asked.
"They know," Ocellus sniffed. "I was on the phone when it happened. They heard it all. They know we're all freaks!"
Sandbar bent down and looked into her eyes. "You're not a freak, not in the slightest," he said, gently. He then took her hand, and helped her up. "We're all friends, and the last thing we'd do is throw each other away." At which point, he took her in a gentle hug.
Ocellus returned the complement. They didn't know how long they'd be there. Sandbar reacted to Gallus suddenly tapping him on the shoulder.
"Dude?" he said. "I don't think Yona will react well to this."
"You do realise that was a joke, right?" Sandbar replied. "We were never serious in that regard. There's only one for me, and that's you, Ocellus."
Ocellus felt warmth in her heart. She wasn't isolated and alone. She had her friends by her side. "Thanks, Sandbar," she whispered, as she broke the embrace.
"No problem," Sandbar replied. "Now, do you want to head into the park? There's still plenty of day to go, and based on what Smoulder said, there's a big error we need to fix."
Ocellus nodded. She felt a lot better now. "Thanks," she whispered. "I- if it's OK, Sandbar, I'd like to go on a ride with you."
"Your wish is my command," Sandbar replied.
The ride that Ocellus selected was Race Through New York with Jimmy Fallon, an intense motion simulator ride starring the former Saturday Night Live host. The fact his full name was James Thomas was not lost on the two riders, who soaked up the sheer weirdness of the encounter including subway chases, races, and even flying through New York City. Then they went into space and into inflatable tubes, before arriving in the Late Show studio once more.
Stepping outside, Ocellus simply looked at Sandbar in confusion. "What was that all about?"
"Beats me," Sandbar sighed, as he spotted Gallus and Smoulder leaning on a lamppost. Gallus had a guitar in his hand, and Smoulder had her electric bass on her person. Sandbar grabbed his from the same lamppost.
"All we need are our percussionists," Smoulder said. "We already have the piano ready, so Ocellus will be catered for."
Just then, Silverstream appeared from nowhere, and Yona sprinted over, knocking over a bin as she did so.
"I got your phone call, Gallus!" Silverstream called.
"I know, you answered it," Gallus replied.
"Yona need tambourine!" Yona called.
"Ocellus passing tambourine!" Ocellus called, sending it over. "I think that's all we need."
"Well, let's outdo the Blues Brothers," Smoulder smiled.
In the middle of the crowd, most of the bystanders were astonished to suddenly see a group of My Little Pony characters (or, to be more precise, their Equestria Girls counterparts) launch into a musical number. The crowd cleared out to reveal the Young Six.
There was Sandbar out on lead guitar. Next to him stood Gallus, a confident smirk on his face as he strummed away on rhythm guitar. Next to that was Ocellus, who was doing her hardest to work through her nerves as she accompanied on the piano, Smoulder having a complete lack of nerves as she provided the bass line. Next to that, Silverstream was on the drumkit, and Yona was bashing a tambourine out of time.
"We're all so glad to see you here today!" called Sandbar. "We're especially thankful to the personnel of Universal Studios Florida, who let us play for you lovely people in the park! We all sincerely hope you all enjoy the show, and whatever you do to live, thrive, and survive, there are some things that make us all the same. You, me, them, everybody! Take it away Gallus!"
The microphone opened up, and Gallus promptly let rip. Sandbar joined him on the backing vocals.
Katrina, in the meantime, was completely unaware of various shenanigans going on in the other parts of the park, as she made her way through said park towards her next target. The next ride she was heading for was admittedly from a franchise she had no familiarity with and she had no idea how it remained so popular, but then again, audiences have severe difficulties with discression sometimes, which is how some truly great stuff goes unnoticed and absolute rubbish ends up as box office successes. Enough of this rant, the temperatures were beginning to increase noticably in Florida, and as such Katrina had to remove her glasses again to wipe the steam off them as the spectacles were constantly misting up.
"An anti-misting device would help these greatly," she sighed, taking another glance all about as the crowds continued to mill about. It was close to lunchtime, and people seemed to be heading in the direction of the New York section of the park as it seemed that the Blues Brothers had started up again, if the sound of old Rhythm and Blues tracks was anything to go by. What was that one called? It temporarily escaped her mind as she walked on, not realising she had failed to replace her eyewear and promptly crashed into a lamp post.
"Ouch!" Katrina pulled back, replaced her glasses, and went onwards with her day. The sky was still relatively bright, and the temperatures made it hard to believe that it was still winter. Then again, that was why Henry Flagler had developed a relative backwater into a playground for the wealthy when New York was utterly freezing. Boy had Key West been one of the weirdest places she had ever been. As she made her way onwards, the band were louder, and more people were heading their way.
That wasn't the only thing that was suddenly noisier, if the sound of car engines nearby was anything to go by. Katrina had at last reached her destination. The Fast and the Furious: Supercharged. Installed in 2018 to replace the much loved Disaster! A Major Motion Picture Ride... Starring You! Which itself was a replacement to the much older Earthquake, which simulated an earthquake and motion picture effects for the comfort of the riders. That ride had been plagued with technical problems its entire life, something its successor did not have. But they had closed it, and replaced it with even more screens.
Katrina, noticing her Express slot had just opened, set off into the queue line. Moments later, she felt an odd tug on her hair. "Who pulled my hair?!" she snapped, half expecting to see an irritating kid behind her. But nobody was there. Nobody at all.
Swinging back around quite suddenly, her hair suddenly flew into her eyes. A long ponytail was splayed over her shoulders, and as she looked on it changed colour, to the shades of dark blue, light pink, and purple, with the light pink shade being the wider of the two others.
"Here we go again," Katrina sighed. This 'curse' was now more annoying than terrifying, a factor reinforced by a fringe of the aforementioned colours flopping into her eyes. The arrangement of colours was different; the blue was a lot more prominent, although the pink element was still quite noticable.
Her eyes shifted to a purple tone, but her glasses (for once) changed not. Her shirt, already short sleeved, suddenly gained slightly more puffed up sleeves, and the front was replaced with a buttoned up V neck, with a pink bow tie set in front of that running under the collar. The shirt, for those wondering, was a light blue with white trim. A pink waistcoat appeared on top of that, with alternating pink and white bands at the bottom, and a purple belt around the waist.
Her pants merged together to create a skirt, and then the zip and button, the leftover of the original garment, vanished, the gap filling in with fabric and elastic helping to fill in the missing space. This was soon followed by the skirt shrinking up her legs and stopping partway up her thighs. The skirt turned purple and suddenly poofed outward, a symbol of a pink star appearing on it, with a lighter coloured star underneath and and several white stars appearing underneath. Her socks turned the same blue as her shirt, and grew up her legs, stopping just below her knees. Her shoes morphed into a pair of dark purple flats with white lines running along them, with pink stars on the foot straps.
Katrina sighed, or rather Twilight Sparkle did. "Great," she said, moving onwards into the queue. "Back where I began."
"See!" a man said. "This is evidence that Universal has the license to MLP characters! I saw Thorax earlier in the park, and there's Equestria Girls Twilight Sparkle."
"Sci-Twi, actually," said his compatriot, a man with an absolutely colossal beard. "Who are we going to see next? Santa Claus?"
"He's in North Carolina, last I looked," the first answered.
Twilight sighed. "Something weird is going on here, and I wanna find out what it is. But before that, let's figure out how this ride works."
True to her fears, Twilight rode The Fast and the Furious: Supercharged, and had absolutely no idea what was going on. The entire story seemed to be contrived to give an excuse for a bunch of people to drive supercharged cars at very high speeds down tightly packed lanes. She exited, very confused.
"Why does every theme park rely on screens nowadays?" she asked, and headed for the plaza. It was then she saw what was causing all the commotion. Standing there were the Young Six, with various instruments, and in front of all of them was a giant green bug, who was chewing out a girl with blue skin and pink hair.
"You can't just keep running off like that!" the bug said. "We've been worried sick about you!"
The girl simply looked baffled, and a little shaken. "I think you've got the wrong Ocellus," she replied.
"Ocellus?" Twilight thought. "She hasn't even appeared in Equestria Girls." She went over to the bug to address it. "I believe you were looking for Changeling Ocellus, not this one. This is her human counterpart, Thorax. That is to say, I am addressing you as Thorax, not that her name is Thorax."
Thorax looked at her. "Twilight?" he asked. "What are you doing here?"
"Not the same Twilight," Twilight replied. "The Princess is in another castle, I'm afraid."
Thorax sighed. "Come on, Pharynx!" he called. "We're in the wrong place." And he flew off as if nothing had happened.
Ocellus glanced over to Twilight. "Thanks for saving my bacon."
"No problem," Twilight smiled. "Now who wants to do a meet and greet?"
The roar from the crowd was all she needed to hear.
Now then, I wonder that most of you are questioning where Ink is in all of this, given that, as this is an Equestria Girls transformation story, he cannot possibly have ended up as Changeling Thorax. As a result, I now feel it fit to reveal what has happened to him over the course of the day and what else will happen to our plucky (by now mostly) heroines and heroes.
Ink, as was his custom, had left the hotel on his own, set up once more in his trademark suit and bow tie (which had mystically returned to the world following his escapades the previous day as Sonata Dusk). The tacos had finally worked their way out of his system, and he had heard very little from the others, apart from a very brief snippet of discussion from Katrina (was that her name? He thought it was) about riding on supercars or something like that. He took relatively little stock in that statement. Whatever next, giant green bugs flying into the park? What a ridiculous proposition. On that line of reasoning, the Young 6 would turn up next!
Enough of these discussions. Ink was headed for the only surviving ride from the disastrous opening day of Universal Studios Florida, which had seen most of the rides fail to run thanks to a lack of planning and power (Kongfrontation would often conk out unexpectedly due to the amount of electricity it consumed, and don't let me get started on Jaws). E. T. Adventure was based on the classic Spielberg film, and saw riders aiding the iconic alien escape the authorities and get back home (all the while avoiding a trail of Reese's Pieces). It was, all in all, a fun and entertaining ride, as well as remaining more or less unaltered since opening day. Whilst this meant it looked a little older than all the others, it was also a little more of a classic experience in that regard, and that was what Ink wanted to experience.
So, in he went and joined the queue line. This line was themed around a soundstage, where it seemed that filming was taking place in preparation for a film of some sort. Ink had done his research, and he knew the original version had the idea of the riders being recruited for the filming of an E. T. sequel, which of course would never happen. Right?
As he stood in line, Ink once more felt a bit strange, like yesterday. Fussing around for a moment whilst he tried to figure out the cause of why he felt this way, he suddenly noticed something very odd indeed. There was now a cape hanging down from his shoulders, tied across his left shoulder. This cape was black, with blue gems set into it, and a light blue clasp set into it to help to hold it in place, itself inset with blue gems.
"What in the world?" he asked. He felt it again, and promptly got a shock. "Hey! What gives?"
His suit jacket vanished from the world, and his remaining shirt and pants merged together to create a single garment, with the button on the pants disappearing and suddenly the zip was on the back, covered over by the cape. The shoulders and collar shrank back into the top of the shirt, and the bow tie fell onto the floor as it had nothing to hold it in place. The shirt now sat at his upper chest, which looked really odd, and the entire onezie (as much as I despise the word, it is the only word that seems to describe it) shrank till it was skintight. Jems inset themselves into the legs, and his shoes suddenly grew upwards into black platform boots with light blue patterns attached to the front of them. The body of the shoes were also this same blue.
"Could it possibly be that Rarity?" he asked. "I thought that was Kat yesterday!"
Nobody seemed to have noticed the oddity that was happening next to them, but onwards it went. His hair was suddenly and quite dramatically filled with more of the gems and what seemed like stardust, as his hair turned purple and began to grow longer. It stopped when it reached his upper back, around his shoulders, before folding over itself and falling forward into a fringe, with some of it sticking up as the previous day. His skin turned white and his eyes a dark blue, followed by blue eyeliner appearing behind his eyes. Not literally behind his eyes, you know what I mean!
His clothing began to shift as his body changed more, his shoulders narrowing and waist changing to be quite narrow. His arms and legs got shorter and slimmer, his hands and feet becoming much smaller, all the garments reducing in size as this all happened. His chest suddenly exploded into a pair of breasts, and his manhood vanished as her hips were suddenly pushed outwards, giving her a female figure. That, it seemed, had concluded the events of this particular transformation, but Rarity suddenly noticed that the queue line was oddly empty.
"Where did everybody go?" she asked.
"There's a band performing in the town square," a fellow tourist said. "Apparently, they're really good."
"I may go listen to them later," she said, and they went into the pre-show. This consisted of Mr Spielburg greeting the riders via a video screen, and stating that E. T. needed help getting home. Naturally, the riders had to help him with the help of bicicyles.
"Didn't Equestria Girls do this?" Rarity mused to herself as the access doors opened, and they boarded the ride vehicles; the bicycles. As they travelled along, they saw that the police were giving chase, and seconds before they crashed into the police car, they flew into the air and through the black confines of outer space, until they finally reached E. T.'s home world, where he saved it and the riders were bathed in beautiful light and colours, before being thanked for their help. Rarity was most suprised to hear E. T. say her name!
That evening, at the hotel, the gang sat around in the lounge, whilst some of them observed the Young 6 interact with each other. Sci-Twi suddenly noticed something odd about something Sandbar had said.
"He mentioned something about Ocellus taking a phone from him and talking to the Maneiac," she said.
"And?" Rarity asked. "How does this affect anything?"
"Tom has previously been Sandbar," Sci-Twi explained. "And I remember that Sandbar recalling that happening to me. Which means only one thing. This Sandbar is also Tom."
Sassy appeared from behind them, this time wearing boots. She had been barefoot for most of the day. "I know multiple instances of Jimmy can exist at once, but now multiple forms of Tom being together at once?"
"Also, I can clearly see that Ocellus is attracted to Sandbar," Rarity pointed out. "Does that make the relationship narcisstic?"
Later that night, Rarity headed to her room, noticing the other members of the gang retiring. Smoulder and Gallus shut their doors, wishing the others a good night. Sassy was also gone, and Rarity was about to turn in when she saw something.
Sharing one last moment together, Ocellus and Sandbar kissed one another.
"See you soon, Celly," Sandbar said, and walked away to wherever he was staying.
Ocellus looked sad. "See you," she said quietly, knowing full well what would happen.
Rarity spoke to her. "You are aware you are going to change back, right?" she said. "And that means waving goodbye to Sandbar."
Ocellus looked at her. "That's the thing," she whispered. "I don't want to."
Rarity said nothing else, but went into her room and went off to bed.
Dawn came once more, and the sun opened its weary eye upon the world, bathing it in beams sublime and golden. In another of the rooms, the individual whom had once been Smoulder stirred from her sleep and climbed out of bed. Of course, this being the way of things, she was Steph once more. She even had her full length hair back, which was an interesting devopment. As she climbed out of bed and looked around her, she could hear a quiet voice in the corridor. Although only in her night attire and not yet dressed (upon a casual glance, her clothing had changed back to normal), she decided to exit the room to see who was out there.
Tom was leaning against the wall, now fully changed back and no longer Ocellus. He had a look of sadness on his face.
"What's wrong?" Steph asked him, looking worried. Tom suddenly looked up in a start.
"Is it wrong that after yesterday I didn't want to change back?" he asked. "True, getting over the initial shock and the fact my family now know the truth was tough at first. But with Sandbar, I was... happy. Content."
"That could never be forever," Steph replied, then stopped when she realised how insensitive that sounded.
"Thanks. That really helped," Tom replied, in a tone of voice which indicated the opposite state. "Why can't it be forever? Why does this keep happening to us and messing our lives up? You've got it easy, as you never change genders!"
"You may need to get over it," Steph replied. "Don't weep because it is gone, smile because it happened."
"Dr. Seuss," Tom noted. "I suppose I do need to be happy with what I got." He pushed himself off the wall, and ran his hand along his chin. "Stubble. May need to get that sorted. Still, at least I got the experience, not only of love, but of seeing things from the perspective of the, erm... fairer sex."
Another few doors slid open. "Are you OK?" Jimmy asked, his hair in his eyes, making him look like a yak.
"I am now," Tom replied. "Because of my friends. Because of all of us. Because we were all united by a love of pastel coloured ponies. Now, seeing as we are all up, shall we get showered and eat some breakfast?"
One scene transition later, Tom and Steph were walking to the park entrances, where they would part ways. "Have you ever got the impression these days and nights are taking longer?" Steph asked Tom.
"Sorry, what?" Tom asked in return. "I know it's not normal to answer a question with a question, but I'm not entirely sure what you're referring to."
"These days just seem to go by really slowly, that's all," Steph answered. "I know that time flies when you're having fun, but sometimes it feels like one of these days lasts for six. And the time between today and yesterday felt like a whole week had passed!"
"I have no idea what you're referring to," Tom replied in return. "I know how long these days are, and I want to make the most before the next inevitable change." Before them loomed the split in the path that would take them to their destinations. "Well, here we must part ways. See you later, Steph, or whomever you become today."
"See ya!" Steph replied, and then set off towards Universal Studios Florida.
Of the many classic films that could have appeared at Universal Studios, the first one that comes to mind is probably not the 1997 Sony release Men in Black, based on the old urban legend of the Men in Black, a shadowy government body devoted to fighting alien threats. This had been a critical and commercial success, and as a result Sony agreed to license the property and its characters for use in a ride based on the franchise. The result was Men in Black: Alien Attack, a laser gun shoot em' up that worked very similarly to Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin, which those of you who have read 8 Magic Nights will remember was a source of bemusement for Juniper Montage. Steph chose to join the queue for the ride, as this was her allocated ride for the day, before being very confused. This didn't look like a ride queue. This was an exhibition called The Universe & You - Are We Alone?
"Am I in the wrong place?" Steph asked. A film suddenly began to play, but was abruptly cut off when a man dressed in black started to speak and directed them into an elevator. The elevator took a few moments to travel, but it wasn't long before Steph started feeling weird.
"Oh boy, here we go again," she said, glancing down at her shorts (given the weather, she had decided to wear shorts). As she looked, they turned green and began to grow longer, stopping near the bottom of her thighs. The elevator door opened, and the crowd were ushered forward, Steph doing her best to keep going despite her rapidly changing body.
As she proceeded along, she felt something start to brush against her legs. Realising it was her shorts, which had by now metamorphosed into a skirt, she was equally surprised when she felt something like fur brushing against her legs. There was an orange fur lining in the hem of the skirt, which felt really odd. A chevron pattern appeared in the sides of the skirt, and the front pulled up slightly.
As per the previous nights, her shirt suddenly shrank onto her body, with the sleeves growing longer to reach her elbows. Otherwise, the only changes were that it turned green, just a lighter shade of green than the skirt, and a fur collar grew around the back and shoulders. What looked like a grey waistcoat then appeared, which Steph kept unbuttoned. Her socks vanished, and her shoes morphed into a pair of light green heels with more of that fur attached to the back of the strap (which was around her ankle, oddly enough. You wouldn't want to trip whilst wearing that!). Not long after, a dark red and lighter red headband appeared in her hair, threading across the top, soon joined by a green one on her forehead.
On the topic of her hair, as she rushed along the corridor alongside everybody else, she suddenly saw orange appear in it, and start to displace the usual blonde tones. It dramatically increased in volume and went everywhere. It hung all over the place in curls, and looked a bit messy.
"Wow!" Steph exclaimed, before noticing her voice had changed, becoming deeper. She sounded exactly like...
"Autumn Blaze!"
Her skin turned a lighter shade of tan, and her eyes went an amber shade. But apart from all of that, it seemed to be over.
And it was fortuitous, as they had reached the loading bay. Autumn hopped into her ride vehicle and strapped herself in, remembering to put her phone in the front pouch.
"You look familiar," said the boy next to her. "I think I've seen you somewhere."
"Oh!" Autumn exclaimed. "So, so sorry, I've been so busy, lots of things to see and do, haven't had a chance to stop and chat in a while- am I pronouncing that right?- Oh, I just love that word, chat, it says so much about human conversation and-"
"Listen up, recruits!" called the voice of an unseen agent. "Time to see what you've got!"
The vehicle rumbled forward onto a training range filled with paper targets. Autumn soon clicked that gripping her gun with both hands would make her more accurate, and so began to hit targets.
Suddenly; "Training aborted."
"Seriously?" Autumn asked. "That ride was, like so quick and-"
"Hold your fire! We've got an alien threat on the streets of New York. Now get out there and blast those bugs!"
"Full power engaged."
"Bugs?" Autumn said, nervously. "I hope Chrysalis isn't in there!"
The machines somehow rolled onto the streets of New York (which miraculously happened to back onto the training grounds), and before anybody knew what was happening they were barraged by aliens all over the place. Autumn remembered the briefing. Aim for the eyes.
But then, they were informed that the other vehicle was full of aliens, and told to open fire to stop them! And that was exactly what they did, firing upon it with the intent of hitting the exhaust port to make it spin out of control. Some expert shooting from Autumn disabled the enemy vehicle, and they were on their way to shooting more bugs.
But then, a truly massive alien towered over them. "Hit the red button!" called an unknown voice. Autumn slammed down on it and suddenly got a massive points boost.
And with that, the ride was suddenly over. They stopped in the unload bay, and were back in the exhibition.
Autumn went and stood on the waterfront, soaking up the breeze. "This place is amazing!" she exclaimed. "Universal Studios! Wow! It makes us feel like we are all part of one great something, and a place of fun too!"
Just then, a woman with dark blue hair walked up to Autumn. "What happened to you?" she asked, in a tone that sounded utterly bored.
"I'D RATHER... SIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIING!"
The woman shook her head. "This is so not a musical."
Islands of Adventure was, in its current state, a most apt title for a theme park. The place was certainly a good place for thrills, and Jimmy was certainly aware of that. He and his closest friends had travelled all over the place, one time over to California and back, but this was the first time they had come to a place especially close to home. Although he was from all over the place, he was a Southerner at heart, and he certainly knew that he was lucky to be in easy striking distance of one of the world's best theme park resorts. He was especially thankful for this, based on some of the horror stories Tom had told him about Thorpe Park back in England (although Alton Towers was apparently very good, especially the WICKER MAN.
He just had to be sure not quote its most famous line around Katrina, as she might take offence. Where she would put this fence was a mystery to him, but anyways he would take the fence and not give it to her.
Oh dear, I'm rambling nonsensically again, aren't I? That will never do, and so we must return to the story. Jimmy had last been here over a decade ago, with his family, and the place had changed greatly in the time that he was gone. However, some old classics still remained, and one of those old classics was his ride target today.
Those who have been living under rocks will not know of who Spiderman is, but those who do not live under rocks do not need any introduction to the irradiated superhero (and victim of spider bites. Yeesh, not fun at all). Naturally, Spiderman is a popular culture icon, and many comics, TV shows, and films (all of varying quality) have been made about him. Being a Marvel property, he is now owned by Disney, but not back then. When the ride went into development in 1996, Universal had a licensing agreement with Marvel, and as such the character was in the can for a ride.
And what a ride. It was one of the most advanced theme park attractions ever built when it opened in 1999, and was so clever many of its features were reused in Men in Black: Alien Attack which was covered in the last chapter. Jimmy stood outside, when suddenly a voice called to him. "Jimmy?"
Jimmy turned around, and looked at Tom, who was looking at him. "Hey Tom! Haven't you got a ride to be going to?"
"Not at the minute," Tom replied. "Storm Force Acellatron is down for maintenance until later. And you forgot these." In his hand was a spare glasses case.
"Thanks," Jimmy replied. "You know, I wonder why I went without these. Given how often my glasses get destroyed and all."
"Don't we all know it," Tom answered. "Anyways, I'll get some ice cream or something like that. See you!" And Tom rushed off into the crowd before Jimmy could say anything else.
"Well, that was weird." Jimmy shrugged.
"Can this day get any WEIRDER?!" asked a voice in front of him. The voice belonged to none other than Silverstream, from yesterday, and she seemed to recognise him. "Hey Jimmy!"
"Nice to see you again!" Jimmy replied. "So, had the same idea as me, huh?"
"Well, this is an AMAZING ride, it's in the name! And it means that I haven't got Seaspray in my hair the entire time!"
"General Seaspray?" Jimmy ventured.
"Admiral Seaspray," Silverstream corrected. "I have no idea why people think he's a general. General's command infantry and ground assets, not ships!"
"Thank you for that information," Jimmy told her.
"Seen Gallus or Smoulder anywhere?" the girl enquired, bouncing up and down whilst reading a plumbing diagram. "Sandbar, Yona and I can't find them!"
Jimmy felt sad. Did he break her heart and reveal they were both no longer here, or stay quiet? "Oh, I'm certain you'll find them," he said. "Ocellus may be somewhere too, if I recall correctly."
"I hope so, because I worry about my friends. You saw how frantic Thorax was yesterday!"
Jimmy hadn't, actually. A giant green Changeling (TM) was news to him. "That must've been strange," he admitted. "Ah well. The queue's moving."
And in they went, into the queue line, which took them into a room which was a recreation of the Daily Bugle's headquarters in New York (where news was written), and the listeners had it hammered into them that the place was a place of very high integrity. As new reporters, they were shown a brand new vehicle called the Scoop, which looked suspiciously like a 3D box. Suddenly, they were informed that the Statue of Liberty had been nicked by a group of crooks, and there were no other news reporters to report on the problem. So it looked like it was down the the riders to get the news in and bring home the bacon.
"This sounds rather like something me and my friends had to deal with once," Silverstream admitted. "Something about a hole in the floor."
Jimmy paid her no mind as they walked down a corridor to the vehicle loading bay. He was, in truth, starting to feel off. "This place is, like, so cold," he complained. Little did he notice his garments were gradually covering less and less of his body as they underwent a morph. Good thing he didn't believe the moustache or he would lose a mile of Irish hair.
He took a seat in the vehicle, and adjusted his lap bar before the vehicle set off into the darkness, not noticing his slacks had separated into a pair of leggings (filled with holes) and a black skirt that barely reached down his thighs. As the vehicle rolled into action, J. Jonah Jameson began to speak to them, warning them of oncoming crime waves.
Seconds later, a symbol appeared, and the voice started up again. Again, the warning was pretty typical to not mess up.
Abruptly, the ride changed from a live set to a projected one, complete with Spiderman jumping out of nowhere and landing on the vehicle, before warning them of the imminent danger. Jimmy, on the other hand, was still too oblivious to notice that coat was gone and his polo shirt had changed to a black tank top with a goth necklace of a heart around his neck.
Silverstream, however, did take notice. "I have no idea what's weirder; this ride, or you!"
"What are you-" Jimmy looked down at himself. "This is, like, so rubbish."
Avoiding being hit by Stan Lee (RIP), they entered a building and discovered the villains. Doctor Octopus, Electro, Scream, Hydroman and Hobgoblin were holding the Eiffel Tower hostage, and set about bickering with one another.
"These guys are, like, more chaotic than the Legion of Doom. Wait, I've, like, been this person before," Jimmy went on, sounding more and more like a disinterested Goth. His skin was, by this point, grey, and his eyes were joined by dark blue eyeliner and amber eyes attached to his eyeballs (go figure). Anyways, they succesfully escaped from the villains, and headed out into another showpiece, where Doc-Oc raised them into the air and Spiderman succesfully lowered them back down whilst still fighting off the Synister Syndicate.
Jimmy, on the other hand, was basically gone. His hair was now purple, and his physical body was female. To all observing, he was Moonlight Raven now.
After that truly mad adventure, Jimmy (sorry, Moonlight Raven) headed for Men in Black, as apparently Steph had been there. After Steph (now Autumn) filled him in on all the craziness that had happened. However, moments later, they both spotted a pair heading toward them, who looked very familiar.
Tom was preparing to head onwards to Islands of Adventure, having realised he had been headed the wrong way, and had been walking towards the main park. That was not where he wanted to be today, as the ride he was particularly targeting was in Islands of Adventure. As he strolled along towards the park entrance, he suddenly noticed something sitting on the floor in front of him, and knelt down to pick it up.
In a distinct change from what was usual in his adventures, Tom saw what the object was. It was Jimmy's spare glasses case. "Honestly, why does he keep dropping stuff?" Tom grumbled, picking up the case and sticking it in his pocket. "It's fortunate we're in the same park today, or else he'd be in all sorts of trouble!"
Tom wandered along through Marvel Super Hero Island to find Jimmy standing outside, looking up, at the ride building of The Amazing Adventures of Spiderman, seemingly trying to decide whether to go in or not. After another moment of hesitation, Tom decided to speak up.
"Jimmy?"
Jimmy swung around, and took a look at Tom. "Hey Tom! Haven't you got a ride to be going to?"
Tom shook his head as he consulted his park app. "Not at the minute. Storm Force Acellatron is down for maintenance until later. And you forgot these." Putting his phone away, he handed Jimmy the glasses case.
"Thanks," Jimmy replied. "You know, I wonder why I went without these. Given how often my glasses get destroyed and all."
Tom looked about, but suddenly spotted Sandbar in the crowd. The emotional turmoil he had felt earlier in the morning suddenly came back. "Don't we all know it." Desparate to complete the conversation as quickly as he could, he spoke quicker and quicker. "Anyways, I'll get some ice cream or something like that. See you!" And then Tom sped off as quick as he could.
Tom had no idea what was wrong with him. That previous night, for some reason, had left him happier than he had been for a very long time. And whilst he no longer felt any attraction towards Sandbar (which seemed to suggest that reverting to normal also reset the subject's sexuality), the pain of those memories were very much at the forefront of his mind. So just getting away from any reminders was the best policy for him, lest he suffer an emotional breakdown in the worst possible place. How did Jimmy cope with it all? Surely he must have felt like this at some point in all the time he has been enduring this! He stopped beside a WC to collect his thoughts, and sighed sadly. Life just had to be rubbish, sometimes, didn't it? He sighed again as he looked up at the sky. Pathetic fallacy had seemingly turned out in force, as it suddenly began to rain in his general area, but nowhere else, oddly. Tom felt the need to seek shelter, and so went inside a nearby building to stay out of the rain.
As usual, his life was about to get turned upside down. As he stood in there, he suddenly spotted a pear lying on the floor, that had fallen from a display. He bent down to pick it up, and put it back on its stand. His hand was abruptly hit by an arc of blue lightning, connecting with his palm and throwing him back into somebody else.
"Hey! Watch it!" they shouted. "Don't they teach you manners where you come from?"
"Sorry!" Tom replied. "Ah lost mah-" He stopped in horror. What the hell had happened to his accent. "Shit! Not again!" He sped outside into the rain, desparate to ensure nobody saw what was coming next.
"Well, that was weird."
"Not really, given that this story is entirely about bizarre things happening and guys changing into fictional characters-"
PINKIE!
"Heehee. Sorry."
Whomever said that lightning doesn't strike twice was a complete idiot, as it seemed to have struck Tom a grand total of three times. As he tried to find a suitable hiding place, he checked his arm for any sign of yellow.
But there was none. Instead were splodges of a light peach colour. "If not Apple Bloom, then who the hay is this even?" Tom asked, as he was suddenly knocked off balance by his manhood being sucked into his body. She rolled through the air and landed behind a trash can.
Her hair turned orange, and suddenly exploded in all directions. It increased on volume on top of her head, flowed down her back and to her shoulders, and flopped onto her forehead in a fringe. The left hand side was suddenly secured in place with a blue hairband, and her eyes turned blue. By this point, the peach colouration had covered every inch of her skin, and as she shook her head and tried to comprehend who this even was, her shoulders were forced inwards by unknown forces, and her chest suddenly began to tingle. Tom glanced down, and saw something (or rather, two things), push forward for a few seconds before stopping. A yellow flower appeared in her hair, and freckles appeared on her cheeks, followed by her shirt morphing into a blue and black chequered shirt. Her slacks changed into a pair of blue jeans, which shifted in size as her hips widened (of course, the other thing that happens in that department had already happened). She glanced down again to see her trainers change into boots, which were brown and had a flower symbol set near the heel, and they grew taller until they covered up halfway up her calves, with the jeans neatly tucked into them.
Rising slowly, she was briefly aware of the fact the world had gotten slightly bigger. She wandered into a women's bathroom to see who was on the other side. A woman in her late thirties or early fourties looked back.
"What in tarnation? Ah don't recognise this character at all!" Tom then thought for a moment, as the voice sounded familiar. "Pear Butter?"
After momentarily getting over the confusion of being a non-canon EqG character, Pear Butter headed for her ride slot. Her phone app told her that the ride was running again, and so she joined the queue, suddenly noticing the odd stares she was getting.
"Isn't she a bit lost?" said one person. "She looks like she should be herding cattle?"
"I bet she's single!" said another.
Pear laughed. "Sorry, mister, but Ah've already got mah man. And three kids."
His face fell immediately. "Anyways, that look really suits you."
Pear smiled, and her face flushed red. "Aww, thanks mister."
Hopping aboard the ride vehicles, it rapidly became apparent this was basically a teacup ride. Nothing too spectacular there. She jumped onboard and enjoyed the incredible speed, as well as the sensation of being rendered very dizzy. After hopping off, she suddenly saw who was waiting for her.
"Howdy, sugarcube."
The man from earlier looked confused. "Yep. He's lucky."
As fate would have it for some bizarre reason, several members of our intrepid team were in Islands of Adventure that day. Misty was one of them, and she was on her way to something a bit different to what the others were riding. What the others were wearing was irrelevant given that the items of clothing they wore would inevitably give way to completely different ones, but let's not get bogged down in specifics here. Whilst not having a problem with big thrill rides per se, Katrina did sometimes fancy something a little lighter and cheerfuller (which is now a word, apparently, as is Twilighting), and where she was headed today would fit that bill quite nicely, she so thought to herself. Strolling past Tom suddenly whizzing past her and flying through the air, crashing into something, she figured that something was now amiss for him.
"I wonder who he'll be today?" she asked, having become so blase about this the fact odd things were occuring to her and her friends never really bothered her anymore. The rain had at least gone, and the sun was out, for we are no longer in a sad scene and are now in a happy scene. Having just left Marvel Super Heor Island, she had arrived at her destination. And her destination was Toon Lagoon, a section of the park given over to classic cartoon characters like Woody Woodpecker and Dudley Do-Right. The latter of the two was her current target, although apparently Dudley mainly appealed to Canadians rather than Americans (which made the film's casting even more odd; a Canadian character played by an American was an interesting reversal from the usual convention of Canadians playing every nationality under the sun). Anyways, the cartoon had led to a ride that was a log flume, based on a 'lost' cartoon, but it was time to start queuing. As she walked to join the queue, Ink sped by in a hurry (but not pretending to be like Gordon).
"Sorry!" he called. "I can't stop and chat! I need to catch a pteranodon!" And he vanished into the distance before Misty could reply.
Misty laughed. "Well, that was weird."
(Note to readers: every time a character in this story says that phrase, take a drink.)
She walked over to join the queue line, and then stopped as she felt something a little off.
(Take a drink for that as well.)
It was soon clear to her that something, as usual, was wrong. She stopped to check if anything had changed.
Not a thing had.
"Well, that's handy!" she said, and then went onwards. "False alarm! Though I'll probably get quite wet on this one."
She, on her great adventure of queueing, passed through multiple themed areas, such as a mysterious hideout, and a room that pastiched old Universal films in the style of old silent comedies. As she strolled along, long, long, she strolled along, strolled along, long, long, she strolled along, she was suddenly aware of a pulling sensation in her hair.
"Hey!" she yelled. "Who touched me?"
"Nobody did," said a voice behind her. "But that hair of yours is suddenly a ponytail, that wasn't before."
And the voice was indeed right. Once more, Katrina was to bid goodbye to her usual appearance. A cursory examination of her hair with the assistance of her hands revealed a pair of side swept bangs running along the top of her forehead (but no finger and thumb in the shape of an L). In addition, a reflective object nearby revealed a blue pigment spreading through the usually brown pigment sat atop her scalp.
"OK, I have no idea who this is."
Her eyes shifted to blue, the only colour for a really useful engine I mean, the circumstances! Anyhoozle, that seemed to be it for bodily changes of any description, as there was no change to her eyesight (an interesting variation on the usual formula), and this led to her not noticing the line moving. Although her skin turned pink.
"Ah! Need to go!" she exclaimed, her voice still exactly the same. Onwards into the queue she went, into another room with a talking bear and a talking beaver talking about Canadian things like maple syrup (as apparently Canadians eat nothing else). Katrina's clothes, on the other hand, had not been content to merely sit idle and watch on at this metamorphosis, and got in on the fun. Her shirt was replaced with a purple T shirt, with a dark blue denim jacket sat upon that, and her jeans split into a pair of black leggings and a magenta skirt with an emblem of a pink and blue heart with a gold cross sat upon the top (an X or the other type? I have no idea). Her shoes, also keen on having some fun in that regard, morphed into a pair of high top boots that sparkled despite there being no obvious light source.
Katrina looked at her getup, still having no clue who this was. "Just the worst attire for a water ride," she sighed, and joined the access pen for the log flume.
After taking her seat in the front row, the log was closed off, and it rolled forward, past another pair of beavers and up past a scene of two people talking. One, a woman, was demanding to be let go, whilst an evil sounding man (no doubt twirling his moustache as he spoke) was essentially saying escape was futile. The boat rounded a bend, and with blaring of trumpets and orchestras, who should appear on horseback but...
Dudley Do-Right, riding on his steed (backwards). The boat dropped down a small drop, but then the lights came up on an evil looking man carrying a woman, who had presumably not agreed to being carried. The whole thing looked so tacky as to be laughable, not what you'd expect of a high tier theme park, and the boat then executed a small drop and rounded a bend, with Dudley being nearly pushed off a nearby waterfall. Moments later, the moustached man was there again, with a boulder. As they rolled forward, the boat entered the Wontyabe Mine (Katrina groaned at the awful pun). After going past another nonsensical show scene, they were outdoors again, and saw the evil man tying the woman up. The boat then rounbed another bend, and went into the inconspicuously labelled 'Hideout'.
Passing a tied up Mountie, they were suddenly hurled into the path of an oncoming train! Luckily, the boat dropped into a steep drop and they were saved, although they got a bit wet. They sailed around a bit, and into a sawmill (cause what else; stereotypical Canada!), and passed under spinning blades before falling through another drop and getting even wetter. They floated around a flat section with some vaguely heroic music playing, before turning a bend and going up a slope. And getting wet again.
Suddenly, they were in a room filled with explosives! The boat stopped moments before the drop. And suddenly, they flew down and were soaked.
"That was just like Splash Mountain!" Katrina replied, before realising her vision was misty (her glasses had vanished into oblivion). Wait a second...
"Hey, maybe I'm my OC!"
And with that, the ride was over. Misty exited and stood outside, trying to dry out. "Why did I wear artificial fibres today?" she asked. "Getting this lot cleaned and dried will be a nightmare!"
"Hey, ya need some help?" asked an American sounding voice. Misty looked over to see a couple she knew fairly well standing there.
"Yup, 'cause there's some machine dryers over there," Bright Mac told her. "An' you look like ya could do with a dryin' out."
"Thanks Mister MacIntosh!" Misty replied, and headed off on her way.
Bright looked at his wife. "How did she know mah name?"
"Beats me," Pear replied. "Perhaps she's a pegasister." Suddenly, her phone beeped. "It's from... Autumn?"
She played the voicemail, and she was promptly barraged with singing.
Bright laughed. "Well, that give a whole new meanin' ta 'singin' telegram'!"
Hello everybody! We are back once more, with this time focusing on Ink, as he makes his way toward a ride themed around dinosaurs. Jurassic Park is one of the themed areas in Islands of Adventure, and it is host to a number of attractions. One of the lesser known ones, as most of the queue tends to get sucked up by Jurassic Park River Adventure, but this one can be found up in the mountainous section of the themed land. This is a ride themed around the flying creatures of Jurassic Park, the pteranodon, and I say creature as they are technically not dinosaurs. Indeed, such is the fact they are not dinosaurs that paleontologists get very annoyed when you refer to them as dinosaurs, as they are not dinosaurs. However, they did coexist with dinosaurs, so they fit in with that section of the park perfectly. And not only is the ride themed around them, but it allows the riders a chance to fly through the air and soar like a bird over the park, as the pteranodons have seats in them which allow the riders to ride upon them and fly, eagles, fly (two cookies if you get that reference).
This particular escapade was to be Ink's newest adventure. He had previously chatted with Katrina about heading to this section of the park, and it was to this section of the park went he. He had always been quite the fan of Jurassic Park, and Misty (sorry, Katrina) had told him that Jurassic Park: the Ride had been great fun. He honestly hoped that this place would be the same too, as unlike Jimmy he had no opposition to flying; something about a pink pegasus or some nonsense like that. That, and a sphynx, but that was utterly ludicrous. There are no sphynxes in North America!
Anyways, Ink made his way to the ride, and joined the queue line. It proved to be quite a nice wait, and the sun wasn't too bad, which made his decision to wear a business suit even more wacky in the heat. Anyways, he was composed of cheerful thoughts as he stood there in the sun, a happy smile on his face, not to mention a ride at the end of it all.
As he stood there, admiring the attention to detail that was there, he became aware of a pink energy flowing through the air. "I say! Whatever is that?" he asked, as he looked up at the energy that was snaking its way through the air to him. Then, just as he was about to speak again, an energetic voice shouted loudly from nowhere, so loudly that everybody in the crowd heard it.
"LIFE IS A PARTY! DON'T YA WANNA CELEBRATE!"
"That, I am pretty certain, was Pinkie, Pie," Ink commented, as he suddenly observed the energy stop in the air. "And here we go again." The source of energy surged toward him, and was absorbed upon that moment it hit him. "Yep. Here we go."
The world was soon aware of what he meant, as his hair switched its shade to pink, forming into a tangled maze of messy curls and locks that fell downwards onto his back. And then it suddenly ballooned outwards in every conceivable direction, a messy display of confetti flying everywhere as it did so. This was soon followed by alterations to his face, where his face shifted to that of the Equestria Girls Pinkie Pie, which included the usual additions of pink eyebrows, blue eyes in place of the usual tones, and pink skin everywhere. His chest suddenly expanded to include breasts, which strained against his shirt and jacket, and his shoulders cracked inwards, which made his shirt and jacket too big somewhat. His hips were slightly forced outward, and his height began to decrease, his manhood vanishing as it did so and being replaced by their feminine equivalent. Her hands and arms decreased in length, and her legs and feet did the same.
Just as this was processed and had come to pass, Ink (or possibly Pinkie) noticed all the garments of clothing she had on were starting to change. The jacket started to run like wax, and merged onto her shirt, which changed to become a high neck T shirt, the collar and buttons vanishing. Conveniently, the chest was stitched together where the buttons had once resided, and a symbol of a lakeside place appeared on the centre of the shirt. The sleeves and the top of the shirt turned pink, and the remainder of it turned white. Of course, the bow tie was now gone, and it had gone into oblivion (until a subsequent chapter, that is). After that, her black belt (no, not the martial arts honour), changed to orange with a purple buckle of some indeterminate shape. Her pants shrank back up his legs and turned to a shade of blue, which was soon followed by symbols of a yellow and a pink ballon appearing on both legs. The zip and button, for a nice change from the usual, remained in place upon her person and sat underneath the belt, as they should do. Her socks grew up his legs, and stopped just below his knees. They turned to a white shade, with pink lines toward the top interspersed with more white. Her shoes, a pair of normally formal ones, turned blue, and transformed into a pair of boots with purple trim and base, as well as a set of pink laces criscrossing up them.
It all seemed to be over, and yet everybody in the crowd seemed to be completely fine with what they had witnessed. As the line moved on, Pinkie was suddenly very excited for the ride she was about to get on.
"PTERANODONS! YAY! I LOVE PTERANODONS! DON'T YOU, GUMMY?"
For Gummy was suddenly on her shoulder, and smiling like a idiot at the thought of riding on the back of a pteranodon.
"Look!" said a person. "A pterodactyl!"
"No, silly!" Pinkie laughed. "These are pteranodons! Pterodactyls are entirely different things."
She took her seat, and the ride vehicle, having completed the safety checks, set off up a lift hill that took them high into the air. Upon reaching the top, they had a nice view of Dudley Do-Right's Ripsaw Falls, and Pinkie saw a girl with pink hair and skin in one of the boats.
"Another Pinkie?" Pinkie asked, as the train gently meandered through some gentle curves before hitting a break run. It then ran a few more curves swinging back and forth, before they were back at the station.
"Well, that was short," Pinkie said, and hopped off, heading somewhere else in the park.
As seemed to be the pattern for the 3rd night in Universal Studios (and not that the pattern was that they were all in Universal Studios Islands of Adventure), John had headed off mainly on his own. Most if his friends had gone off to the left, as the attractions they had especially picked out were all in that direction. Weird, eh? Anyhoozle, John hat (had) turned off to the right to access the wubbulous world of Dr Seuss.
Wait a minute, that was a TV show. He had set his sights on travelling to Seuss Landing.
In the field of absurdist writing and children's stories, there are few writers who had as much of an impact as Theodore Seuss Geisel, better known by his pen name of Dr Seuss. Originally a military artist and documentary filmmaker, he later graduated to writing children's stories, producing classics such as The Cat in the Hat, Horton Hears a Who!, Green Eggs and Ham, and Oh! The Places you'll Go! (the last of which is often given as a graduation gift). Dr Seuss' birthday has been adopted as America's national reading day, and his works have been adapted into many television shows, stage plays, and five films (including that dreadful live action take on The Cat in the Hat. Bleugh.). Somewhat more succesful was the decision to incorporate the works of Dr Seuss into Islands of Adventure as a place for both the young and young at heart, featuring all the usuals as well as One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish, which has subsequently become an internet meme.
However, John was not interested in flying fish, as fascinating as the concept is. Instead, he was more interested in the resident dark ride there, based on a certain feline character. Whilst he walked through the area, he was briefly confused by the design of the place, and suddenly decided to go extremely British.
"I say!" he said, with a monocle and a top hat suddenly appearing out of nowhere. "One cannot see a single straight line anywhere! That must have been quite the engineering challenge! But," he added, "it does continue the spirit of the books, I dare say."
Once he was done speaking, the monocle and top hat vanished, and he proceeded onwards towards where he was going. Above him, The High in the Sky Seuss Trolley Train Ride rolled along, giving younger visitors a nice aerial view of the park, whilst guests on One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish were blasted with water, unable to figure out the clever rhyme that allowed them to escape from the spitting fish. John took a slight curve to avoid a crowd that had assembled to meet a frankly horrifying rendition of the Cat in the Hat, he set himself forth to join the queue for The Cat in the Hat Ride, which took him through a recreation of the environment that opened the original book; it was a cold, wet, day, so the protagonists had nothing to do with themselves. The line wound through a garden with cartoon hedges, and eventually went into a house with even more crooked lines. The entire thing felt like an acid trip to John, and he stopped at the loading point ready to board... whatever the ride vehicles were called. Seussmobiles? It was as good a name as any, he thought. Anyways, as he was waiting, the ride operator glanced over to him.
"Nice hat," he said. "Do remember to remove your hat when the ride starts, or else it may get blown off!"
John was suddenly aware that it was very dark there, and removed said hat to look at it. It was an old stetson, with a U shaped curve set into the front (people, always remember to wear your stetson and other cowboy headgear correctly. It may save your life). He had dressed as usual that day, in a T shirt and a pair of fairly normal slacks, so was a little surprised to see his T shirt was suddenly now white.
"Of all the places," he said. "Hopefully I'll be in the dark before anything else happens."
As the ride vehicle commenced loading, John's shirt was suddenly complemented by a red jacket with brown labels, into which were set emblems of cut open apples with the cores clearly exposed. He sat down and boarded, raising his arms as the lap bars came down, and they were soon on their way. Good timing too, as his shoes changed into a pair of brown work boots, and it felt as though something was crawling along his legs and rear as his slacks morphed into denim. He was now clad in jeans.
As the ride finally got underway, John found that the entire thing felt even more like an acid trip than before. He could only infer something weird had been in the tea he'd had earlier (P.S. it was terrible. Americans should not be allowed to brew tea, period, just as British people should not be make coffee). As the ride went on and things got even more zany and weird, including juggling, mad things painting on walls, and strange things on screens (where the least weird thing was a cat doing a balancing act), John's other parts set about adjusting to his clothing choices. The lap bar suddenly felt oddly tight as he gained about six inches of height, and his skin turned yellow, soon joined by a pair of light green eyes that seemed to glow in the dark (but didn't, as that would be silly, and we don't tolerate silly around here). His short hair stayed short, but turned red, a crimson red, and not a nice aqua red. Otherwise, his physical build remained more or less unchanged, and as the madness came to an end at the other end, he got off and staggered into the sunlight.
"Well, that were a fever dream," he sighed, before stopping. "Wait a second, that voice don't sound familiar." He wandered over to a puddle that had formed a few minutes earlier. "Yellow skin and red hair. But not Apple Bloom-"
He then made the connection back. "Bright Mac." His face then drained of colour. "Pear! Where did Ah leave her?" Without a second thought, he headed back toward other sections of the park.
It was in Marvel Super Hero Island that Bright found her. He stopped in front of Storm Force Accelatron to see her stagger off the ride, looking very dizzy. "Howdy, sugarcube."
As a man offscreen complemented him for his marital choices, Pear walked over to her husband. "Hey Bright. How was Seuss Landin'."
"Pretty surreal," Bright replied. "Ah don't think Ma or Big Mac would have reacted ta it well."
"If that's the case," Pear answered, now smiling quite happily now her vision was no longer swimming, "should we look for Autumn? She's outside Men in Black, apparently."
"Year wish is mah command, sweetheart," Bright grinned, and the pair set off into the park, helping out a rather confused pink girl on the way as to how she could dry off.
"There they are!" Autumn called from a distance. "How are you two?"
"We had a bit of a weird ride experience," Bright admitted.
"An' don't bother with Storm Force Acellatron," Pear added. "It ain't worth the queue."
"But Spider man was, so, like worth it," Moonlight protested.
And so the debate was settled for another day.
Night 4: NO! I WILL NOT LOSE MY TEMPER! UNDERSTAND?
After what was possibly the longest night of their lives, our brave heroes and heroines (two of whom were consistently heroines) woke up from their beds and prepared for another day in the parks. The previous evening had been fun, to say the least. The guards had cottoned on to the fact that certain individuals were turning up, all of whom were from a fictional television show. And had questioned them. Admittedly, some of them could have taken it better than others. Whilst Misty's professionalism was to be commended, Bright Mac could have taken the situation with a little less hostility, as ordering the guards to 'keep away from mah wife' may have been a tad too aggressive. For the record, Pear had no problem being questioned, and once the staff were entirely satisfied with their responses, they were let on their way, and so they returned to their rooms after another strange day.
Now the morning had arrived once more. Little of consequence was going on in the world at that time, apart from something named after beer running in China, and our gathered friends sat down once more for breakfast.
"So then," Tom started, by now firmly back to normal. "What will today bring, apart from weirdness?"
"What else does it bring?" John sighed, eating a slice of bacon very slowly indeed. Such was the slowness that a nearby snail ground to a screeching halt trying to go slower. "We all seem to end up as married couples or ships once in a while."
"You must be new here," Katrina commented, glancing at her plate. "Tom and I have ended up as siblings and dates more than once, including one time where one of us was a character who hadn't even appeared in Equestria Girls!"
"Oh, yes," Tom replied. "FlashSet and StarBurst. Not to mention Applejack and Apple Bloom."
"That's not too unbelievable," Steph joked. "Kat practically sounds like a cowgirl!"
"Why do you think that is?"
"Good point."
"Clearly," Ink added, adjusting once more his bow tie of magnificence, "the entity observing and cataloguing our lives in the great book of providence has a taste in shipping. It's rather like a story I read about a Lunar Guard's unhealthy obsession with Luna."
"REALLY?" Jimmy exclaimed, saying the first thing he had all morning. "Can I read it?"
"He just wants to ensure his OC has no competition," Tom snorted.
"Oh really?" Jimmy replied. "She would NEVER do that!"
"Well, you must have it then," Steph joked. "You once spammed me with Princess Luna pictures!"
"You can talk, 'ShiningArmour'sFangirlForLife'!"
"Ladies and gentlemen, please!" Tom exclaimed. "I understand that we all have our own tastes, but that is no reason to mock others for it. If Jimmy loves Luna, let him love her. Her appearing to us and speaking with him directly would hardly be the weirdest thing that could happen. Anyways, we've got a good selection of rides lined up for today, so I suppose that once we are all done eating we should head into the park. Sound good?"
There was much nodding, and cleaning of plates, and before long they departed to their rooms, to collect the supplies they needed for the day's expedition.
To everybody's surprise (and not of needing somebody they (with the exception of Katrina) were all in Islands of Adventure today, which made keeping in touch somewhat easier than normal as they had a much smaller area to be in. Furthermore, many of them were on rides in the same sections of the park, which made keeping in touch with one another quite easy too. Jimmy and Tom found themselves together, walking toward the Superhero section of the park.
"And then, spidermen uses his web to swing in and bash-"
"Jimmy, this may come as news to you," Tom sighed, "but I know very little about Marvel. I used to watch the Batman series back in the day, the one with Mark Hamill in it as the Joker, but apart from that I know very little really."
"That would be funny if it wasn't so pathetic," Jimmy answered. "Oh, what the heck, I'll laugh anyways." And both of them proceeded to laugh heartily, in their best Joker impression."
"But that's DC!" Tom protested. "Anyway, I have seen the first Avengers and both Guardians of the Galaxy films, so I know what's going on there. But I can't name most of the Marvel characters, and I hadn't even heard of Stan Lee before his passing."
"RIP," Jimmy sighed. "Did you know this was originally going to be a shopping mall?"
"Yes," Tom replied. "Cancelled due to Universal's financial muddle in the 1990s." He stopped when he saw Jimmy snickering. "What's so funny?"
"I love that word, muddle. It's so British!"
"Like how you found loopy hilarious?" Tom retorted.
"Reinforcing my point!" Jimmy snorted. "Need to do some shopping?"
"I suppose I could," Tom sighed. "I can't explain why, but my clothes are feeling a little loose. Maybe the Florida heat has made them expand, but without copious amounts of methane gas."
"I don't think that's how farting works," Jimmy replied.
"Noise that came from behind," Tom laughed. "Anyways, gotta go, see ya!" And Tom vanished without another word.
"Well, that was weird," Jimmy answered. "It is a lot hotter here than Britain, mind. And that means I need to get into the queue line for my next ride."
Dominating MARVEL Superhero Island is the mass of steel and ajrenaleen (adrenaline, sorry) that is The Incredible Hulk Coaster. Built as the land's flagship attraction, it was the first Bolliger and Mabillard rollercoaster in the United States, and was an all new design from them. It was also quite the technical achievement, combining theming, story, and thrills into one incredible (haha) package.
So, Jimmy joined the line once his Express app chimed green, and he stepped inside. The story on the screens (as he had previously ridden the original before the 2016 refit) told of General Thaddeus Ross conducting dangerous (and probably illegal) gamma ray experiments, which turned people into Hulk creatures (rather than killing them, something the first Avengers actually acknowledges). Jimmy walked past one of the panels when a green gas leaked out. It spilled everywhere, and all over him.
"Shit! Gamma radiation! Here I go again!"
He saw down at the bottom of his attire that his shoes, which had been with him through thick and through thin, had suddenly lost their laces, and this meant that they soon filled over at the top with a boot. Not long after that, they turned a rather disgusting shade of brown, and proceeded to grow up his legs, stopping halfway up his calves as they did so. His socks also slid up his legs to ensure the boots did not rub against his legs. Not long after that, his slacks, which currently hung over the boots, began to shrink up his legs and stopped when they had become an exceptionally short pair of shorts. The legs suddenly began to stitch themselves together, the process being oddly noisy, and the divider between the legs soon vanished, changing the garment into a skirt. This skirt turned black, and the former zip and button were soon replaced by elastic to hold it on his hips. His polo shirt retained the high neck, but but the sleeves got shorter, and the garment turned purple, taking on the consistency of a jumper.
His clothing was now done with, and it began to go the other way. His hair shrank up his back (he was fortunate the queue had not moved, or esle that would have been very awkward), and fell into an awkward mess of reds and pinks, with the odd purples here and there, as well as the front hanging down at odd right angles to the rest of his face. Speaking of his face, it soon felt as though it had been put through a vice, as it squished and stretched into a more feminine appearance. His eyes turned red, and his glasses vanished as his neck shrank.
Moments later, his shoulders slid inwards, and his chest began to feel oddly warm. The line moved forward, and so did Jimmy, but not before realising his balance was slightly off. Keen to find the source of the problem, he suddenly saw two lumps slowly pushing their way forward on his chest, stopping after a few seconds. Breasts. B cups, if he had to guess.
His waist was a lot faster, violently bursting outwards as his manhood vanished. His arms, legs, feet and hands all slimmed down. Sorry, her arms, legs, feet and hands all slimmed down, and she shrank in height until she was about the height of an average teenager.
A quick inspection of her new body revealed she was another character who hadn't ever appeared in Equestria Girls.
Cayenne.
Totally unpeturbed by this, Cayenne took her seat on the ride. She pulled down the overhead restraint (as lap bars were of no use on a ride with inversions), and relaxed. She liked this one.
Moments later, all the safety checks were complete, and the train moved off and up an incline. It then stopped, sitting in a tunnel filled with tires and flashing lights, before suddenly launching forwards and into the open. The train was then hurled into a heartline roll before dropping down, going up again and doing a pair of cobra rolls. Dropping through a reverse Immelmann, it did another loop and fell through a smoke filled tunnel. It roared through a banked turn, into a corkscrew, through another loop, a pair of S bends, and up another slope, where the train hit a brake run.
"Is that it?" asked another passenger.
"Nope!" Cayenne called. "The best is yet to come!"
The train descended a steep drop, flew through another corkscrew, and an uphill turn as well, before hitting the final brake run and returning to the station.
Cayenne strolled outside in the Florida sun, smiling to herself. She looked about, only to suddenly be knocked over by somebody.
"Did you see that? IT WAS AWESOME!" they cried. As Cayenne's vision recovered, and she slowly got back up, she found herself looking at a preteen with orange hair. A preteen girl with orange hair.
"What? The ride or something else?"
"The ride!" the girl exclaimed, bouncing up and down as if she were made of springs. "Wanna get an ice cream?"
"Well, I suppose I-"
"Great!" The girl's enthusiasm was infectious. Cayenne couldn't help but smile as the girl led her away, never once stopping talking.
Tom, firmly himself once again, got up from his chair and strolled back to his room. Whilst certainly feeling better over what had transpired a few (OK, two) days ago, he was still a little concerned about the future of both himself and his friends. Constantly changing into fictional characters, apart from the inconvenience it caused you at the other end, was also extremely tiring, and he was increasingly finding himself sapped of strength as time went on. This morning he had struggled to get out of bed, such was his tiredness, and this was not like him. There were times he felt like cursing Jimmy for passing this on, but at the same time he also knew that it was hardly Jimmy's fault. He, after all, had had it forced upon him as well, and so it made no sense to blame him for something he couldn't control.
He rifled through his things, including his phone, miraculously repaired from two days ago, and popped crucial things like his wallet into his pocket. Never go anywhere without a means of paying, after all. Having found his things, it was time to go to the park. Sorry, let me try that one again. Tom felt it was time to go into the park now that he had all the things he needed. Much better.
Anyways, he paused outside Jimmy's room. He and Jimmy were going in similar directions today, so it made sense for him to wait. He knocked on the door. "Jimmy! You ready?"
"Just a moment, I need to finish writing!" came the reply.
Tom sighed. "Well, make it quick, OK? Time is very much against us."
There was no response. "Typical," Tom grumbled. "Jimmy really has no sense of priority some days."
After what felt like an eternity of waiting, Jimmy opened the door. "Hey Tom!" he said. "Sorry for the wait. I was writing to Luna." He pointed to a red book on his desk.
"Jimmy, this has to stop." Tom looked cross. "Your obsession with Luna is getting out of hand. Yes, I know you've been her a lot, but seriously, writing to her? Books that write across dimensions don't exist! I think you need help."
"But it is true!" Jimmy protested. "I once became a human version of her and got to be her for a few weeks. Then, after we swapped back, she gave me that and a replica of her dress so we could stay in contact!"
Tom facepalmed. "You have to be pulling my leg. Well, we've wasted enough time as it is, let's go!" He grabbed Jimmy's arm, and they headed away towards the park, neither noticing a woman sparkling into existence, shutting and locking Jimmy's door, and then vanishing as if nothing had happened.
As the pair walked into Islands of Adventure, both of them chatted idly about Marvel comics. Tom, admittedly, was a little less knowledgeable in that field, but he tried his best nontheless to keep up with Jimmy's talk about Spiderman beating Doctor Spider or whoever it was for the umpteenth time.
"Did you know this was originally going to be a shopping mall?" Jimmy said, suddenly, snapping Tom out of his thoughts. He felt off. His jeans were riding lower on his body than they should have been, so he subconsciously pulled them up.
"Yes. Cancelled due to Universal's financial muddle in the 1990s." He stopped when he saw Jimmy snickering. "What's so funny?"
"I love that word, muddle. It's so British!"
"Like how you found loopy hilarious?" Tom retorted.
"Reinforcing my point!" Jimmy snorted. "Need to do some shopping?"
"I suppose I could," Tom sighed. His shirt felt loose now, for some reason. "I can't explain why, but my clothes are feeling a little loose. Maybe the Florida heat has made them expand, but without copious amounts of methane gas."
"I don't think that's how farting works," Jimmy replied.
"Noise that came from behind," Tom laughed, trying to cover his unease over the fact that the lamppost nearby seemed to be getting larger. "Anyways, gotta go, see ya!" And Tom sprinted away as fast as he could, before anybody could see anything of what was going on.
Jimmy was obviously long gone, so Tom slowed down and went into a side street to try and figure out what was wrong. He knew it was a possibility, but it all seemed like he was getting shorter. Far away from anybody else, he suddenly tripped as his shoes came flying off. Both of them sailed through the air and crashed into a nearby wall.
He suddenly had horrified flashbacks to an incident at a convention many years ago. If his shoes that fit perfectly had, for no readily obvious reason, come flying off, it meant only one thing.
A look at his socks confirmed that very fear. He could clearly see it as his socks collapsed like deflating balloons. His feet were shrinking.
He shakily pulled himself to his feet. "I have already done this twice, I am not being Apple Bloom yet again!"
His legs abruptly slimmed down, losing years of built up muscle as much of the hair on them fell off. Tom grabbed onto something in anticipation of what was coming next, but what actually happened caught him off guard. Instead of pressure building up in his hips, they actually shrank inward slightly as his legs got shorter.
He needed that something next, as the worst bit happened. The bits between his legs began to tingle, and then suddenly got sucked into his body, making a horrible sound as they were replaced by the female equivalent.
The world around the now girl began to get larger as the rest of her body got in on the shrinking game. Her shoulders narrowed and her arms pulled back in length, her hands becoming even smaller than they already were. The sensation of muscle, bone, and skin physically getting smaller was bizarre, and it felt as though Tom's entire nervous system was on fire as it tried to keep up with what was going on. She felt something happen to her chest, but it was barely visible when she looked down.
Her neck suddenly flattened as the Adam's Apple was dismissed from duty for today, followed by her skin softening, like that- you know what, that image is redundant. Moving on, her face shifted and softened until she looked like a preteen girl, before massive locks of orange hair tumbled down the back of her head and onto her fringe, covering her forehead. This new hair ran to her shoulders, and felt as though it was freshly washed and cleaned as a pink bow abruptly joined it. Her normally brown eyes then turned a shade similar to that of grape flavoured Gatorade, which looked very odd, followed by her skin turning a very light yellow.
Tom was, by now, in a mass of clothes that didn't fit her properly. But this was of little consequence to the magic of the day, as it set to work once more. Her shirt shrank onto her body, and suddenly turned turquoise, looking like something worn as part of a business suit. The sleeves grew until they reached her elbows, and the cuffs were closed with two buttons, one on each side. The collar was closed by the top button, and all the other buttons were neatly done up.
A black bow tie appeared in the collar, and sat around her neck, soon joined by a purple or deep maroon jacket which faintly reminded Tom of the blazer she wore at the private school she went to back in the day. The buttons were also neatly done up and polished to perfection, and the cuffs were also neatly done up. Tom found herself subconsciously brushing the collar down. Moments later, a pink bow appeared in her hair.
Her slacks suddenly glowed and began to change, turning purple in the light as they began to shrink up her legs, stopping just above her knees. The legs proceeded to merge together to create a skirt, and the zip and button vanished into oblivion as it shrank onto her body, elastic holding it in place. Tom found herself subconsciously tucking her shirt into it as the changes went on, the garment being covered in a tartan pattern of pink, blue and yellow.
Her socks slithered up her legs like snakes, turning purple and stopping partway up her calves. Her shoes then shifted, the laces and front plate vanishing and merging to create a pair of dark blue loafers, held in place with light blue bows.
The light faded, and Tom could only infer it was over. She glanced over herself in confusion, and was startled at how high pitched her voice was. "Well, I have no idea who this is meant to be. They're clearly Crystal Prep, but-"
Tom then looked in a puddle, and clicked. "It's one of the background characters! Marigold Medley! YIPPEE!"
Not sure what had just come over her, Marigold began bouncing about as if she were made of springs, and headed into the main street for the next ride on her list.
Whilst impressively themed, Dr Doom's Fear Fall wasn't much to write home about. It was a pretty average drop ride, and Marigold felt stupid for securing an Express for that. That said, a lot of people had asked what on Earth a schoolgirl was doing here. As she headed away, she suddenly tripped and flew through the air, landing next to the exit for The Incredible Hulk Rollercoaster.
"Stupid shoes!" she exclaimed, pushing herself up and standing up. "Oh well. It's a lovely day, and there's so much to do!"
Just then, she saw a woman with red hair exit from a ride. Marigold ran over to them and knocked them over in her enthusiasm. "Did you see that? IT WAS AWESOME!"
"What?" the woman asked, now identifiable as Cayenne. "The ride or something else?"
"The ride!" Marigold exclaimed, bouncing up and down excitedly. "Wanna get an ice cream?"
Cayenne paused. "Well, I suppose I-"
"Great!" Marigold sped off toward the nearby ice cream stand.
The pair stood there, eating ice cream, when suddenly Marigold's phone went. "Hello! Marigold Medley! How can I help you?"
"Great, another perky one. I've had enough of those for today."
"Who is this, please?"
"What's it to you?"
"There's no need to be so rude!"
And there's no need to be so annoying."
Marigold ended the call. "That was weird."
"Hello you two!" called a voice. Cayenne and Marigold looked up to see Starlight Glimmer joining them.
Katrina knew little about the Simpsons, to be completely honest with you. And why, you may ask?
Simple. The series had never really interested her, which had made her something of an odd one out amongst her schoolmates (back in the days when she was still of school age), as many other people in her classes followed the show and would discuss it without ceasing. This left her frequently unable to spot the pop culture references and other allusions that people made to it from time to time. But who cared? She had done a bit of reading on it and thought the whole thing sounded completely ridiculous.
But having said that, the notion of adults liking a show about technicolour ponies (that was originally made for young children) seemed completely ridiculous on paper. Thus, Katrina concluded, it may not be silly to like such a show (although some of her distant relatives had issues with her watching MLP), and so those who liked the Simpsons could continue to do so without interference.
It didn't mean she had to watch it, though, which was how she intended to keep it. But, having said that, this made her next choice of ride all the more strange when you think about it.
Periodically, the Simpsons team create a handful of Halloween episodes entitled Treehouse of Horror, which spoof old horror media such as the Twilight Zone, the Invisible Man, some Edgar Allan Poe poems and so forth. Sometimes Science Fiction is thrown under the lense, such as 1984 and War of the Worlds, or, in some cases, even classic horror icons (like when Freddie Krueger got a cameo in one episode). Entirely separate from the main Simpsons timeline, two recurring characters are Kang and Kodos, a pair of aliens who frequently cause mischief simply because they can and laugh at human misfortune. And guess what?
They got their own ride in the Springfield section of Universal Studios. Kang and Kodos Twirl 'n' Hurl (inability to write the word 'and' nonwithstanding) is a kid sized ride, but that doesn't always mean 'kid friendly', as anybody who has ridden Th13teen at Alton Towers can tell you. And Katrina had picked this out as her ride, for some reason, not knowing the context of the whole thing. Aero Top Jets had always appealed to her, for some reason.
So, away she went to join the queue, with a sigh of resignation. The others were all in the other park today, so (outside of breakfast) her only chance for communication with her friends was her phone, currently safely stored in her pocket and zipped in said pocket. That way, it wouldn't fall out if anything untoward happened. She had always kept valuables in zipped pockets to prevent anything untoward from happening. Some saw it as paranoia, but Katrina would rather her valuables were safe than at the bottom of a rollercoaster. She had read enough horror stories about people meeting sticky ends while trying to retrieve things from rollercoasters.
She was in the queue at last, and took her position in it as the line moved on. The queue line was mostly out in the open, barring some points where the line was covered, and TV screens were playing bits and pieces from Simpsons episodes (mostly Treehouse of Horror, but some others as well to spice things up a bit. After all, the worst thing in a theme park is boredom, and we don't want that, do we?). It took a few minutes for the queue to go through. The ride's position away from other things and the relatively high throughput meant that queues were generally short, so there was that, I suppose. At long last, she reached the front of the queue, and Katrina took her seat on one of the ride vehicles.
As she sat down, she didn't notice that her trainers had started to change. A white colour spread over their usual dark blue frame, and some of it suddenly shifted to yellow as it did so. The first awareness she had of what was going on was the fact her legs suddenly felt off. A quick look down would reveal her jeans had changed to black slacks.
"Well, here we go again," she sighed. She may seem blase, but it had gotten to the point she was just used to it. Not sensing anything else, her jumper suddenly gained a hood, hanging off the back, and the entire garment gained two pockets before turning sludge brown, with yellow lines running halfway down. More yellow trim appeared on the cuffs and the bottom.
Not long after, her body began to shift. Her skin turned a darker shade, almost ochre, although her eyes remained their usual hazel tone. Her hair turned white, pulled back up her head, and suddenly increased dramatically in volume, almost like feathers. Some hung down the side of her head, but most of it piled up and hung over like a fringe.
The ride came to an end, and she got off, discarding her glasses on the way. She didn't need them.
"Look! It's Gilda!" shouted somebody.
Gilda gave him the brush off and stomped over to the waterfront. "Idiot," she grumbled. Katrina now had elements of Gilda's personality, which was why she had suddenly become so grumpy and a bit rude. Keen to find out how the others were getting on, she dialled Tom and waited for the call to connect.
She was so busy looking into the water that she jumped when music suddenly started. There was a strange man and two musicians.
"Boldly Brave Dame Gilda, Rode from from Griffonstone, She was not afraid at all, not Brave Dame Gilda! She was not afraid to get hurt in- many nasty ways! Brave, brave, brave, brave Dame Gilda!
"She was not in the least bit scared of a simulator ride, or to even lose her lunch, on a rollercoaster! To be menaced by some frightning actors there in a horror maze! Brave, brave, brave, brave Dame Gilda!"
"Quiet," Gilda said. "I'm trying to relax here." So she walked away and toward the next area of the park, when suddenly three aliens appeared in front of her. All of them looked they had been animated using early 2000s computer hardware as well as generally being uncanny valley turned up to 11.
"Hello!" said one, the colour of vomit. "Who are you?"
"She is Brave Dame Gilda, Brave Dame Gilda-"
"SHUT UP!" Gilda looked at them. "What's it to you who I am?"
"We need help finding our pets. Are you doing anything?"
"To ride a-"
"SHUT UP!" Satisfied the musicians were quiet, Gilda looked at them. "No. And I'm not in the mood to help you guys. Where did you come from? Video Brinquedo?" And she walked away.
"Brave Dame Gilda ran away! Dame Gilda ran away, away!"
"Stop following me!"
"When danger reared it's ugly head, she bravely turned her tail and fled-"
Gilda dived under a bench as they went on singing. Once they were gone, she dialled the number she meant to dial and listened for the tone.
"Hello! Marigold Medley! How can I help you?"
Who? Gilda thought. "Great, another perky one. I've had enough of those for today."
The person on the other end, this 'Marigold', seemed confused. "Who is this, please?"
"What's it to you?"
"There's no need to be so rude!" The girl must only have been young, judging from how the pitch of her voice was making Gilda's ears bleed.
"And there's no need to be so annoying." Moments later, the call ended, and Gilda looked about.
Ink strode through the park like he was on parade in the army (which he could well have been, for all anybody knew). As ever, his suit was kept perfect, and his shoes were so shiny you could see his face in them. As he walked along, he suddenly realised his friends were not beside him. Tom and Jimmy had set off into the park a fair bit earlier than the rest for some reason, and Kat had of course headed her own separate way. Ink slowed down, and suddenly Steph and John appeared next to him, puffing and panting.
"Can't you keep up?" Ink asked, rhetorically.
"No!" Steph panted, bent over as best she could to keep breathing. "We were having to run in order to keep up! Not everybody lives life at the pace you do, you know!"
"Why do you walk so fast anyways?" John asked, looking puzzled at him.
"It is critical," said Ink, going into businessman mode, "to always be on time to all of your engagements. As a result, it is very common for those in business to be able to walk very quickly and with a sense of confidence from one place to another. A meeting starting late could spell disaster, after all."
"Such as?" John asked. "I work in a small place, but sadly it doesn't pay very much."
"Signing documents, approving bills, things such as that," Ink explained. "If you ever need any financial support of any kind, I would be more than happy to-"
"It's OK," John replied. "I make more than enough to support myself, and I happily go without luxuries most weeks as long as it gets food on the table."
"A man who knows his priorities!" Ink smiled. "Well, I think we'll get along very well. So many use all their income on useless things they don't need or ever use." He bristled briefly. Then a clock rang. "Ah! The old clock! Sounding forth the chimes that send us on our journey forth to the end of the road."
Steph frowned, and looked at John. "Do you have any idea what he's on about?"
"No," John Simple nodded, having suddenly become an entirely different person. "I don't."
"Shall we head forth to our different places that we need to be?" Ink asked. "I have an appointment with cartoon characters."
"I have to go to a walkthrough," John added.
"And I'm on something in Seuss-land," Steph said. "Something about fish."
"I was there yesterday!" John exclaimed. "It feels like months ago, of course, but I remember it well. Keep an eye out for random stetsons!"
"I will!" Steph smiled. The three laughed, said their temporary goodbyes, and parted ways, heading off in different directions. Ink set forth on his way, but when he was almost in his section of the park for the day, he saw the Toad in the Hole in the Road-
-being carted off to where it couldn't harm the guests. It was big enough to swallow a cow, after all. Ink, on the other hand, simply went on his way, and rolled into the back of the queue for his attraction today, about a certain sailor with incredible strength.
In the long and storied history of Universal (and indeed, American) cartoon animation, you can hardly omit the impact that Popeye had on the scene, a character instantly recognisable to generations of people across the globe. The sailor from Sweethaven has been seen in comics, television shows, and even a somewhat average film. In addition to being a popular culture icon, he has also helped with the sale of spinach, as this gives him his incredible strength. So, naturally, alongside classic characters like Bugs Bunny and Dudley Do-Right (whom we met in a previous chapter), it was only natural that Popeye got his own ride at Universal Studios.
And what a ride it was. It was a water ride, fittingly, but to get onto it, Ink first had to join a queue, and so he did. There were two lines, for some odd reason, and neither of them were very even. It meant that one moved a lot faster than the other, and this was causing people to jump over the lines.
Ink sighed and joined the shorter line. As he went along the line, he suddenly noticed what looked like a beanie hat, lying on a fence. It was pink, and had white stars set onto it.
"Did somebody lose this?" he asked. Thinking he could hand it in at the desk, he picked it up and placed it in a pocket, then proceeded to stroll along the path.
Only then did he realise that something was amiss. His pocket was, very suddenly, empty. He reached in for the object, but it was gone!
Then his head felt oddly heavy. He reached up, to find the beanie glued into his hair, not moving. It wouldn't come off no matter how hard he pulled.
"What is this?" he asked, confused. Moments later, he got his answer. It flashed, and suddenly purple hair flopped into his eyes. Moments after that, more and more hair got forced out of his scalp, growing down the back of his neck and flipping into all sorts of interesting and contorted shapes. At the front, the fringe flipped up, curled over, and curled again at the side, just over his eyes. He could now see the odd turquoise streak in there as well.
"Oh not again! Who is it this time?"
He brought his hand up to look at it, only to see suddenly his knuckle turned pink. A bright flash later, and the colour began to spread, covering over all of his skin as the bones in his face began to shift, stretching, breaking, and reconnecting in different ways as his complection softened dramatically. His eyes gained purple eyeliner, and his eyes turned a shade similar to grape flavoured Gatorade (I know I've used that image before, but it works, OK?).
More happened, his shoulders narrowing suddenly and his arms and hands getting smaller and shorter, giving him the appearance of a gorilla. His chest tingled uncomfortably as muscle and fat sloughed off of his body, followed by a pair of breasts growing on his chest. He yelped in surprise as his rear got larger, and his hips popped outwards suddenly. His manhood soon went into oblivion, and her arms and legs got shorter and smaller, causing most of her garments to fall off and hit the floor. Her jacket landed behind her, and everything else felt loose.
Ink shuffled to one side to avoid getting in the way, and suddenly saw her shoes come to life. Heels pushed out of the bottom of them, forcing her up 4 inches, and they changed suddenly into black boots held in place with pink laces. His formal trousers began to flatten onto her body, changing into a pair of grey leggings. Her white shirt lost the bow tie, forever consigned to the abyss, and then proceeded to lose its own collar and turn turquoise, like a casual V neck, an impression reinforced by the fact all the buttons vanished, and the shirt stitched itself together. The bottoms of the sleeves turned purple, and a black unfronted waistcoat appeared around her shirt. A watch materialised on her wrist, mde of black coloured metal with a symbol of Starlight's cutie mark set into the closed top.
Starlight Glimmer strode forward, and suddenly realised what had to be done. "Alright, people!" she called. "You all want to get on quickly, right?"
The crowd, looking confused, looked at her. "Well, yes," said one. "We don't like long queues."
"Great!" Starlight exclaimed. "Well, if half of you stand here, and half of you stand here, the queues will go a lot faster!"
The crowd seemed to like what she was saying, and so began to filter out of the massive line and into a second one. Starlight walked backwards, waving people through until an equal number were on each side.
She stopped at the entrance gate, and a park employee looked stunned. "This queue is moving quickly!" he said. "What did you do?"
"Simple!" Starlight smiled. "If an even number of people stand in each line, it flows a lot faster as they each access the loading docks faster. It's the same concept as all the people in one line being equal, but the result is different; the lines move faster, saving everybody time."
"Genius!" said the employee.
"I suppose I am something of a natural," Starlight smiled, joining the back of the line. "Equality is a wonderful thing!"
Starlight found the experience of Popeye and Bluto's Bilge Rat Barges to be a fun and thrilling one, even if she had no idea what was going on and found a guy weirdly fangirling over her, claiming something about having seen her in the Midwest. Nope! She'd never been to Kansas. Wandering through the park, she saw a woman with red hair and a girl in a Crystal Prep uniform having ice creams. "Hello you two!" she called. "How are you feeling?"
"Great!" Marigold replied, hopping about like a weasel on crack.
"She's had a LOT of ice cream," Cayenne explained. "No wonder she's so hyper. How about you, Glimmy?"
"Oh, the usual," Starlight smiled. "Making everything more efficient and being quite helpful. At least there were no giant monster girls in shopping malls this time."
"That was QUITE a day!" Cayenne laughed, and the three of them conversed merrily whilst listening to the screams of riders on The Incredible Hulk.
John considered himself many things, but an conoissieur of alcohol and other fine beverages was not one of them. This probably had something to do with his limited budget meaning that he had to go with what he could get his hands on, rather than what was neccesarily of the best quality. This applied to food as well, but he was lucky that living in Cardiff wasn't massively expensive. Tom had, on occasion, sent him stuff from Nottingham, ranging from Bugman's Hellfire (on sale at Warhammer World), to Nottinghamshire Stout (and not Stoat. That'd be cruel), and even the exclusive brews from Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem (well worth a visit, in my opinion). Alas, these were merely luxuries. John had his job as a gamer and YouTuber to focus on, as well as taking on other lines of employment as his channel either couldn't get enough views whilst idiots like Morgz got millions of them, or YouTube kept demonitizing his channel for 'copyright violations', rather like how Sheet Music Boss had nearly got screwed over by those rules.
Much like on the second day in the park, Steph and John followed part of the same route to get to their next rides. John spent most of it soaking up the atmosphere and enjoying himself.
Suddenly, Steph speaking shook him out of his own thoughts. "I wonder how those three cope with it?"
"With what?" John asked, confused.
"You know, endlessly changing into fictional characters." Steph was pretty to the point on that one. "Jimmy goes through it at least once a week, and Tom and Kat usually experience it in bursts or at random. It must make a real mess of your identity the longer it goes on."
"It wasn't fun for me at first, losing my junk and all that," John grunted. "It could hardly have been fun for them, although at least we've remained human for these ones. Tom told me Jimmy's first was a pony, of all things. Swapping genders AND changing species? That has to be rough."
"Being mind controlled by an evil bug queen and having your body hijacked isn't fun either," Steph sighed. "Heaven knows how I fought it off."
"That's a fairly simple one," John replied. "Your strength of character, and bravery, saw you through. Even if ending up as her Equestria Girls counterpart did attract the attention of the guys somewhat."
Steph smiled at that. "I have to admit, Chrysalis is pretty sexy." Up ahead, the paths changed. "Well, we're in Seuss Landing. I've got a ride here, so I'll see you later!"
"See you!" John replied, and headed onwards into the park, heading for another land entirely.
The back of Islands of Adventure can be quickly divided into two areas; The Lost Continent (aka not Harry Potter) and The Wizarding World of Harry Potter (aka 'Oh God, massive queues' and 'why not just go to Leavesden, it's cheaper'). Originally, the area had also had a land called Merlinwood, themed around the Legend of King Arthur, but that had been flattened when Hogwarts and the surrounding area had been dropped on it and the old rides rethemed or demolished (RIP Duelling Dragons). The Lost Continent was themed around the epic adventures and sagas of old, more than heavily drawing upon Greek and Roman myths, and today's ride had plenty of that.
Poseidon's Fury had opened with the rest of the park in 1999, and was one of the few opening day attractions to actually work properly. Themed around the Lost City of Atlantis, this ride saw visitors travel deep underwater, by foot, and not on a ride vehicle, to witness an epic battle for the future of the undersea city. Whilst an all new story, apparently all the old effects had remained, and that was really why people rode it. That, and to get away from that all pervasive heat. Heat that was very annoying indeed. John reached the entrance of the ride, and before going in, he decided to sit down and rest his feet a bit. The thing about theme parks is that you do a lot of walking about, and that was certainly true here. So there sat he, soaking up the sun like a lizard. There he sat for a few minutes, as the queue for Poseidon's Fury was rarely very long, and so he had plenty of time to rest and sit. And sit and rest. Whichever sounds better, to be honest.
Eventually, he had had enough of sitting where he was, and got up to head forth to his next destination when he suddenly noticed his foot felt off. He stopped, and looked down, and rapidly ascertained the cause of the problem.
His shoe was now a boot. Not only was it suddenly a boot, it was a purple boot, rather the colour of a grape (but not grape juice, which is a different colour entirely). It was also a very long boot indeed, running nearly to his knees.
As he observed this most peculiar phenomenon, the other shoe he had on began to change as well. It, too, began to grow taller and taller until it reached his knee (his other knee, not the first one), and the laces unthreaded themselves and flew into the air, never to be seen again. Not long after that, his shoe filled over into a boot, and heels pushed out of the bottom of both as the second one turned purple.
He had made the decision to wear pants that day, but he saw them begin to get shorter and shorter, growing backwards to his knees, and suddenly merging with both his shirt and both legs, creating a skirt, which also turned purple. Now connected to the shirt and creating a dress, it led to the shirt sleeves shrinking back until they formed straps over his shoulders. A grey belt with red dots appeared around his waist, and the straps and upper bodice turned grey. He also gained two bracelets that were pink, and had red dots set into them.
"Now who could this be?" John was now a lot more comfortable with the concept of endlessly TFing, and so reacted to it a lot more calmly than you might expect. Still, changing gender was never much fun. Purple hair flowed down his back and shoulders, and fell into his eyes as a fringe. His skin turned pink, his eyes went a deeper mulberry, and his arms, shoulders, and hands all began to compress as they shrank to smaller sizes. In contrast, his chest grew into two breasts whilst his hips widened. He grimaced as his manhood vanished, becoming she for the second time that trip. Her legs got shorter and her feet shrank, but after that incredibly quick change, it was over. It didn't hurt as much as the first time either, which was saying something.
"I'd better make the most of this," she said, walking away and wobbling slightly, being shure not to shlure her wordsh.
Poseidon's fury was a walkthrough attraction. Berry Punch arrived in the main chamber to be greeted by an archeologist, explaining the long history of the structure. Essentially, Poseidon was a Greek God who was betrayed by his High Priest, Lord Darkenon (no, really). After the lights went out, a mysterious message warned them of an ancient evil behind the door, and that the trident was needed to defeat it. No sooner had the lights come on, then a Professor Baxter came on the radio, warning them to escape, only to get seemingly killed.
Then it got ultra weird. A voice, later revealed to be Lord Darkenon, spoke in the chamber, goading them to follow into the tomb. So they did, only for the doors to shut behind them.
"You should have heeded your master and left while you still could!" Darkenon laughed. "Now you will NEVER leave!"
"Anybody questioning how a Greek madman from antiquity can speak perfect English?" Berry Punch asked rhetorically.
After finding a golden trident, a kindly goddess opened a door, taking them deeper into the tomb. In they went, walking through a tunnel made of water (luckily, nobody got wet). After roaming through some more tunnels, Darkenon returned, throwing fireballs and generally making a mess of an ancient temple, until the archeologist put the trident on a statue. An epic battle between Darkenon and Poseidon erupted, and, this being Hollywood, Poseidon emerged victorious and the riders escaped.
Berry needed a drink after that. Preferably a non alcoholic one as alcohol wasn't served in the park. So, she headed back towards the plaza to try and find the others. She arrived in Seuss Landing.
"Well, that ride was boring!" said a voice. Walking towards her was a girl with lopsided eyes.
"I SO would not have queued long for that!" added Marigold from nearby.
"Oh?" asked Berry Punch, seemingly struggling to stay upright. Nobody had any idea why. "Why didn't you like it?"
"I suppose I should explain," said the girl, whose manner had revealed them to be Derpy, and so she began...
Not long earlier... or before that... or whichever is grammatically correct...
Steph had stopped in Seuss Landing before waving goodbye to John as he headed further north and east (towards the Orient, you could say, if the swamps of Florida and the Florida Keys qualify at Oriental, which I suspect they don't unless you count the underwater Jesus statue). Indeed, she was once more on her own, which was indeed sad. As she stood in the line for another ride, a group of llamas walked past. This was very confusing, as theme parks normally did not have brave, good, strong llamas in them. Indeed, llamas are normally restricted to zoos and other places, which is a shame as more people need to see llamas and-
INTERRUPTION
I apologise for the fault in the text. Those who had been recording my words have been sacked, and replaced with people who aren't obsessed with llamas. Normal service shall resume momentarily.
As she stood in the line for another ride, she suddenly saw something weird going on outside the line. Just joining the line was a girl in a Crystal Prep uniform, and she seemed to be on a permanent coffee high judging from how much she was bouncing up and down like a demented seesaw. Steph laughed.
"I wonder which one of us that is?" she snorted, as the line began to move forward once more. This ride was One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish, based on the Dr Seuss book of the same name. The riders rode on fish, and were piped music to give them a special series of cues to follow to avoid water being splashed upon them. In the Florida heat, some water being thrown your way would actually be quite nice, but anyways. Steph would have to wait in line for a while, and so she did, waiting in the heat. The line moved very slowly. One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish had no Express line, and was a very slow loader. Add the number of kids who had a somewhat questionable sense of direction into the mix and you had a very slow queue indeed. It was so slow you could have read the Complete Works of Dr Seuss in the time. No, seriously, you could have. It was that slow. So Steph waited, and waited, and waited, until she saw something odd lying on the floor. It was a tie of some sort. Not a cable tie, but the sort you wear around your neck as part of formal attire, in a business suit for instance. Thinking somebody had left it behind, Steph picked it up. Big mistake.
It suddenly vanished from the ground, and before she could react it was floating in mid air. A shot of yellow lightning flew forth from it and into her, setting into motion the events of today's chapter.
It began with her shirt, naturally enough, which shrank a bit in side. The neck suddenly grew a collar (and not a colour; sorry Cozy Glow!), which changed to a cobalt blue, or just blue, followed by the rest of her shirt changing from the usual white pigment to a turquoise shade. The collar folded upwards, and the tie flew into place, tying itself in place with a Windsor knot. It then hung awkwards down her front as the collar folded back down. No sooner had she processed this then the world began to distort at strange angles, as if she was in an Escher painting. Blonde hair brushed into her eyes and down the back of her neck.
"Who is thi-" She stopped, and the voice, which was very familiar, especially to long time fans of the series. "The dream of any brony or pegasister! I'll be Derpy!"
Sure enough, the changes resumed, and her shorts joined in on the fun. They began to shift and merge, the legs coming together and looking like a very odd pair of shorts as the zip and buttons vanished from them, being replaced by elastic to hold the garment in place. Not long after that, her body began to shrink a bit, to the dimensions of a 15 year old, but nothing too drastric. Not as drastic as some of Katrina's, anyway). The gap between the legs of the shorts vanished, and the resulting garment flowed out into a skirt, which turned green, as the tie turned yellow from its previous black. The bottom of her shirt gained a white band, as her socks grew up her legs and stopped at her calves. Finally, her sandles morphed into a pair of very strange green shoes which could have come from Penny Lane (a Brownie point if you spot the reference).
Derpy just glanced about, confused. Her vision was a lot less lopsided now, and she seemed to have no difficulty in walking about. "Well, that was strange," she said. "But a lot less dramatic than some other Derpy transformations I've heard of. Ah well, better wait for this queue to end."
"Excuse me?" called a ride employee. "Any single riders? We need two single riders for this attraction! Any single riders?"
Derpy put her hand up, and the emloyee escorted her forward to the front, where she was suddenly joined by the hyper girl she'd seen earlier. "Hello!" she said. "I'm Derpy! Are you from Crystal Prep?"
"Yep!" the girl replied. "I'm Marigold, a pleasure to meet you!"
The pair shook hands as they sat down in the ride vehicle. The ride then started up as the rhyme began to play, and the fish began to fly up and down whilst water flew at them. It took the pair approximately 7 seconds to work out the pattern, and merrily dodged water as they flew up and down.
Present day...
"I see," Berry replied. "Well, thanks for the warning, you two. I suppose we'd better be getting to our next attractions."
"You can't be intoxicated in the park!" Derpy said, commenting on Berry's apparent lack of balance. "And you look mildly intoxicated."
"What's with all the big words suddenly?" Berry asked, as she walked off.
Marigold looked at Derpy as Starlight appeared from nowhere. "I don't like where this is going."
"I'll keep an eye on her," Starlight smiled. "You two have fun." And she set off.
"Brave Dame Gilda ran away! Dame Gilda ran away, away!"
"OH, SHUT UP!"
Moments later, the moody girl from earlier appeared, and stopped as the singers went onwards... and into the lake.
"Now we are wet! Now we are wet! Our clothing is so very damp, We may be mistaken for a tramp, If anyone could light a lamp and call security?"
"I wouldn't worry about them," Gilda grunted. "Somebody else will fish them out. Now who wants to ride Hagrid's Motorbike Adventure?"
It was late at night, and Tom was somewhat restless in his sleep. He was struggling to doze off, even at midnight, which was unlike him as he could usually just drop off to sleep with minimal effort. However, his mind was full of scorpions and other such problems, and he wrestled with them all that day.
You will probably have picked up, of course, that he had now returned to normal. Whether this had any effect is a mystery, but that's not our concern right now. What happened next caused him to awaken.
"Are you awake?" asked a voice. Tom suddenly sat up.
"Who's there?" he asked. He reached for the bedside light and turned it on.
Standing next to the window was a woman with pale skin and waving hair of cobalt, turquoise, light blue, and pink. She wore a white lowcut dress with exposed sleeves, and the widest skirt that Tom had ever seen. It must have been at least six feet in diameter. The dress itself had golden lining and trim, and the dome of the skirt seemed to part at the front, revealing the second layer below (Tom, not being an expert on these garments, had no idea how many layers of underskirts this woman was wearing). She wore a golden necklace with a purple gem set into it, and a golden crown with another purple gem.
Tom clicked who it was. "Princess Celestia?" he asked.
The woman nodded. "I can see that you are troubled. May I speak with you?"
"Well, I'll admit your highness-"
"Please, just Celestia. You have no idea how tiresome it can get with 'your highness' this, 'your highness' that."
"Yes, it would be nice to have somebody to talk to." Tom nodded, and turned in his bed so Celestia could sit down. He initially wondered if she'd struggle to move in that gown, but the ease with which she stepped over, spread her skirts, and then sat down indicated she was used to these sorts of situations.
Celestia indicated for Tom to sit next to her, so he did. "Is it your ability that troubles you?"
"Yes," Tom sighed, noticing how informal he had become in his speech. "I've been... afflicted with this for about a year now, and it shows no sign of stopping. Jimmy's been through it for years, and I have no idea how or when it works or is set off. His consistently occurs on monday's, but Katrina and I... we experience it in bursts, then it stops, then starts up again without warning."
"Is that Jimmy Hook you're talking about?" Celestia asked.
"Yes, actually."
"Luna has been in correspondance with him for a while, and visits him occasionally."
Tom facepalmed. "So he wasn't being weird when he said he was talking to Luna. God, I'm such an idiot! I've probably badly hurt him with what I said."
Celestia put her arm around him, and drew him into a hug. Her manner was not that of a monarch, or a conqueror. It was the manner of a loving mother comforting her son. "It's OK for friends and family to fight," she said, calmly and in a soothing voice. "Luna and I don't always get along. But as long as you make up for your mistakes, it will all turn out fine in the end." She then paused. "After all, I have watched you for longer than you know, and all from your world. But you and your friends are blessed."
"How?" Tom asked.
"Because you know we are real. So many dismiss us as figments of fiction, or of sad man in basements, but you know the truth of Equestria's existence. And you are a noble, brave, and upright soul. One who would fight for his friends to the bitter end, and as such you are always welcome in Equestria."
Tom sighed, as Celestia released him. "Thank you, Celestia. I needed that. I need to reconcile with Jimmy."
Celestia smiled, and nodded as she got up and stepped toward the window. "I must return to Equestria now," she explained. "But I shall leave a journal by which we can communicate. Luna has already offered to swap with Jimmy every now and then, and I would be happy to do the same with you, or maybe visit every now and then. But until then, goodbye." In that instant, she began to glow, and faded from sight.
Tom fell back into his bed, exhausted. "Celestia... knows me?" he said quietly. "I wonder what that was all about."
Later in the morning, Tom awoke from his slumber and wandered over to the mirror, yawning. It was just like the shift in clocks that happened every year that annoyed him. His brain felt like it was partially jetlagged. He usually took it well, given he was used to it, having flown back and forth across the Atlantique (train joke) many times, he still felt oddly tired. So onwards he wandered, as his eyes darted back and forth, looking for something.
"Boy did I have a weird dream last night," he grumbled. "Being visited by one of the princesses? That's just absurd. It'd never happen."
Then he saw something that caught his attention. The journal he'd seen mentioned was there, as well as a small pendant with the emblem of the sun on it.
"So it was true," Tom said to himself. "I know what I must do now." After showering and getting dressed, he went outside his room, over to Jimmy's door, and knocked on it.
"Honestly, it's 7 in the morning, it's way too early!" Jimmy replied, as loud footsteps approached the door. The door swung open after the bolt disengaged, and there was Jimmy, looking like he had been dragged through a bush backwards. "It's not breakfast yet, and-"
"Sorry about what I said yesterday," Tom said abruptly.
"What?" Jimmy asked. "Sorry about what?"
Tom held up the sun journal and the pendant. "Celestia left me this. If Luna's coming to see you, Celestia must have been aware of our scuffle yesterday and chose to visit to help us fix the problem."
"Hey, we're friends. Of course I forgive you." There was another moment of silence. "Let me get showered and cleaned, and then I'll join you and the others in the lobby."
"Are you sure you don't need a haircut?" Tom asked.
"Men can have long hair too, you know!"
"Just a little less knotted up, I imagine," Tom replied as the door closed. "Heaven knows how he doesn't get it caught in anything." He headed off downstairs.
Today saw Tom avoiding a damaged jaw. Today saw a motion simulator combined with (you guessed it) screens. However, this was actually a good ride with screens. Somebody once told him the world was going to roll him, as he wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed.
But he had his friends, which mattered most to him. Tom was going to ride on Shrek 4-D. This attraction was based on the film that took the film scene, audiences, and the internet by storm with its parodies of fantasy films and memworthy content (as well a provision to hastily vacate boggy areas). However, it had replaced a much loved attraction, the only one that had worked on opening day in 1987, Alfred Hitchcock: the Art of Making Movies.
As Tom joined the queue, he could've sworn he heard very aggressive playing of stringed instruments in discordant octaves and notes. But he dismissed it as interference on the speakers, as they got hearded into the pre-show room. He remembered this from when he wore a younger man's clothes, and that it was seriously funny.
As the Magic Mirror began to speak and tell the story of Shrek to those very few that had never seen the film, Tom soon felt off, and glanced about to try and ascertain the cause of his troubles. "Oh, not again! In a preshow of all places!"
His height began to decrease quite noticably, and as he lost height, something that had never been observed before started. His clothing changed with it. His blue shirt shrank onto his body, staying in roughly the same design, but changed colour to cream, followed by a brown hoodie appearing on top of that said shirt with something blocky in the pocket. The hood was, of course, in the down position, so he could see where he was going, but he felt at his face as he felt it begin to shift. Though, oddly, it didn't seem to be moving into a feminine shape. It was younger, yes, but most certainly male.
His brown eyes turned an orangey tone, whilst his brown hair turned alternating shades of chocolate brown (thus, a noticably brighter shade). Not that he could see this of course, but he could feel the fact it was decidedly NOT growing longer, firmly locked in a boy's haircut. His body finished decreasing in size, and his pants changed to blue, otherwise not changing at all. To round off, his now tiny shoes changed to a pair of red and white sneakers, held in place with white laces.
The lights came up, and Tom glanced in the mirror, to see he now had greyish skin in addition to everything else. Then a critical clue as to who he was appeared on his head. A beanie cap in alternating shades of red, yellow, and orange, and a perpetually spinning propellor despite a lack of wind or power source.
"WAIT, WHAT?"
The ride was just as amusing as he (you know what, let's call him Button from now on) recalled it. The basic story concerned Shrek trying to save Fiona from the ghost of Lord Ffarquhar, who had died at the end of the first film, and the various shenanigans he went through on the way. The plot was thin, but the special effects more than made up for it. Though the spiders could have been cut quite easily. Air jets are weird.
Once it was over, Button strolled outdoors and looked about. "So, I'm still male, which is a relief. I've still got that. Wouldn't want to steal Jimmy's thunder, after all. Just what's the bet this curse will try to ship me with Kat again?" He sighed as he produced his JoyBoy from his pocket and began to play.
After a few minutes, he decided to walk elsewhere. He found himself strolling for the edge of the park, when suddenly, a familiar voice attracted his attention. "Button! Over here!"
Button's head snapped over, to see-
"Sweetie Belle!"
There she was, the love of his life, sitting there with an ice cream and a massive grin on her face. "Come on! Don't you wanna chat?"
"Just a second, let me get an ice cream!" Button replied, buying a chocolate one with the coins that had magically materialised in his pocket. His ice cream procured, he went and sat down with his girlfriend. "So, how's it going?"
"It's been awesome!" Sweetie Belle replied, her voice cracking a fair bit. "I was in Islands of Adventure, and amongst other things I went to the stunt show! It was great!"
"You aren't referring to the Eighth Voyage of Sinbad, are you?" Button asked, confused, licking his ice cream. "AHHHHH! Brain freeze!"
"Stick your tongue on the roof of your mouth." Sweetie Belle rolled her eyes. "Anyways, I am. Why?"
"That closed last year."
Sweetie Belle just looked confused. "Then... what did I go on? Is this the Twilight Zone?"
"Hello there!" said Twilight, sitting down next to them.
Breakfast, as usual in the place where they stayed, was a somewhat mundane affair, cosnsiting of the usual food items that they liked to eat. Katrina sat opposite John, who seemed to be looking mostly at the ceiling. "Is something wrong?" she asked.
"Yes," John grunted. "There's only one day left after this, and our trip is over. And I've enjoyed it."
"Haven't we all?" Steph asked, reaching for the syrup bottle. "Hmmmm. Needs more butter."
"I have!" Jimmy said, briefly becoming airborne in his chair. "I got to add loads new characters to my collection!"
"You've been writing down everybody you've been?" Ink asked, incredulously. "Why?"
"I keep a record to try and establish if there's a pattern," Katrina said.
"Is there a pattern?"
"Apart from it being exclusively female characters, none." The bespectacled Kansasite glanced back at her plate. "Which is something of a relief, to be honest..."
"Ah, that..." Tom inferred, saying the only words he had said that entire conversation.
"But, for me, it means returning to my normal, old, boring life," John finished. "And I'm not hugely well off, you know. Life gets quite tough at times, with (for instance) me having to choose between fuel or food."
"I live in a place with good public transport," Steph chimed in, only to see everybody look at her. "What?"
"Not helping," Ink said, putting his hand around John's shoulders. "If ever you need any help with anything, drop me a line."
"And I'm only a few hours away by train, after all," Tom added. "If you ever need me to help with something, just tell me."
"Thank, guys. Just why are you all so nice?"
"Do friends need a reason to do nice things for one another?" Jimmy smiled.
Suddenly, a clock buzzed. "Yikes! We need to get into the park!" Katrina said suddenly, jumping out of her chair and heading for the lobby. "ONWARDS TO ADVENTURE!"
Jimmy elbowed Tom. "I think it's already started. Just I wonder who has that catchphrase?"
Compared to how lethargic she was some days, Katrina felt really full of energy today, whizzing along the pathways with quite a lot of speed and a bouncy spring in her step, rather like that Crystal Prep girl a few days ago. Turning a few corners and wandering through City Walk for a change of geography, she noticed the place had a fair few restaurants that could serve nicely for their final meal tomorrow. She made a mental note to recall their locations, and tell the others of these findings, so they could all have a nice place to celebrate their first ever transformation trip together. She finished her way through City Walk, and entered Islands of Adventure after crossing a short bridge. Now then, what was she looking for? Oh, yes, she was meant to be looking for a stunt show, and then finding her pur-
She shook her head. There were unwanted thoughts in there, unwanted thoughts that she wanted gone as you'd expect for somebody like her. She already knew her life's purpose; be a decent person. She walked onwards, glancing about for any signs of what she was looking for. It took many minutes of walking together before suddenly-
-nothing happened. I've already made this joke, haven't I?
Anyhoozle, Katrina went onwards and onwards, until the very moment it happened. Somebody's foot caught her own, and she went flying forward and landed on the ground. This was extremely lucky, as otherwise she might have floated away.
"heEY!" She said. "Watch where you're going!"
This soon proved to be a cause of alarm. Her voice was too high in pitch, and kept on going up and up until she was certain only dogs would be able to understand her.
"Oh no!" she exclaimed, as her glasses started sliding off her face. "Not here! I need to hide!"
She sped off, as quickly as speed demanded, and the speed of one thousand thundering gazelles, which is a silly simile, if you think about it, as one thousand gazelles running together would all run at the exact same speed, thereby making this comparison nonsense. The matters were also not helped by the fact the distance to the nearest washrooms seemed to be getting bigger, not smaller, and everything seemed larger than it had been a few seconds ago. This was a critical clue as to who the next character was.
"Not another pre-teen!"
She finally reached her destination, now having the stature of a twelve year old, her clothes being a bit too big for her, and crashed into a stall, slamming it shut seconds before her hair started growing. Turning to the mirror, Katrina got a full spectator view of what was going on. She was absolutely tiny now, and huge locks of pink and purple hair cascaded down her back and over her shoulders. White pigmentation had mostly replaced her previously tan skin, and her eyes were now green. As she continued to look on in a mixture of curiosity and confusion, she grimaced as her hips suddenly popped inwards and her breasts shrank, until she was as flat as a board.
"This is so not fun," she groaned, remembering the last time this sort of thing had happened. Cozy Glow.
Her body seemed to have concluded its various shenanigans, and her clothes suddenly came to life. Her shoes changed into boots and began to grow up her legs, turning pink in the process, and were soon threaded with yellow straps held in place with silver buckles as they terminated just below her knees. Her shorts merged together into a skirt, having shrunken onto her much smaller body by this point, and the garment turned yellow as the zip and buttons vanished. The skirt grew longer until it dropped to her knees. Katrina couldnt deny how weird it felt to suddenly be in a skirt.
Her T shirt turned pink and white, threaded with the two colours in an alternating pattern, and a pink jacket soon appeared on top of her shirt, held in place with a belt with another silver buckle. A hairband later, and it was complete.
It took one glance to establish which character this was.
"OH COME ON!"
Sweetie Belle strolled out of the bathroom, trying to make up for her day being sent weird by suddenly being a preteen girl who was vertically challenged. She finally reached her destination.
The Eighth Voyage of Sinbad, a stunt show so famously bad it was hilarious. Now in The Lost Continent, not too far from where John had been yesterday with the vastly superior Poseidon's Fury, she entered into the theatre and took a seat.
They had been right. It was incredibly boring, apart from when it was funny for all the wrong reasons.
Now here she was, with Button Mash, and Twilight, eating an ice cream and being very confused indeed. "Can somebody explain how I went to something that's shut?" she asked.
"Perhaps all the parallel characters are causing time rifts!" Twilight exclaimed, pushing her glasses back up her face as they were constantly falling off. "THIS IS SO FASCINATING!"
"Parallel whats?"
"Basically, some of the people in the park are multiple forms of people who have coexisted. See Sandbar over there?"
Button Mash and Sweetie Belle both looked over and nodded.
"He is an instance of Tom Haddington, as was the Ocellus we saw a few days ago. They are existing at the same time, which is quite confusing when you think about it, and maybe it's causing all sorts of weird things to happen, like closed rides reappearing!"
"Shame it was that stunt show and not Jaws," Button grumbled. He finished his ice cream, and got up. "Wanna go into the park again, Sweetie Belle?"
"Sure!" Sweetie Belle squeaked, and the pair set off.
The waterfront in the main park was as stunning as ever. The two stood there, smiling, as they watched others having fun, just soaking up the atmosphere.
"Hey, uh, Sweetie Belle, there's something I wanted to say."
"Sure!"
"Can I hold your hand? With your permission, of course."
Sweetie Belle paused for a second, and then nodded, taking Button's hand. The pair stood there for another few moments, before a crowd speaking startled them.
"More Equestria Girls characters! I told you Universal has the liscence for them!"
"Oh boy," Button mumbled. Then he remembered something. "Hey guys!" he called. "Nice of all of you to come out here today! Now, uh, Sweetie Belle and I are, um, gonna do something cool!"
"What?"
Button hit play, and a very familiar track to SweetieMash fans began to play.
"Got my sword with Sharpness II. Look, that Zombie's got one too! (What?!) Out of bread, what do I do? I'm low on hearts, this is my doom.
"I don't even have a tool. Come on Button/Sweetie, play it cool. Though I'm here to fight for you I'm biting more than I can chew. My life passes by through that Ender Eye I'm scared. Oh well. And I'm pretty sure there's a big Creeper right there! ... Oh Dang.
"Don't mine at night! I know you're lookin' at that cave And you're feelin' kinda brave Go to bed you'll be alright Don't mine at night! Don't go deeper, make a change. Get that gold and get away, Zombies wanna' eat our brains (Wait, what?). Don't mine at night. I'll fight away the skeletons While you're looking for diamonds They're getting closer, better run. Don't mine at night. No, this won't be our final day. Take my hand we'll find a way- ay a- woah- oh. Don't mine at night.
"I turn a sec, you're getting shot. Then jump through a portal, well, why not?! When I think it can't get worse An Ender herd shows up, of course! Now you say you need Glowstone, And want to mine it on your own. Then to save you from the lava I fall in, I should have known. This is the last time I try to be your light. I failed. So bad. I lost all my stuff It was really tough That's it! Rage quit!
"Don't mine at night. I know you're lookin' at that cave And you're feelin' kinda brave. Go to bed you'll be alright. Don't mine at night. Don't go deeper, make a change. Get that gold and get away, Zombies wanna' eat your brains. Don't mine at night. Please don't get caught by skeletons while you're looking for diamonds. They're getting closer, better run. Don't mine at night. No, this won't be your final day Hold on tight I'm on my way- ay a- woah- oh. Don't mine at night!"
Such was the astonishment of the crowd that they applauded, and an impromptu meet and greet was done with the pair (even if some people struggled to recognise Button Mash, which he found annoying).
"That was something," said one visitor as he walked toward another section of the park. "The voice coaching is amazing. That girl playing Sweetie Belle looked and sounded just like her!"
Sweetie Belle looked at Button. "When are they going to click this isn't makeup?"
"Hey, little bro! Having fun with your girlfriend?"
At the same time as Button and Sweetie Belle were busy doing their own things in the park of Orlando, Ink was going to his next ride in Islands of Adventure. At the same time as Button and Sweetie Belle were busy doing their own things in the park of Orlando, Ink was going to his next ride in Islands of Adventure. At the same time as Button and Sweetie Belle were busy doing their own things in the park of Orlando, Ink was going to his next ride in Islands of Adventure. At the same time as Button and Sweetie Belle were busy doing their own things in the park of Orlando, Ink was going to his next ride in Islands of Adventure. At the same time-
Oh, not again. PostCrush, STOP IT!
"Oh. Sorry."
You'd better be. And take off those hideous costumes. You look like you escaped from somewhere.
"We perform in these!"
Then the performing industry has hit a new low.
Where was I?
Oh, of course, I remember! I remember where I was, which was where I was and currently am! Ink was proudly strolling through towards the Landing of Seuss, where we have already been a few times (and not as a result of Starlight Glimmer clones or singers.
"Nay, but they are not singers."
They- They're not singers?
"Nay, musicians."
Ah. Well, thanks for the clarification. Now could you loosen the ropes a bit? It does make it hard to write.
"Yes, of course."
Thanks. Anyways, Ink was on his way, through the main gate and under the archway which beckoned him into the park with dramaticness of music.
"Hmmm," he thought. "The music's a bit much." He flicked through the options in his phone and turned the music off. Then he went onward with his travels towards his destination, which was where he was going. Such is the purpose of a destination, after all.
After a while of walking in the plaza, and judiciously, avoiding partaking of the finest of tacos (made of fish, from the same stall as the first night, which, curiously, was now in a different park), he headed onwards into the park when a familiar face so fine joined him.
"Hello!" John said. "How are you doing, Ink?"
"I'm OK," he said. "Do you ever get the impression that time is repeating itself for us?"
"No," John replied. "No two days are alike." Then, without missing a beat; "How are you doing, Ink?"
"Now you're just messing with me," Ink sighed. "Why does this whole time thing feel familiar? It's like Groundhog Day."
"Sorry?"
"It's like Groundhog Day."
"Sorry?"
"It's like Groundhog Day."
"Sorry?"
"It's like Groundhog Day."
"Sorry?"
"Now you ARE messing with me," Ink said, as they walked out of the Port of Entry, and finally arrived in Seuss Landing, leaning against a tree that was still bent to an odd shape from a storm a while back. It fitted into the theming quite nicely, he thought, though who he is is unclear at this moment in the time and scheme of things. Oh well. It never helped to be confused. Oh yes, Ink was thinking.
"Well, this place is nice and all, but these weird instances happening to us are a little confusing."
"That's an understatement," John said. "I did not enjoy being turned into Sugar Belle, for one."
"She's never been in Equestria Girls!" Ink exclaimed. "So how is that possible?"
"Tom suggests magic," John sighed. "And I have reason to believe him. He, after all, has more experience in this than I do, and thus is something of an expert in this."
"You're either an expert or you're not," Ink sighed. "Saying you're 'something of an expert' is tortological."
"So you say," John added, leaning on another tree. "Well then, I suggest we proceed to our rides. I'm going in circles."
"So am I," Ink said. "The lack of straight lines here is maddening. Oh well, off I go (donkey riding, possibly not, but maybe, this is Seuss, after all)."
"Cheerio!" John called, and walked away with hasty. But on the other hand, Ink had no real desire to walk anywhere with hasty, given he had to observe isotop which had not half life but quarter life. And so Ink walked with slowness to where he was next to go.
Anyways, this hair not only fell into a fringe on his face, but also down the back of his neck and past his shoulders, terminating somewhere around his upper back. Not long after that, his face set about rearranging itself into the form of Sunset Shimmer. The sensation of bones sliding about and reforming was no longer as bizarre as it used to be, but it still was a bit weird, especially how weird it looked at the end. Light blue eyes appeared in his... eyes, and his skin proceeded to turn orange in shade. After that, his shoulders began to slide inwards as his height decreased from its usual parameters to a very low set, and his chest pushed forward into two breasts, as it the norm. His waist narrowed briefly as his hips popped outwards, and two bits got pulled inwards in the process, replaced by something else inside. His height now done with decreasing, it was followed pretty promptly by her clothes changing. A tie vanished into oblivion (hello, Dovakhiin!), and her shirt reformed into a yellow and orange top that had the texture of cracked paint. Her work jacket became something more akin to a biker jacket, with a zip in place of buttons and two chevrons on the arms. Her pants became much tighter on her body (partly a side effect of shrinking), turned purple, lost their zip and buttons, and pockets for that matter, and gained an emblem of the sun on them (though, thankfully, not on the back). Finally, her immaculate shoes became a pair of boots with purple bodywork, orange bases, and yellow laces. Quite a fiery ensemble, if I say so myself.
Sunset quickly bent down and picked up a strange object somebody had left behind. It was a golden object with an image of a purple sky, with three golden stars set into it. "Well, whoever left this lying around was careless." She put it into her jacket to keep it safe, unaware it was glowing as she got on the ride.
Her phone buzzed with a text as the ride got moving.
Hey Sunny Bun, I'm off to the other park now. See you!
From Gibson.
Sunset smiled. He sure was a nice guy. The trolley was incredibly mundane, going through a shop, a building, and over parts of the park until it got back to the station. This was where things go weird.
Sunset's phone went again as the ride abruptly restarted. She checked it again.
Hey Sunny Bun, I'm off to the other park now. See you!
From Gibson.
"That message was sent 3 minutes ago," Sunset said. "So how is it just coming in again?" Then she realised what was going on.
Gibson had somehow teleported to Universal Studios (the main park, not the Islands of Adventure bit). Gibson had some walking on to do to get to his destination, when he, in all his wisdom, suddenly spotted a pair of people he knew very well. One was easily identifiable by his spinning propellor had, as only one person actually owned a hat like it. The other person was easy to identify on the grounds of being female, and he only had a brother (who sometimes acted like a girl, but that's besides the point), and had candyfloss hair in a messy haircut that fell randomly down her back and shoulders.
"Hey, little bro!" Gibson called, strolling over to Button. "Having fun with your girlfriend?"
Button jumped at hearing his brother's voice, as did Sweetie Belle, but then regained his composure and proceeded to facepalm. "Ah dang."
"Don't mine at night?" Gibson laughed, his British accent a sharp contrast to Button's American one. "Other park guests were talking about you two, saying you were costumed characters. Something about Universal having got the lisence to use Equestria Girls characters."
"Are you suggesting we aren't real?" Sweetie Belle asked. "Because if we aren't, I'll probably have a severe existential crisis."
"Have you seen any wierd stuff going on in the parks apart from us turning up?" Button asked, as he reassuringly put his arm around his girlfriend. "Don't you worry, Sweetie Belle. We are real, and I know it."
Just then, Gibson's phone went. "Hello, what's this?" he asked, as he checked it. There were three messages from Sunset.
11:22
Help! I'm caught in a time loop!
Then at 11:24, the same message.
Help! I'm caught in a time loop!
At at 11:26 too.
Help! I'm caught in a time loop!
Just as the clock hit 11:28, his phone beeped, and there it was again.
Help! I'm caught in a time loop!
"Looks like Sunset's got herself into a spot of bother," Gibson sighed. "How about we go sit somewhere? Fancy an ice cream?"
"No thanks!" Sweetie Belle said. "If we had any more, Button would be bouncing of the sky!"
"Hey! I'm not that hyper!"
Eventually, they found a place to sit, and the trio sat down whilst Gibson suddenly stood up again, went and bought an ice cream, and then sat back down again, licking it. "Exactly what you need on a day like this."
"And when I see your face-"
"Sorry, that's my ringtone," Button interrupted, and checked it. "Who's Suri?"
"Let me guess," Gibson smiled, now in full teasing mode. "You set that because of Sweetie Belle."
Button's face could be mistaken for a pair of beetroots. "Please, just... stop."
"How exactly did you get here, Gibson?" Sweetie Belle asked, having temporarily engaged the mode young children have access to called 'cuteness overload'.
"Well, it's quite interesting, rea-"
"And when I see your face-"
"SHUT UP!" Button exclaimed, in exasperation. He then put it to silent. "This guy or girl sure is persistent."
"ANYWAYS, the story's quite interesting. I'll be very happy to tell you both how I ended up here..."
Some time earlier in the day, around the same time as the last chapter...
Having been into Seuss Landing on three occasions in the last three days (or about one a day), John was somewhat getting used to the zaniness of the world that Dr Seuss had created. I say somewhat, because some aspects of his work were simply too terrifying to comprehend, like the walkaround Cat in the Hat who looked like some science experiment gone horribly wrong. It was no wonder that the crowd parted like the Red Sea whenever he was seen, and as such John headed away from that creation as fast as he could.
"BUT WE CAN'T JUST GET RID OF IT! IT'S A BEAST VERSION OF THE CAT!"
John had no idea what that person was on about, and simply went away to his next attraction, just as a girl with a magic mirror was commanding it to make annoying people go away. Somehow, John had seen news pertaining to her somewhere. Maybe it was last year, that hotel thing he'd seen. He'd ask Tom or Jimmy about it when he got the chance, but now was not the time to take such a chance. He had left Ink at the entrance to the flying trolley or whatever it was called, and was off to ride something else entirely, as you would expect of a person in a theme park. People seldom go to theme parks to do nothing, unless of course they are a party pooper who wants to ruin everybody's fun. Those sorts of people are silly and should not be allowed. John dismissed such silly people from his mind almost immediately, and got on his way to his intended destination.
Caro-Seuss-El (yes, the pun is terrible. Get used to it). This was one of the wackier ideas for this section of the park, which is saying something really, and at first glance seemed like a normal carousel. But, it had a trick. The different bits of the ridable animals moved based on inputs the riders made, so John was keen to experiment with the experimental experimentations of the ride. So, he took to el queue, only to establish to himself that something was wrong. His footwear was somehow squishier than normal, and upon glancing at it noticed it was now alternating red and white.
"Here we go again."
His jeans remained as normal, but were somehow slightly dirtier, as if they had oil and grease stains on them. His shirt was similar, but now yellow, with a spanner sitting on a belt hanging off them, like he was suddenly an engineer.
"This is odd. Who is this character, even?"
His normally pristine, brown hair was suddenly a messy mass that went everywhere, and looked as though somebody had spilled key lime pie on it. His eyes glowed orange (or was it glew orange? One of the two), and his skin changed to be a tone of either cream or yellow.
"Well, that was the fastest one yet. But who is this?"
John figured he could figure it out when he was off the ride, so he hopped on.
The present day...
"Yeah, nothing to write home about."
"You seem to have become quite blase about this," Button sighed, looking about.
"Well, you two are used to it, aren't you?" Gibson smiled. "I don't see you two freaking out."
"Touche."
"Should we perhaps find out how to get Sunset out of the time loop? She seems stuck."
Gibson's phone beeped for the 20th time as yet another of Sunset's texts looped back through the system. "I suppose we should. And Button?"
"Yeah?"
"I think I know who Suri might be. Back in the day, I dated a dressmaker who was completely nuts..."
Night 5: THIS RIDE MAKES ME FEEL LIKE A DAREDEVIL!
Oh not this again. Whomever is looping my time display can they please stop? It's not helping in the slightest. Whomever is looping my time display can they please stop? It's not helping in the slightest. Whomever is looping my time display can they please stop? It's not helping in the slightest. Whomever is looping my time display can they please stop? It's not helping in the slightest. Whomever is looping my time display can they please stop? It's not helping in the slightest.
This joke has gotten old. Can we actually move on to the story? Very good.
At the same as Sunset was caught in a time loop, and the others were all over the place, Steph was, once more, in another part of the park. To be precise, she had returned to Toon Lagoon, despite not having been there before on this trip, and this meant that she was intending to ride something, as you would indeed expect.
And now that we've had Dudley Do-Right and Popeye in this tail, how about we add the one with whom it all started?
That's right, Woody Woodpecker! In many ways a follow up to the Loony Tunes (who keep breaking their merry go round), he is a woodpecker with a hyper laugh and equally erratic behaviour, having drunken WAY too much coffee. Or are they naturally hyper? I really don't know enough Woodpeckers to judge. How talkative are they?
Anyways, it was obvious that Woody Woodpecker deserved a place in the park, and so he got said place in Toon Lagoon. And so it was that Steph went to ride Woody Woodpecker's Nuthouse Coaster, a rollercoaster themed around Woody's nut factory.
"You got a friend in me-"
Wheezy, how did you get into this story?
"How did Equestria Girls characters end up in a story about a theme park?"
Because it's a TF story. Remember that, it's important later. It explains a few things, you see, and things that you see are often ones that need to be explained, especially in long monologues. Long, rambling monologues.
Anyways, Steph had arrived outside the ride, soaking up the atmosphere of a cartoon landscape, which was not anything to do with Who Framed Roger Rabbit, which is a shame as he would've fitted in perfectly here. As she sat outside and prepared to get her Express ticket ready to go, a voice suddenly greeted her.
"Hey, I think I know you."
The person speaking sounded incredibly bored and apathetic, a point which suddenly made sense as they approached. She had pale skin and dark blue, raven hair, and industrial quantities of purple eyeliner on over orange eyes. She wore a black dress with grey tights and grey boots, and wore dark jewellery. "Yes, I remember. Men in Black: Alien Attack?"
"Oh, you're the goth girl I met," Steph said. "Admittedly, I was Autumn at the time, but- oh wow, this is so crazy! Maybe we are all just something together and time can manifest itself as multiple records of itself- quick, write that down, that idea is so amazing, do you think it'll get me the Pullitzer Prize?"
"I don't know," Moonlight answered, her complete disinterest a marked contrast to Steph's enthusiasm. "Should we ride something? It beats just standing about in the sun with nothing to do."
"Oh, of course!" Steph grinned, smiling like an incredibly cheerful person would. "Let's join the queue for Woody Woodpecker's Nuthouse Coaster!"
The queue line was nothing to write home about, but it is of relevance to us because of the fact that it contains something very important to us as writers. Steph strolled through on the slightly faster line as Moonlight followed behind her, still not showing much variation in emotion.
"So, why do you wear all black?" Steph asked.
"Because it reflects the darkness in my soul," Moonlight replied. "It's also why I shop at Hot Topic."
"You remind me of somebody else I met once," Steph replied, somehow unaware of the fact her skin was now pink, making her look sunburned (although she, being sensible, had remembered to wear some very strong sunblock that morning to avoid injury). "Darkness I think her name was? She said she went to a school in England with pigs in the title. Oh, wait, Hogwarts! That's what it is!"
"Hogwarts is in Scotland," Moonlight replied. "What's up with your hair?"
"My hair?" Steph asked, moving her hands back to feel it. "There's nothing wrong with my-"
She stopped as she brushed it forward. Where blonde locks should have been, only a mass of yellow in light and darker shades came forward into her eyes.
"-hair. Oh, here I go again!"
Her eyes were suddenly swapped for lime green ones, and as she continued to walk her personality got increasingly bouncy and hyper. Her height dropped slightly, but other than that little else happened. Now it was time for her clothes to join in on the fun. Her shoes changed to be lime green in shade with yellow highlights, followed soon after by her pants becoming dark blue, and noticably tighter on her body. There was, mercifully, still a zip and button there, and her shirt, for the fifth time that trip, shrank onto her body and turned white, with a rather odd black cardigan appearing on top of that.
"Wow. That was, like, so weird, Sunshine."
"I know!" Sunshine Smiles replied, bouncing up and down erratically, looking like she would smash through the ceiling with all that constant bouncing up and down. "Shall we go ride? I'm so excited!"
"I am, even if I don't look it. Let's go."
The queue was oddly empty, so the two sisters got a front row seat. After pulling down the lap bar, the ride left the station and rolled around a bend, before starting the first lift hill.
"Did you know that this is the oldest rollercoaster in the park?" Sunshine asked.
"No, I did not."
After climbing the hill, it then went into a curved drop, with Woody's famous laughter echoing all around. It then raced through several curves that were tilted, and up and down several drops.
"This ride makes me feel like a daredevil."
"And this ride makes me feel like a daredevil!"
Suddenly, they hit the brake run and came back into the station.
"Wait, that's it?"
Both girls, a little disappointed at how short the ride was, stopped off on a park bench.
"That could easily have been a lot longer!"
"It's a coaster for little kids, what were you expecting? Loch Ness Monster?"
"Eh, that true. But we should go shopping for clothes at some point. They've got some amazing T shirts!"
"This had better not be like that time you insisted on trying on all the dresses until you found the one that made you 'feel like a princess'."
"Well, one of them did! I've still got it, remember? You know, the blue and turquoise one with the pink ruffles?"
"Oh. That one."
"Are you two needing fashion advice?" asked a voice.
Both girls looked up. "AHHH! IT'S SURI POLOMARE! RUN!" Both girls vanished before anybody could say anything.
Suri sighed. "Geez Louise. I was only gonna reccommend some shopping to them."
As you probably saw being hinted at in the previous chapter, a certain fashion designer with a reputation for intellectual property theft has just appeared on the scene. This is of grave concern to anybody trialling new fabrics and fashion lines, given her propensity to simply nick them and pass them off as her own. Yeah, it didn't really go down well in Manhattan, to say the least.
But, alas, this Suri was not originally Suri, nor did they have a surname that was a pun. No, it is the enemy-
What did I tell you about messing with my keyboard, Boreale?
"WE HAVE FEHLED!"
That you most certainly have. Now go away!
Anyways, where was I? Ah, yes I think I remember. To make sense of this bit of the story, we will need to go back in time a short while, back to a time ten minutes before I started this chapter and wrote a lot of words indeed.
Quite a while ago...
Tom and Jimmy were about to enter Universal Studios Florida, the main park, and were busy chatting with one another, smiling and joking and laughing as if yesterday's conversation had never happened. Jimmy, naturally, led the conversation.
"So, who do you think we'll be today?"
"I hope I get a male one," Tom said. "Now, I've not got a problem with male to female, it just gets a bit dull going from male to female endlessly, and by logical extension, back again. Not to mention painful," he added, looking down.
"You kidding?" Jimmy snorted. "That's boring! Male to male is so dull! That's probably why I only get female ones."
"So you enjoy losing your junk week after week?" Tom asked, incredulously. "That, if anything, is just weird. Besides, a mix of both makes it more interesting."
"Well, Katrina and Steph only seem to become female characters..."
"That's probably because they're both female!" Tom countered. "Female to male is so problematic, if you know what I mean."
"Say no more," Jimmy sighed. "I've noticed their have been two Rarities so far. Never before have we seen two different versions of the same person in the same holiday."
"But the result of separate people," Tom pointed out. "Besides, keep in mind that the outfits were the only thing different. The people were the same. Even if I do prefer the older wardrobe of the Rainbooms to the ones they introduced in the Digital Series."
"If it's a separate outfit, I list it separately. Besides, the two dresses for Cinderella-"
"-Belonged to two completely different people. The two films do not take place in the same universe, and therefore Cinderella is not the same person in both films. But whatever works for you. With the whole Rarity thing, where exactly were you going with that image?"
Jimmy's face lit up like a lightbulb. "Of course! I'm glad you asked. Maybe one of us will get Suri Polomare."
Tom reacted badly to that. "Bleagh! Who'd want to end up as that thief? I swear she breaches most employment laws. She's worse than Vivienne Westwood in that regard. Poor Miss Po-"
"COCO POMMEL!" Jimmy screamed to the heavens. "IT'S COCO POMMEL! MISS IS NOT A NAME! COCO IS!"
"Alright mate, calm down, I was only being polite," Tom said. "Besides, she treats her employees really badly. No wonder Coco went to work for Rarity."
"But Katrina was Suri and-"
"Depends on the person. Kat's positive aspects were combined with Suri's ability to give anybody a right bellowing. Was she demanding coffee by any chance?"
"No, but I could do with one," Jimmy snorted. He had, of course, forgotten that the last time he had ended up as Suri, it had been the definition of horror. "Anyways, I need to head to my ride. See you!"
"Sure thing, whomever you may be this evening," Tom answered, and headed off towards a selection of screens. Jimmy, on the other hand, didn't even notice that he'd trodden on a glowing button sitting on the ground, which released blue energy as it crumbled under his bootheels and destroyed them with their bolters.
BOREALE!
"It is the enemy-"
Shush. Or I'll put you in a metal box.
"METAL BOXES!"
Thank you, Mark Acheson. Now can I get on with my story?
"Yes, by all means."
Thank you. On with the story!
Jimmy the Hook went on his way, passing by the burrito stand that had been the cause of Ink's troubles a few weeks earlier. Or was it days? It most certainly felt like weeks to him, so he was confused as time appeared to be warping and bending all around. Jimmy could also attribute it to transformation fatigue. It seemed the more it happened in a row, the tireder (or is it more tired?) he got as it wore his body out repeatedly. He could only fear it would give him a shorter lifespan, but at the same time he secretly enjoyed it (something he would never admit to anybody or anything, for that matter). So, on he walked, having failed to see the button he had crushed underfoot. However, as he walked along, he soon became aware of his shoe feeling a bit off. He seemed to be bouncing up and down a fair bit as he walked, which would not normally happen with brown shoes he normally wore.
He looked down and soon saw the cause of the problem. The cause of the problem was his shoes were no longer shoes. They were now trainers with white bases, and a purple body and flap, held in place with purple and white laces, with the addition of white and black toecaps. These didn't look at all familiar, he thought.
"I'd better go hide," he said, and vanishificated as fast as he could. This was indeed a wize thing to do, as his normally loose fitting slacks had started to get tighter, shrinking onto his body and sliding a short ways up his body to just above his ankles. But there, they stopped. They didn't become a skirt or anything like that. They stayed as normal, zip, button, and all (although the button turned golden, and he nearly gained a very stylish belt, but did not gain said belt).
His shirt began to change, also, losing the collar it usually had, and turning purple its entire length, as a symbol of three buttons appeared at the bottom of said shirt. The material that had once constituted the collar floated into the air, stretching and reforming, the fabric reforming from harsh cotton to soft silk, and then floated back down, around his neck, and abruptly tied itself into a knot. A closer inspection revealed the garment to be a blue scarf with white lines running through it.
"Suri?" Jimmy ventured. "But this looks nothing like herAAAARGH!"
Jimmy's sudden reaction of pain was to his hair aggressively growing, as the root hair cells forced more and more hair onto his head. His hair flopped forward into a purple fringe and back into a rather large, stylised bun with several curled parts. A yellow hairband appeared to help hold the mess in place.
"Why does it always hurt with her?"
It got worse still, as his bones began to shorten, skin and muscle compressing and fat melting off of him until he was left with the figure of a teenage girl. His incredibly thin legs softened slightly, and his pants suddenly felt tight as his rear started to tingle, before it suddenly increased in size. This was joined by his hips widening and his manhood getting pulled into his groin, quickly being replaced by the female equivalent before she had any chance to register what was happening. Not long after, her clothes increased in size to accomodate for the changes, which moved forward as her shoulders snapped inwards and her chest started to tingle oddly, the skin under her nipples suddenly getting much softer. She looked down and groaned as her chest began to grow in size, swelling into a pair of breasts. Whilst outwardly unpleasant, Jimmy found the experience oddly enjoyable. Her skin turned a very light pink, and she gained ochre eyes to replace the blue ones.
With that, it seemed to be over. Jimmy looked herself over. "Polomare," she said. And then she started laughing. "You're Suri-ous?"
Suri had a wild experience on the Minion Mayhem. Despite it being another ride dominated by screens, it proved to be a surprisingly fun ride thanks to the motion simulator elements. However, her true moment to shine came when she walked by a clothing store, selling T shirts and the like.
Suddenly, somebody began snapping pictures of some of the items on sale, taking great care to photograph the patterns and designs on them. It all looked very suspicious, and Suri thought it was odd.
"Why are you taking pictures of the stuff?" she asked, as innocently as she could.
The person's behaviour was very odd. "I, err, erm, want to sent them to my, erm... cousin, as she would like some and I wanted her to tell me, aheam, what type she wanted!"
"If your cousin is female, why on Earth are you photographing the male ones? Those shirts are for men."
The odd person had no answer, and suddenly hurried off, only to be intercepted by security. "We've caught the counterfeight T shirt man!" said one.
Suri smiled to herself, and then took her phone out. She needed to call Tom, but she could also check in with Steph at the same time. Just why wasn't Tom answering any of her calls?
Day six of the Great Universal Expedition TM finally dawned, and the sun opened his sleepy eye upon the world. As this act awoke the residents asleep in the Hard Rock Hotel, Katrina climbed out of her bed and adjusted the curtains, to be blinded by the amount of bright light.
"Ahh!" she cried, stepping backwards as she did so. "Please turn the brightness settings down!"
The brightness of the sun was an odd one. Normally, last days somewhere were meant to be dark and gloomy, and pathetic fallacy was wherever you went. But not here. Their last day had some of the most glorious weather yet, reminding her of that last day at Disney. The trip that had changed her life in more ways than one, if the fact that Sweetie Belle's jacket was still lying on the floor next to her usual garments was any indicator. Not that it would fit anyways, being designed for a twelve year old and not a woman on the cusp of her twenties.
"At least this time I knew it was coming," she added to herself, when her phone abruptly went off. She picked it up to answer it.
"Hey big sis! How are you?"
Katrina smiled. It was Annabelle, her little sister, who, like her parents, was conspicously unaware of her affliction. When she had last visited them and the WDW incident had been referenced on the news, she'd passed it off as marketing for a film. "And good morning to you! How are you?"
"Pretty tired. Things have been a bit crazy back in Kansas with all the random weather."
"Well, that's one of the perils of living in the Random Weather State."
"And it's foggy right now. I've asked the man upstairs to adjust the detail slider, but our visibility is still restricted at the moment."
"Anna! Time for breakfast! You can finish talking to your sister later!" called a voice.
"Sorry, gotta go! See ya!"
"Catch you later!" Katrina replied, and ended the call. Annabelle had wanted to come with them, but the lack of people in her age group had been a deciding factor in her parents saying no. No no no no no no.
Oh mamma mia, mamma mia.
Mamma mia let me go!
That, and the only person remotely approaching her age group that she knew from her friend circle was Rebecca, Tom's younger sister, and she was still in Britain as term had resumed and was readying for her GCSEs in a year's time. She decided, rather than just stand about in here and muse to herself, that she should probably get ready, although she was a bit more sluggish than previous days, endlessly transformations and early mornings wearing her down somewhat. Generally, when home, the TF sprees stopped, though whether this would hold true was not clear, as Jimmy's seemed to be endlessly changing and developing, what with the duplicating characters and other whatnot. She went into the shower and locked the door, switching the shower on.
"Oh I do like to be beside the- YIKES! WHO TURNED THE HOT WATER PIPE OFF?"
Getting sprayed in the face with extremely cold water is never a fun experience, as Katrina could now tell you, although she had eventually got the hot water running, which was nothing short of a miracle. John had mentioned one place he had stayed where the Bed and Breakfast had advertised 'hot and cold running water', but somebody had crossed out the word 'and' and replaced it with 'or', on account of the fact the place had plumbing problems. Or that bedsit where wine had started flowing out of the taps. What weird times.
So, there they were, friends six, all sat around the table together once more, for the penultimate time. "Hey, this food's better than yesterday!" Ink said randomly, taking a bite out of a hash brown that looked rather more like a hash yellow.
"So, how's everybody for our last day in the parks?" Tom asked, glancing at his watch. "That's not good. I've been getting up later and later these last few weeks, apart from yesterday when I woke in the middle of the night."
"And got a visit from Celestia," Jimmy added.
"You did?" Steph exclaimed, her eyes wide in astonishment.
"Yes, I did," Tom replied. "Just like Jimmy gets visits from Luna."
"That must've been interesting," John said quietly, adjusting something on his plate.
"It was," Tom replied. "But it proves that Equestria is real."
"Dude, we always knew that."
"Quickly changing the subject," Katrina said suddenly, "I have a suggestion for where we could eat tonight. There's a nice pizza place in the Citywalk that looked good. I suggest we eat there tonight, as a way of remembering the trip."
"That sounds good to me," Ink smiled. "As nice as most theme park food is, Busch Gardens does the best."
"And that bratwurst I had in Epcot was one of the worst," Jimmy admitted. "Then again, I was one of PostCrush at the time."
"So that wasn't flawless, then," Katrina joked.
"Nope, it was a true original."
"Don't try their currywurst," Tom warned. "It's disgusting. And that's coming from a person who was born in Germany."
"Agreed," Steph said, as she got up from her seat, her plate empty and her stomach full. "Thanks for organising this, Tom. I feel like I could lift a house now!"
"Who knows? You could be Supergirl in disguise, for all we know. Just hopefully not Brightburn."
"Who?"
"Supervillain."
"Well, hopefully a superhero will stop him."
There was much agreement at that sentiment. And so, they returned their plates and food, and cups, and headed out into the grey day to see what they could see and do.
Once more, the team were somewhat scattered through the parks, but a few of them were near each other enough that they could feasibly stay in contact. Tom and Katrina, as per the old tradition, chose to head into the main Universal Studios park together, heading under the gates with the sun finally emerging from the clouds.
"So, apart from certain ongoing shenanigans, how has this trip been for you?" Tom asked.
"It sure has been fun, alright," Katrina smiled. "I've been able to catch up on some reading in the downtime, and of course keeping everything meticulously planned and organised."
"OK then, Twilight," Tom joked. "It's been nice to get away from my usual life and just relax a bit with my friends."
"I certainly needed that. It also lets me escape from the unwanted press attention." Katrina suddenly stopped, and leaned against a wall. "Urgh, that was some nasty indigestion."
Tom turned back to check if she was OK, and then pointed. "Lavender splotch on hand, spreading."
Katrina sighed. "Oh not again. Really, I've already been Sci-Twi!"
Sure enough, it started up once more for the final time that trip, as lavender pigment continued to spread across Katrina's body, though mostly invisible due to her attire of choice that day. Her eyes began to shift, and the world began to blur so much she could barely see a thing. She reached for her glasses (and not the stars) and removed them, to suddenly see her vision was back to normal. Or normal as it could be for a group used to metamorphosing on a regular basis.
"Definitely Twilight," Tom said. "Your eyes are now purple."
"You're not really helping- yikes, that feels weird." Katrina was referring to the fact her waist had narrowed slightly, and her limbs were starting to get shorter, her hands noticably smaller and her shoes and socks barely staying on due to her reduced feet. "Not as bad as last time, mind you, but-" There was another pop as her hips widened, before her hair flopped into her face in a mixture of dark blue, purple and pink, the latter two colours replacing the normal coloured streaks in her hair. The same colours tumbled down her back and hung partway down, bizarrely long and in obvious need of being tied in place, before her chest began tingling. Glancing down, her breasts grew slightly, before again stopping.
"Well that's never happened before."
Moments later, her clothing came to life, her normally brown shoes merging into odd shapes, with the laces vanishing into thin air and the tops growing until they reached her knees, which made walking seriously hard. Said boots turned pink, with white toecaps, purple bases, and white backing on the leg components over which sat purple crisscrossing laces. Her pants had, in the meantime, shrunk up her legs and terminated halfway up her thighs, before the legs merged into a skirt. Her shirt suddenly lost its sleeves and collar, which shrank into the garment, and the shirt attached itself to the skirt before it tightened around her chest to stay in place. From her waist down, the skirt suddenly poofed outwards like a layer cake. The middle of the bodice gained a purple stripe flanked by two white ones, with the middle layer of the skirt gained a white and purple line respectively. Three white stars appeared on the top layer of said skirt, whilst a white bow appeared around her waist.
Katrina, or should I say Princess Twilight, groaned. "Oh for the love of- I look like a funnel cake!"
Tom sighed. "I half imagined you weren't too keen on that particular outfit. I had a similar reaction when I first saw Equestria Girls."
Twilight tried to pull the skirt down, with minimal success. "This is way too short! I'll need to find something else later, but-"
Suddenly, she looked up. Where Revenge of the Mummy should have been, Kongfrontation was instead. "That wasn't there yesterday. This phenomena needs investigating right away!" She then sped off towards the queue line.
"Twilight, aren't you-!" Tom called. "Oh, never mind." He then headed toward Diagon Alley.
The queue line was very grubby, like an old New York subway before Rudy Giuliani had become mayor and cleaned the place up. After a long wait, as bemused visitors joined the lines of a long closed attraction, the aerial tram docked at the platform and they boarded, Twilight trying not to mess up her dress. As the train set off, a radio warning told riders they were being evacuated from King Kong's rampage, and that the Army was moving in to contain the problem. New York was in a state of dissaray. Streets were blocked, road vehicles were on fire, and several railway bridges had been flattened, with trains falling off them and through the ground below. The train rounded a bend and then, a panicked voice warned them.
There he was. King Kong. All 39 feet of him. Twilight started taking notes. "That is one impressive animatronic," she said. It suddenly swung at them, sending a chopper crashing into a building.
The tram then turned toward the island, the final destination, before the lights went out and the ride abruptly stopped. Kong was stuck in place, and the car swung helplessly in the darkness.
"Ladies and gentlemen, we do apologise for the delay. We are having technical problems and will get the ride moving again soon."
"Way to ruin the illusion," said somebody. "Oh well."
Before long, the lights came back on and the tram got back underway, almost reaching the island before Kong was there again, holding the tram in place with his hands and shaking it violently. It flew up and down.
"This is terrifying!" said somebody.
Twilight went green. "I'm gonna be sick."
But, the police opened fire on Kong, and the tram succesfully got away, and the passengers deboarded at Roosevelt Island. Twilight staggered down the stairway before she lost her lunch.
Twilight sat outside and glanced at the wall, not sure if she yet had her balance back. No sooner had she looked up, she saw Scootaloo running towards her "Hello, you two!" she said.
"Princess Twilight! We need your help!" Scootaloo cried. "She's gone mad!"
"Take me there! I hope nothing too bad is going on..."
Ink had, for some reason, chosen that instead of staying with his six fellow friends, he would instead go it alone as was his custom. Instead, he went into Islands of Adventure solo, given that the most of his typical interactions with other people were people who worked for his company, which was only a select few as the lowers downs rarely came to him with anything. Although he had enjoyed this time with his friends, there was a certain part of him that wanted to do things on his own. So that is precisely what he was doing whilst he was in this park. However, as he was walking around, he couldn't help but notice some very strange anomalies right out of a science fiction film.
When he consulted his park map, for instance, there were quite a few attractions marked that weren't there yesterday. For instance, Hagrid's Motorbike Adventure was there but Duelling Dragons was next to it, when the former was built on top of the latter and was a replacement of somewhat questionable reliability. Lightning Dust (whom he got the impression was originally Tom based on how that Sugar Belle girl was talking) had stated it had constantly broken down whilst they were trying to get on it in the first day, leading them to ride Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey heaven knows how many times. But today, TODAY, it would hopefully work. All of his hopes were placed on that ride being operational as he had heard, despite its mechanical issues, it was seriously good.
Even if you aren't the biggest of Harry Potter fans, many people on both sides of the pond know of Hagrid, the giant groundskeeper of Hogwarts played by Robbie Coltrane in the films. However, a certain level of camera trickery was required to make the 6 foot something Coltrane appear at least 8 or 9 feet tall, which consisted of having multiple sets built in different sizes, and having Coltrane stand on top of boxes when he was with other characters to avoid spoiling the illusion. Naturally, his hut and his vast collection of strange and wonderful animals, such as Buckbeack-
"STAIRS!"
I said Buckbeak, not Silverstream. Miss Hyper Active, please go back to bed.
"Oh man!"
Thank you. Anyways, Hagrid's vast collection of strange animals made a perfect subject for a theme park ride, and so construction on Hagrid's Magical Creatures had begun in 2017 as soon as the last column of Dragon Challenge came crashing down. Opening in August 2019, about when Tom, Katrina, and Jimmy were at Disney, the ride cost a whopping $300 million to build and design- three times as expensive as Expedition Everest. It also had the much desired effect of drawing crowds away from Disney. Sadly, the ride didn't work properly and has been plagued with reliability problems from day one. It's even more unreliable that Derren Brown's Ghost Train- something I would not have thought possible. But at least it drew crowds away from rides like Flight of the Hippogriff-
"See? I told you I was in this story!"
There are more hippogriffs than you. Go back to breaking windows in Montgomery. Anyways, Ink decided that, if the God's willed it, he would get on Florida's longest rollercoaster at least once. It was time to enter the queue, and see what was happening.
Ink was thankful he had procured an Express ticket for this ride, as otherwise waiting for two hours in this weather would be awful. The ticket, much like the Fastpass+ system at Disney, gave you a timeslot to enter and then merged the two lines. It would only cut his wait in half to an hour (the wait being an hour, not half an hour just to clarify), but at least that was better than the alternative. Nobody knew why he insisted on going anywhere and everywhere wearing business attire, but that was his preference. So, he checked his ticket in, and away he went.
A short segment of 'Hedwig's Theme' played as he checked the ticket in, and he walked into the line, not noticing the odd purple energies floating in the air as he walked into the line.
He had been queueing for about 30 minutes, give or take a few seconds, when he noticed something off. His hand seemed to be smaller, as he looked at it so. As he continued looking, it began to shrink before his very eyes, changing in size to that of a young girl.
"Well, here we go again," he sighed, as his other hand shrank, followed by his arms reducing in diameter and length. His broad, wide, powerful, cliche ridden shoulders abruptly pushed inwards, leaving his clothing loose, as his torso began to decrease in size, shrinking to a teenage girl's proportions. Then, his legs and feet began shrinking, his shoes getting loose and his socks almost falling off as his feet became smaller, daintier. Shortly after that, his legs got shorter and slimmer, followed by his hips popping outwards and his rear growing in size briefly. Then his manhood got pulled into his body, producing a strange sound as it did so that caught people's attention that was only compounded by the sensation of her chest growing into a pair of breasts. They were by no means large, but still clearly noticable.
"She looks a bit odd in all that!" said one visitor.
"Are you sure that wasn't a man earlier?" asked another.
Ink had no time to respond as her skin was suddenly washed with lavender pigment, and her eyes turned purple. Moments later, a giant fringe fell into her eyes and her hair grew longer, running a long way down her back before suddenly looping back on itself and tying itself into a bun. All this hair was predominantly blue, with a purple streak, and a much wider pink one.
Shortly after that, her clothing suddenly woke up, her formal shoes changing into a pair of dark blue loafers with a light blue stripe running along them and a light blue buckle with a turquoise gem set into it. Her socks grew up her legs and turned purple, before gaining extra material hanging off the top. Her pants merged into a single skirt, followed by the zip and button vanishing from duty forevermore, replaced by elastic to hold it in place. These garments had all been shrinking onto her body to ensure they didn't fall off, and the skirt then shrank up her legs, turned purple, and then gained a tartan pattern of white, blue, yellow, and pink lines. Her business shirt shrank onto her body, her tie remaining black but the shirt turning turquoise, and her jacket's sleeves shrank back until it formed a purple waistcoat. She quickly folded her collar down as black glasses appeared on her face, and with that it was over.
Seconds later, a purple device around her neck started beeping, and a light on it began to flash. "Ah!" Twilight grinned. "Perfect! The magical interference is this way, at the end of the queue. Well, I suppose I'll have to wait a little longer."
"They totally got this idea from Disney," said a woman.
"What idea?" asked another.
"Having costumed characters riding the rides. Remember, Alice and the Mad Hatter periodically ride on the teacups."
"Oh, right," the second woman smiled. "That makes sense."
Twilight, after another few minutes of waiting, boarded the ride, sitting in the sidecar rather than on the motorbike. That was, apparently, the more fun of the two positions to ride in. After a few minutes of checking the harnesses and lap bars, the train set off as Hagrid issues some warning, followed by the train dropping through a drop, taking a cantilevered bend, and then hitting a brake run before launching off again. The train, picking up speed once more, roared through sharps drops, sudden climbs, and another brake run, before skidding to a stop inside a building where a scorpion like thing was rotating around on a platform.
"No screens," Twilight noted. "A good start." The train then left the building and hit a magnetic launch section, where it blasted off up a hill and into some abandoned ruins. The train executed a half corkscrew, before racing through sharp drops, pitched curves, and other features on the circuit. The train slowed down past Fluffy, and then launched off again through a smoke drop, before climbing again and abruptly stopping, before the ride reversed direction.
"They got that from Expedition Everest."
The train continued to run backwards, through fierce bends and tight curves, though the clearly visible track switch was a bit of an immersion breaker. The train then reversed into a cave, took a sharp left, and reversed through the Forbidden Forest before stopping. As the roots of the Whomping Willow reached down, the track dropped vertically, before being blasted with fire. Hitting another magnetic launch, the ride flew along through more fierce and violent curves, before going into a more sedate section with unicorns.
"My Little Pony, My Little Pony-"
"Who's singing that?" Twilight asked.
Then the ride returned to the station.
Twilight's energy device was still reading elsewhere in the park, so the rides weren't the source of the anomaly. This merited further exploration, and she set off, following the tracker as she went.
John, as previously stated, was currently in the park alongside most of his friends, said park being Universal Studios Florida as opposed to Islands of Adventure, which is where Ink currently was. John was strolling along through Production Central, the first major themed land in the park, when he suddenly saw Tom vanish off into the distance. The odd thing is, his normally brown hair had streaks of dark blue in it, streaks that only seemed to be getting more prominent as time went by. Then again, it had happened so many times that trip that John had ceased to be surprised by it, a fact reinforced by the fact he saw Twilight Sparkle, in the weird dress she wears at the end of the original Equestria Girls, heading towards a ride. That wasn't the odd part. Oh no.
The ride was the odd part. Sitting there, where Revenge of the Mummy: the Ride should have been, was Kongfrontation. A ride that was long closed.
"How did that get there?" he asked, walking towards it and asking nobody in particular.
"Oh, it just appeared a few hours ago," said a bystander. "The park's trying to figure out how, but apparently a few others have appeared as well. See that building over there?"
"Yeah?"
"That's normally Shrek: 4-D, but if you look, it's now home to Hitchcock: the Art of Making Movies."
Amongst his many interests, John did enjoy researching and figuring out how film effects were done. He also had vague memories of his parents, when he was younger, playing 'spot the Hitchcock cameo' in his films. He shook those thoughts aside, given his less than cordial relations with his parents, and started onward as he did. "I think I'll go and give that a try," he said, walking over to the entrance. He soon got into line, where people were talking in an animated manner.
"I can't believe they've brought this back for one day!" said one visitor, a woman with sunglasses pushed so high up her forehead they looked like a pair of insect eyes (be afraid. Be very afraid). "I remember this from the opening day back in 1987!"
"How old were you then?" asked one of her fellow riders.
"15."
"A pity they got rid of a ride about practical effects and replaced it with screens," the other rider said. "Oh well, at least we can experience it one more time."
John was suddenly very suspicious. Last night, in the hotel lobby, Sweetie Belle had mentioned she had attended a showing of Sinbad. A long closed stunt show. Something very strange was going on here, and John suspected that their energies released when transforming might have something to do with it.
As the opening theatre in which the introductory film was played only had very limited occupancy, it was something of a long wait. John stood in line in the not too bad Florida heat for what felt like hours, but proved to only be minutes when he consulted the clock. At long last, the line once more began to move, and John was handed a pair of 3D glasses as he walked in, followed by his foot knocking into an object on the floor.
"What's this?" he asked, as he studied it in his hands. The object in question was a pith helmet, predominantly white, with black marks on the sides which were presumably where straps were attached. The helmet also had a band of green running around it, rather like a leaf, John thought. "Oh well. I'd probably best hold onto it. Somebody might have lost it, so I'll hand it in to a member of staff."
As he walked along, various posters of classic Hitchcock movies such as Rear Window and Vertigo were on display, as well as one about pigeons. What was it called?
Anyways, John strolled past some props from Hitchcock films and then took his seat, keeping the helmet on his lap as he did so, and placed his 3-D Glasses on his head (or rather his face, as they would be of no use on his forehead). As he looked on, the lights were darkened, and the film started.
The film mostly comprised footage from his films, cut in such a way it made little sense, but conveyed how revolutionary the filming techniques were. John, on the other hand, suddenly noticed he couldn't feel the helmet in his lap, and something seemed to be on his head.
Something heavy.
He reached up and, sure enough, it was the helmet. "Headgear can't just teleport!" he said quietly to himself, before he raised his arm and frowned. It no longer made him scream, it just rendered him mildly annoyed now.
His left hand was covered in orange (or peach) splotches, and something purple seemed to be in his eyes. The splotches began to spread, running up and down his arms like the drag and drop tool in MS Paint. Soon, all of his skin was covered, making him look somewhat sunburnt as his hair increased in volume but didn't grow any longer, instead staying where it was in terms of length.
His entire body began to shrink in size, his clothes becoming looser and looser as time went on, and without warning his manhood got yanked into his crotch, a sensation that never ceased to hurt. But nothing happened on her chest, suggesting this female character was young indeed. Her eyes then switched colour to a deep purple.
The film then went into another section, mostly of clips from Dial M for Murder. John's clothing suddenly came to life, her T shirt shrinking onto her smaller frame, but going green with a prominent collar folded down, giving the appearance of explorer's garb. Then, her pants shrank in size, as something else changed that we shall not discuss as I am not weird, and the legs got shorter and shorter until they had effectively become a pair of shorts plastered in pockets. Her trainers lost their laces and straps, that part covering over to create a boot, and a pair of metal plates were attached to the boots next to turquoise padding at the top to protect her legs from friction burns.
It seemed to have stopped, and just in time too, as the screen began to fall apart and a swarm of birds flew at them. Scootaloo ducked as air jets blasted air at the people in the theatre, and birds seemed to fly all around and slash at them.
As suddenly as the bird attack had started, it stopped, and the guests were guided into the next room, where they were shown how the 'shower scene' from Psycho was filmed (with difficulty). Once that was done, the next gallery consisted of interactive recreations of several scenes from Hitchcock films, uncluding the deceptively simple but extremely clever ending to Saboteur, which consisted of moving the camera up and away from the actors to create the illusion of falling.
Scoots chose to skip the gift shop, and found herself walking near Transformers the Ride, the site of the old Soundstage 44, when suddenly she heard insane laughter and a distinct burning sound. A large creature flew across her vision, and she chose to book it out of the area.
As she ran in any direction away from that thing, she skidded to a stop outside Kongfrontation to see Twilight sitting there, looking a bit off. "Hello, Scootaloo!" she said.
"Princess Twilight! We need your help!" Scootaloo cried. "She's gone mad!"
"Take me there!" Twilight exclaimed. "I hope nothing too bad has happened." The pair headed back in the other direction, and arrived near Transformers the Ride to see Sci-Twi there as well.
"What is that thing?" Sci-Twi asked. "It's radiating so much power!"
Start again. Having visited the others for a bit, let us return momentarily to Steph, who like most of them was in the main park and not Islands of Adventure. She and John were walking side by side as they headed into the park, and passed under the mighty gates.
"So, how is it for a last day?" Steph asked John, noticing John seemed a bit glum.
"I'm not a fan of last days," John sighed. "The problem with good days is they end. Bad ones seem to go on forever."
"But you've had a good time, haven't you? Besides, the day isn't over yet. It's still only the morning, and there's still a whole day of fun, games, and adventure to go at, which ought to make this a day to remember."
"That's true," John replied, as he looked up ahead. "Wait a second, that's Princess Twilight as she appears at the Fall Formal!"
"Oh!" Steph exclaimed. "It is! I wonder how she got here?"
"Was that a genuine question or sarcasm?"
"I'm not sure."
"Right." John shook his head as he looked up at a street sign for directions, posting him towards various rides and amusements. When he saw some of the names his face scrunched up in confusion. "Earthuake? The Big One? That wasn't there yesterday!"
"Nor was Twister: Ride it Out!"
John snorted. "Has April Fool's come early? Next thing you tell me, Kongfrontation will be back in the park!"
Both of them laughed at this, before they stopped laughing, as speaking and laughing at the same time is incredibly difficult and generally renders you unintelligible and it to be hard to of breathing in properly. "Well, I'll be on my way," Steph smiled, as she turned off. "Watch out for anything weird!"
"We've been changing into fictional characters for almost a week now, I think we've seen all the weird stuff that can happen."
John had no idea how wrong he was.
Steph continued on her way toward the place where The Simpsons Ride was, where this all began those many, many days ago that felt like months before. As she strolled along, she noticed other odd things. If you look across the lake from Springfield, you can see the buildings of Diagon Alley rising high into the sky like meteoric precipices of height and grandeur, with some very interesting architecture to match their odd appearance.
Only there seemed to be a New England fishing village next to it!
"I do not remember that being there yesterday. Tom mentioned something about magic causing problems, so this might be it?"
Her confusion was made more apparent when she turned up where the Simpsons Ride should have been. Instead, something called the 'Institute of Future Technology' was there, with a DeLorean sitting outside. A pretty bad car, by all accounts. It was like this new building had been dropped on top of the other one, which wasn't really a problem as Steph felt that The Simpsons had gone into terminal decline anyway. They must've been desparate to keep milking that property!
Steph's attention was suddenly attracted to something nearby. There had been a strong gust of wind, from where nobody knew (somewhat contrived, I know, but please just roll with it) and this had caused a tree to come down on part of the pathway, crashing on top of the oft mentioned taco stand (a thought that would have Sonata in tears). Furthermore, somebody was trapped underneath it.
"Help!" they cried, turning out to be the operator of the stand. "Can somebody get this tree off my cart? I'm trapped!"
Steph, without thinking, went over and tried to lift the tree by herself, expecting it wouldn't move. What happened next caught everybody by suprise.
The tree flew through the air and flew into the water. Everything seemed to be in slow motion as the tree flipped and rolled and turned and bounced through the air, before toppling onto the watery foam with an incredibly loud splash that could be heard for about a mile, such was the force of the impact. Once time seemed to have returned to normal speed, everybody looked at Steph in astonishment.
"What did you just do?" a bystander asked.
Steph stepped back in confusion. Had she really just thrown a tree a great distance?
"Look, her face has gone pink! It must be from all the exertion!"
Purple hair of two separate tones fell into her eyes as she began to shrink. Desparate to get out of there before anything untoward or innapropriate happened, she began to sprint as best she could for cover before her shoes came flying off and she hit the ground.
Her skin was entirely pink now, and her hair was close to joining it in purpleness (is that a word? It is now). Bright blue eyes glowed from underneath a giant fringe, and without any further ado her clothing got in on the fun, changing from a usual representation of her ensemble. Her shirt, once again, shrank onto her body and became a T shirt, coloured purple, naturally, and her pants morphed into a purple short skirt. Trainers appeared on her feet, her old ones still too big for her, and these were coloured in purple with white trim.
Steph got up, confused, and looked over herself. "Who is this, even?" she asked. "I don't recognise this character from Equestria Girls!"
"I told you it wasn't special effects!" said one of the bystanders. "Magic does exist, and my footage of Vapour Trail proves it."
Steph wandered past them, looking at the ruins of the stand, and then a name came to mind. There had been a filly with super strength who had been bullied by Diamond Tiara back in the old days. Now, what did the fans call her? Fruit, something or other?
Of course! "Prickleberry. Well, I'd better get in line. I have a ride to catch."
The plot of Back to the Future: the Ride is borderline incomprehensible, but seems to consist of chasing somebody in a time travelling car through time. Sounds reasonable enough, right? As the car finished starting up, they suddenly accelerated to 88 miles per hour and were thrown into 2015... five years ago.
Safe to say, their prediction of the future was a little off. The car proved to be almost impossible to steer, crashing through signs and buildings as it tried to keep up. They nearly got them, but the car warped, and so did they by crashing through a clock.
Suddenly, they were flying through ice caverns and stalactites as they arrived in the ice age, before warping back even further to the dinosaur age, being eaten by a dinosaur, crashing into the other car, and then arriving back in the present day by crashing into the ride building.
"Well that was borderline nonsensical."
Strolling round to the other new thing she'd seen, Prickleberry saw she was now in Amity, a land that was no longer there. Not long after that, she saw Vice-Principal Luna sitting on a bench, enjoying an ice cream.
"Hello Prickleberry!" she said, something approximating a smile on her face. "Something very peculiar is going on in the park, and I intend to find out what."
No sooner had she said that, there was a loud explosion from across the lake. "That came from near Soundstage 44!"
"It sounds as though somebody is in trouble," Luna said. "Let's go!" And both teacher and student sped off in the direction of the calamity.
Around the opposite end of the Universal Studios lake, there are a scattering of buildings shaped like soundstages, relics of the area's past as a working film studio. That was the original idea; Universal were very keen to take advantage of tax breaks offered by the Florida government to film companies and start production there, as well as try to compete with Walt Disney World and get a slice of the lucrative tourist dollar.
The plan never really worked out, as most film production shifted northwards to Georgia and South Carolina (where, incidentally, The Walking Dead was filmed, though I can't think of anything filmed in North Carolina off the top of my head). As a result, given the industry had shifted, the focus of the park changed as well. It was no longer about seeing how movies were made, although elements of that survived in Hitchcock: the Art of Making Movies and The Funtastic World of Hannah-Barbera, both sadly long gone. But not today, as Jimmy spotted both suddenly reappearing in the park on his way around the lake to the soundstages not named after a phenomenon Celestia performs without fail day in day out. Good luck spotting the reference.
Today saw him single out an attraction that was one of the few good things to come out of a rather underwhelming film franchise.
When you ask someone to name famous Hasbro toylines, there is high probability that My Little Pony and Transformers will be amongst those mentioned in the top 10. The Robots in Disguise made their debut in 1984 and have gone through some rocky periods since, but has generally remained strong and stable, even somehow managing to survive the less than brilliant Michael Bay films released between 2007 and 2017. Oh well. At least we got War for Cybertron out of that era, which was good.
As a test, Universal got permission from Paramount, who had long since retired from the theme park business after selling King's Island in 2008, to build a ride based on the films, and opened the first version in Singapore in 2011 to coincide with Dark of the Moon being released. It was so succesful, and received so well, that versions popped up in Hollywood and Florida in less than a year, the latter case replacing Hercules and Xena: Wizards of the Screen and Murder she Wrote, although their former building, Soundstage 44, was somehow standing once more right next to the Transformers ride building.
He stepped forward, before suddenly hearing an odd voice whispering on the wind.
"Fire and fury shall cover the land..."
"Is somebody there?" Jimmy asked, confused. He couldn't see anybody speaking, but figured that it was his imagination playing tricks on him. Moments later, his app chimed to let him know that he was due to join the queue, so he did so, before going indoors and looping through a queue filled with artifacts from the films, such as the prop All Spark shard from Revenge of the Fallen, and Ironhide talking at length about Decepticons killed in the first film, such as Bonecrusher who never got so much as a single line of dialogue.
Jimmy's phone suddenly went wild, buzzing like crazy. He checked it, to see it was full of emails from a Principal Sombra.
Hi Celestia!
I know you're on holiday, but you wouldn't mind doing some remote marking for the music department? Bass Cleff is a bit swamped at the moment.
Many Happy Returns,
Principal Sombra.
"How am I getting emails from a character who doesn't even exist in Equestria Girls- OW! What is it with everyday objects electrocuting me?"
A yellow bolt had jumped from the phone case to his hand, setting today's mayhem into motion.
This he became aware of as suddenly hair of pink and blue shades flopped into his eyes as a fringe, looking like it had come out of an ice cream machine. His existing long hair (professor) was pulled up into a ponytail, tied at the back of his head, as it too shifted to that blue and pink effect. Soon after that, his face began to change, the bones shifting, changing, and contorting into new and strange shapes, until he had the appearance of a female. A considerable volume of poorly shaven facial hair fell onto the floor, the root hair cells disconnecting, no longer needed. His blue eyes were swapped for purple ones, followed by his skin going a very light pink. Shortly after that, he gained a few inches in height, all the while still trying to walk through the queue as elements on his body were growing and shifting faster than should have been biologically possible. Aggressive and violent forces violently pulled his shoulders in as his arms got slightly longer, his hands still shrinking a little.
His hips widened far more than he was used to (as he usually ended up as teenage (or preteen) girls, not women in their twenties, and as usual he lost his manhood. I had neglected to mention she suddenly had breasts, and as previously mentioned her legs had grown longer, to the point she was struggling to walk on them. Her feet had become a bit smaller, though, so there was that.
That bit seemed to be over, so she now had rather odd looking slacks, an ill fitting shirt, and ridiculous looking shoes on. But that was, of course, all about to change. Her shoes turned yellow, even the bottom plates, and heels pushed out of the bottom as the laces vanished and the top plates filled in to create a boot. Her socks grew with the boots and stopped just below her knees to prevent the material rubbing against them. Her slacks had shrunk back as well, now just above her knees, and the legs merged together and the previous zip and button vanished, elastic now holding the garment in place. The skirt then grew a bit longer, to just below her knees, and turned purple.
Her polo lost its collar and changed into a purple T shirt, before a yellow short sleeved jacket appeared on top, complete with two pockets and a belt to hold it in place.
She looked over herself in confusion. "These colours are familiar, but the outfit isn't. Is this Celestia when she was a younger teacher?"
She took her glasses off and put them in a case that had magically materialised. She had long since stopped questioning things like that. It wasn't as if this whole TFing lark was about to start making sense now.
Miss Celestia wasn't convinced she was the target audience for this attraction. True, she had a vague idea of what Transformers was as her cousin Noctis was into them, but that was about it. Most of the attraction consisted of rolling about a set in a motion vehicle whilst sliding between screens showing indistinguishable hulks of metal punching one another. In a sense, she was glad to get off. It was so loud! At least Disney understood the importance of reasonable volume levels.
"Not even Luna plays speed metal that loudly," Celestia sighed, as she walked through the shop, having no real desire to buy anything here. Money was tight, as the school budget had been squeezed yet again. Swansonites had taken control of local government again and this meant she had to pay for supplies out of her own pocket. She stepped out of the shop and onto the waterfront, her skirt gently billowing in the breeze. She wondered where Luna was. She missed her, and hoped they could spend some time together.
"Miss Celestia! Help!"
Celestia knew that voice. It was Scootaloo! She immediately sprinted in that direction to see a fiery red sprit floating before the terrified student.
"Get away from her!" the teacher barked. "You are nothing but a nuisance! I do not care why you act the way you do, or your reasoning, but terrorising my students is something I will not tolerate!"
The entity turned around, seemingly a creature made entirely of fire. "Hello Celestia!" it smiled.
"Who are you?" Celestia asked, confused. "And how do you know my name?"
"I'm Daybreaker, the better, prettier, and more powerful version of you," the entity replied. "Unfortunately, your counterpart from my world has decided not to listen to me, so your body will have to do."
"I would ne-"
The entity flew forward and turned into gas, flying into Celestia's mouth and somewhere else, before the light faded.
"Miss Celestia!" Scootaloo cried, and ran over to the teacher, who had collapsed on the ground.
Celestia sat up, breathing heavily. "That was bizarre," she said simply, before getting to her feet. "Scootaloo, are you O-"
She never finished her sentence as intense cramping took over. She staggered to the lake, and tried to stay upright.
The barrier melted to her touch, and a jet of flame roared from it and into the water like a flamethrower. Celestia regarded her hand in horror. "Get away!" she shouted to Scootaloo.
"But you-"
"NOW!"
Celestia collapsed to the floor, clutching her chest in pain, and closed her eyes as she began to change yet again.
Something was crawling under her back, building in intensity, and she howled in pain as a pair of wings erupted from her back, tearing her jacket to shreds and ripping open the back of her shirt, which soon closed up again as the sleeves shrank back, meaning it was now effectively a strapless shirt. Her skin turned pale white, followed by her eyes igniting as flames shot out of them, setting a nearby stand on fire.
"CLEAR THE AREA!" shouted a security guard.
Her eyes had changed to a solid red, with deep maroon irises behind them replacing the whites. Metal plating ran along the wings, as a top plate sat atop the shirt, helping to hold it in place. Flame like spikes appeared from the bottom of the shirt as her skirt turned red and shrank back to above her knees. Another skirt with an open front appeared on top of that.
"See? You're already one hundred times better! Time to complete the process!"
Elbow length fingerless gloves appeared on her arms, with similar plates appearing on her legs above a pair of red shoes. These plates looked like cheese grater components.
Celestia's body began to get up without her even prompting it as a horn exploded out of her forehead in a fountain of flames, her normally blue and pink hair turning an intense orange. A faceplate attached itself to her forehead, which had an orange gem set into it, which seemed to shimmer in the heat as structures began to burn. She screamed as Daybreaker forcefully invaded her mind, trying to shut her out, but it was no use. One moment she was a terrified schoolteacher trapped in the body of a monster, the next there was no trace of her left.
Daybreaker took to the skies and laughed. Fireballs and jets of flame roared from her and set things on fire, including the explosion of a propane tank.
Tom shared Katrina (or rather, Twilight's) apparent confusion and consternation over her current predicament, not least her current outfit. "I half imagined you weren't too keen on that particular outfit. I had a similar reaction when I first saw Equestria Girls."
Twilight was trying to adjust the dress she found herself in, to no success. "This is way too short! I'll need to find something else later, but-"
Moments later, her head snapped up, and she began heading off into the distance, apparently unaware of what had just taken place. "That wasn't there yesterday. This phenomena needs investigating right away!"
Tom called after her. "Twilight, aren't you-! Oh, never mind." Suspecting she was lost now that there was strange things to examine and make science experiments on, he, for reasons best known to himself, decided to head towards Diagon Alley, where magical things happening would at least make some sort of sense.
But what was going on today? First, their affliction was proceeding as normal but was seemingly hell bent on stuffing them over, the park seemed a lot less crowded than normal, and not only that, there were strange things shimmering in the light. This Tom was aware of as older attractions seemed to be popping up. He passed The Funtastic World of Hannah-Barbera, which was long gone, replaced by a ride which itself was long gone, and he could've sworn he briefly heard John shouting something about blue, but he really had no idea what this blue was, to be honest. He bravely pressed onwards, along the waterfront, walking past a tree that had somehow flown into the water by forces unknown. This itself needed further explanation, and Tom was keen to find it.
Along the way, the heat began to get a bit much. It also felt like there was increased weight pulling on his scalp. Tom settled upon stopping for an ice cream at a stand, and purchased one.
"Well, guv, you should've seen what happened earlier!" the attendant said. "There was a blonde girl who flipped a tree an' all! It flew into the water! Then she changed into this little kid! It was like something out of a film!"
Tom thought to himself. That description sounded very close to Steph, so it must have got to her earlier today. "Where did she go next?"
"Oh, onto the DeLorean ride," the attendant replied.
"Back to the Future."
"Back to the Future, that's what I said." The attendant looked at Tom. "The blue dye suits you, sir. Not so convinced about the low fringe, though. I'd leave your forehead exposed."
I think I know what's going on, Tom thought to himself. He purchase the finished- I mean, he finished the purchase, and then headed off on his way, determined to get clear before anything untoward happened. Walking away from the Institute of Future Technology, he found a good place to pause and hide, but unfortunately it was occupied.
"Oh, well. Somebody is going to see it." Tom finished the ice cream, and stood at the waterfront to monitor things. His hair was indeed blue, with the low fringe and a strand hanging in an annoying manner across his forehead, curled oddly at the top. As he observed this most peculiar phenomenon, he noticed that it had shifted to two tone, with several lighter blue strands now flowing through the previously dark blue one. Fiddling with it briefly, he jumped briefly when it began growing longer, stopping when it reached his hips. The two colours were now roughly 50-50 in split, and Tom subconsciously brushed some of it back with his hand as he wasn't used to having this much.
"This would've been perfect for Jimmy," Tom sighed quietly. His lack of resistance was due to his having gotten use to this entire state of affairs. He knew he had no control over what was happening. He just had to let it finish, but it nontheless still felt very odd.
He suddenly became aware of his face reshaping, the cheekbones rising, his nose becoming more petite, his lips becoming slightly larger (and his reflection revealed they had turned blue, as had most of his skin (although that was a very light shade of blue indeed)). His eyes switched colour to suddenly be turquoise, and his eyebrows turned dark blue.
His Adam's Apple faded into his neck, causing his voice to rise in pitch, although not very far, and his shoulders slowly retracted inwards as his arms and legs got longer, followed by his torso as he actually grew in height, rather than shrank as was normally the case. His clothing was getting a bit tight, and his shirt didn't fit properly when he felt his chest become oddly warm. He looked down and saw two mounds pushing forward underneath, stopping at what Tom guessed were B cups. He'd got oddly good at guessing this, and sure enough he felt something else appear to secure them in place.
His hips began to push outwards, which was starting to strain his slacks, and his manhood was suddenly pulled into his body, which, when all was said and done, was her body. Swapping genders never ceased to feel odd, or weird. Tom didn't get why Jimmy liked it so much. She was so busy ruminating on this she was caught off guard when her rear began swelling in size, though when it stopped it was pretty small. Thankfully her slacks didn't tear.
Her hands and feet shrank in size, to smaller proportions, but not too small, just a bit daintier. It was obvious to all observing who this was.
"Vice-Principal Luna."
Tom felt her shirt collar suddenly close up, and saw it was now a white dog collar with a dark blue symbol of a crescent moon appear on it. Her shirt stretched in order to fit properly, meaning her midriff was no longer visible, and turned a purple shade. A dark blue belt appeared on top of that, held in place with a silver buckle.
Her slacks, obviously not designed for a woman to wear, changed shape to accomodate gains in certain areas, and lost all but their top pockets near the tops of the legs, and they tightened slightly around them, to become more like business attire, an illusion continued when her shoes closed up, with the laces being replaced by white and pink leather, and a heel grew out of the bottom. Of course she had to be wearing heels, footwear Tom wasn't used to, and she wobbled about as she tried to get going again.
"Those are only fours," said a bystander.
"I usually wear twos with my business attire," Luna replied, as she walked in a random direction.
Oddly, it took her little time to get used to walking in heels. Her next destination was somewhere around the lake, but to her surprise she was suddenly walking through a New England fishing village, not Diagon Alley as she had anticipated.
"I don't recall this being here yesterday," Luna admitted. "The magic is having some odd side effects if closed rides are appearing in the parks." However, her eyes lit up when she saw what one of these returned rides was.
JAWS.
Without so much as a second thought, Luna went and joined the queue, which was mercifully short as most people had gone over to Gringotts bank. Something about a withdrawal, or something like that.
Jaws is the Universal ride that needs no introduction. A world first in terms of production quality, theming, and storytelling, the same sadly could not be said of its complete lack of reliability. In fact, it broke down so often it had to be rebuilt many times in order to get it working properly, and then its exhorbitant fuel use had prohibited long term operation. Alas, when Harry Potter called, Jaws had to go. And so it did. But not today. Today, it was back and biting with a vengeance.
The boat departed the dock for a delightful (they hoped) voyage of Amity, a lovely fishing village in scenic Massachusetts. Along the way, the chipper skipper narrated the tale of the shark attacks of 1975, in which a Great White had attacked the town before being blown up by Chief Brody (who was played by Roy Scheider in the Spielberg film). The town had some nice quaint buildings, a cannery, and even the usual supply shop with tackle, lines, baits, and yellow barrels. Exactly what you need whilst fishing.
As they approached the church, however, it got weird. Another skipper suddenly radioed in for help, but the message rapidly turned into garbled screaming before cutting out entirely.
"This can't be good," Luna mused.
"It's probably a power line fault."
"What sort of power line has teeth?"
The radio crackled back into life. "He was headed back in. Skipper, you wouldn't mind checking the location?"
"Roger that, sir!"
The boat rounded a bend to reveal a sinking boat with huge holes bitten out of it by a shark. Moments later, he surfaced.
Jaws was back for revenge.
"Switch to grenade launcher, over!"
The skipper was not very good with the weapon, and constantly missed, his shots landing everywhere but the shark.
"I'm not hugely confident with this person in charge," Luna sighed.
The boat went into an old boathouse for refuge from the shark, but it went very dark. Things began falling off walls, and after a transformer blew out, the shark lunged at the boat again, shrieking as it did so.
"Sharks cannot shriek, they have no vocal chords!"
The boat exited the boathouse and got outside, where Chief Brody radioed the crew and told them he was coming. Moments after that, the shark attacked again, and then a fuel pump exploded, raising the heat and covering everything in flames. As the boat rounded a bend, there was a high voltage cable. The shark grabbed onto it and shrieked once again as high voltage electricity coursed through it.
"Smile, you big son of a-"
With those immortal words, a nearby pressure tank exploded, and the shark was torn to pieces in a shower of blood and gore.
"Yuck!" Luna exclaimed. "It'll be a nightmare to wash that out, I imagine."
A shark corpse floated nearby as the boat returned to the dock, and everything was right and good in the world.
Her clothes miraculously unblemished, Luna sat outside the ride entrance with a giant shark hanging up. "When sharks are not around," she said, "Amity must be a nice place to live. It's such a shame that so many will never get to experience that ride."
"Vice-Principal Luna!" called a voice. Luna looked up and saw it was one of her students, a freshman named Prickleberry. "This ride isn't normally here!"
"Hello Prickleberry!" Luna smiled. "Something very peculiar is going on in the park, and I intend to find out what."
Minutes later, a fireball erupted in the viscinity of Soundstage 44.
"That came from near Soundstage 44!" Prickleberry shouted.
""It sounds as though somebody is in trouble. Let's go!"
It was as if they had stepped into a vision of hell itself. Many things were on fire. Flames burned on buildings, the tarmac was heating up, and fire crews were mobilising to try and put of the blazes. A jet of flame roared into the air from the lake, turning the water orange.
"What fiend could have caused this?" Luna asked.
"Hello sister!" called a maniacal voice. Daybreaker flew into view.
"Celestia! You must put a stop to this madness!" Luna begged.
"Celestia is no more. I am Daybreaker! All of reality shall bow to me!"
"If you don't stop, reality shall cease to exist!"
"If you won't stand aside, then you shall burn too. There are many parallel worlds out there, but this is one I can easily destroy."
Luna knew, despite that mad exterior, Celestia was still in there, screaming for help to be freed from her prison. "Then I have no choice. I invoke Project Noctis!"
Moments later, Luna was surrounded by a harsh blue light.
Looking on in amazement, Daybreaker snarled as Luna was surrounded by a strange blue energy, until she was invisible to the eye. The light grew in intensity, until the energy dispersed and vanished in a massive shockwave that blew her back. Before her stood a new foe, more powerful than any she had ever seen before.
This new figure had skin of a very dark blue shade, and wore heavy light blue armour plating on her chest, a chestplate with the emblem of the crescent moon over her vulnerable parts. Her legs were protected by darker blue armour, and she wore knee high armoured boots with dark blue backing and light blue armoured front plates that closely resembled Luna's pony horseshoes. Her arms were shielded with more heavy blue armour, and she had a blue helmet that covered most of her head, but her face was left exposed. Her eyes, still the same shade, glowered at Daybreaker.
"Will you not stand down, sister?" she asked.
"Why, Nightmare Moon, so nice of you to join us!" Daybreaker laughed. "Of course, you will join me in insanity."
"I will never let you take over the world!" Nightmare Moon boomed, as two heavy guns appeared on her arms. These were linked to a backpack which hummed with spectral energy, and blue flames shot out of the bottom.
"Oh, I have no intention of ruling the world. I solely intend to destroy it. BRING FORTH THE ETERNAL DAY! AWAKEN THE ENGINES OF DEVASTATION! LET THE GALAXY BURN!"
Nightmare Moon shook her head. "It saddens me to have to do this," she whispered. "But, Daybreaker, you leave me no choice. Gravity repulsors activated!"
With that, she took the air as if floating on a current of air, and a green visor dropped in on her helmet. Tactical data appeared on the screen.
+++WEAPONS SET. LOADING-
PARTICLE CANNONS PRIMED. SETTING FOR STAGE TWO.
SHIELDING ONLINE. ARMOUR INTEGRITY HOLDING AT 100%
Nightmare Moon flew in to attack, firing off a twin particle burst at Daybreaker, who dodged the shot and flew upwards, screaming maniacally.
"Was that really your best?!" she snorted. "Take this!"
A pair of flame jets roared out of her hands, scorching the pathway. People ran for cover, and Nightmare Moon flew in the way of the fire to prevent people from being caught by the flames.
"Your sentimentality is tiresome," the entity snorted.
"Very well," Nightmare Moon replied. "To Hell with niceties! Can't you see the damage you're doing?"
"ALL OF CREATION SHALL BOW TO ME! I... AM... FAUST!"
Nightmare Moon shook her head. "Second salvo away!"
Continous particle beams shot from the twin guns as her backpack glowed with spectral energy, the beams glowing white hot. Daybreaker was struck, and landed on the ground, her hand crashing into a music machine.
"Tra la la, tra la la la! Tra la la, tra la la-"
Daybreaker smashed it with her fist. "I HATE that song!" Flapping her wings, leaving a jet of flames behind her, she focused all her firepower on Nightmare Moon, the sheer weight of fire eliminating Nightmare Moon's advantage in maneuvrability. She fired the twin particle cannons to try and slow the flames, but it was no use.
+++SHIELDS FAILING
SHIELDS DOWN. SHIELDS DOWN.
ARMOUR HOLDING AT 75%.
DISENGAGE AND MOVE TO A NEW POSITION+++
Nightmare Moon's jetpack roared, and blue light shot from it as she moved again. Both she and Daybreaker focused their beams on one another, but the energy from Daybreaker was too strong. The beams got closer and closer. Nightmare Moon increased the power from her guns, but they began to have heat problems.
+++OVERHEAT. OVERHEAT. CEASE FIRE IMMEDIATELY+++
Smoke poured from the guns, as a final warning for Nightmare Moon to stop firing.
"TIME TO DIE, LUNA! YOU WILL BE OUR FIRST SACRIFICE!"
Suddenly, Scootaloo ran forward. "Celestia, no!" she yelled. "You don't want to be remembered as a monster, right? Please, stop!"
Daybreaker glanced down and looked at them. "John," she whispered.
This gave Nightmare Moon the opening she needed. "Initiate overcharge!"
+++OVERCHARGING WEAPONS. GLORIA NOCTIS.+++
Twin beams shot forth once more, and pushed Daybreaker's back. She tried to counter them, but the distraction had cost her the upper hand. The shots impacted.
"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"
In that moment, Daybreaker and Nightmare Moon vanished.
Daybreaker found herself floating in a void. "What is this place?"
Nightmare Moon warped into reality, and extended her hand. "Take my hand, sister," she said. "Let us lead together, as it is meant to be."
Daybreaker, uneasily, extended her hand, and white energy washed over the pair, as the void collapsed. This, quite conveniently, also put all the fires out.
Outside, Twilight (both of them) were getting frantic. "What if they don't return? We'll have lost both Jimmy and Tom!" they exclaimed.
"I'm certain they'll return!" Prickleberry smiled. "Look, there they are!"
In amongst the mess stood Vice-Principal Luna and Principal Celestia. However, Celestia looked to be older. Not only did she have green and turquoise strands in her hair, she also wore golden heels, purple pants, and a white short sleeved shirt with a purple band around her neckline. She also wore a golden jacket with a symbol of the sun on the lapel.
She turned to Luna. "Sister, I am so, so sorry."
Luna smiled, and took her in a hug. "Celestia, you are safe now. I don't think Daybreaker will be a problem again, but the park may need some repairs."
Celestia laughed. "This will hurt the school budget somewhat!"
The others ran forward. "You're both safe now," Twilight said (the glasses one). "I can't detect any traces of magical energy in your bodies. You return as conquering heroes."
"I think this calls for a celebration!" Luna called. "Who fancies a run on Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey?"
"And the Hogwarts Express!" Scootaloo added. "That's a pretty cool ride."
"It certainly is," Celestia smiled. "Shall we head there? I think the queue might be very long!"
As the six walked away, the two teachers leading, a bystander still looked confused. "That was an AWESOME stunt show!"
To mark their last day in the park, the crew decided to eat at Red Oven Pizza Bakery in CityWalk, and boy was that a good decision. The pizza was certainly very good, and cooked to perfection. Whilst Scootaloo and Prickleberry devoured a margherita, Celestia and Luna decided to share a pepperoni between them, whilst the two Twilights had a mushroom for some reason. Princess Twilight had taken the opportunity to get changed, and was now wearing a purple gown with half sleeves (ie, running to her elbows), and a much longer skirt than the previous one. When asked why she had changed her dress, she had stated the last one was 'too risque'.
Luna had another sip of her iced Gatorate. "I don't understand why they put so much ice in these drinks."
Celestia smiled. "Well, it keeps us cool. Most of the park is not air conditioned, after all. And there was that time with the icebox falling on-"
"I don't need a reminder of that," Luna hastily replied. "There was also that nice restaurant in Silver Shoals. I know it's many years off, but we may want to consider retiring there, given its good transport connections."
"Well said," Celestia answered. "I have no intention to retire for quite some time!"
Scootaloo leaned over to Prickleberry. "What's been your favourite thing this trip?"
"Meeting loads of new friends!" Prickleberry squeaked. "I hope we stay in contact for many years!"
"Friendship is indeed magic," Princess Twilight said. "And I think we'll stay in contact for a very long time. I think we've got each other's phone numbers."
They all nodded and agreed with this sentiment.
And so, they trooped off to the hotel and went to bed. Luna, as she changed into her nightwear, suddenly heard a voice behind her.
"Tom?"
Luna turned to see Princess Celestia standing there. "Celestia!" she exclaimed. "I didn't see you there!"
"Well done," Celestia smiled, and walked over to shake Luna's hand. "You did a very good deed today, as did all of you. You six have stood together through thick and thin. You are the closest that this world has to the Elements of Harmony."
"I did what anybody would have done," Luna replied. "It was a matter of saving lives-"
"And you saved Jimmy from himself," Celestia answered. "Or should I say Celestia? I think Luna is seeing her right now."
What a day. Celestia prepared to get changed for bed, when a familiar rustling was audible behind him. "Ah, Jimmy! I was wondering when we would meet again!"
Celestia turned to see Luna standing there, gently smiling as she looked at her. "I did something I'm not proud of," she said quietly. "If Luna hadn't stopped me, this place would no longer exist."
"But you fought back against Daybreaker, did you not?" Luna asked, walking over. "I think some of the poofiness from when we swapped places is still in the dress."
"You've always been there for me, Luna," Celestia replied, as she went to do her teeth. "And I want to be the best possible friend there can be."
"You and your friends are the closest this world has to the Elements," Luna smiled. "And I am certain my sister says the same. Alas, I must return to Equestria now, but carry the lessons you have learned with you everywhere, and be a good person."
With that, Luna sparkled, and then faded to nothingness. Celestia, exhausted, flopped into bed and was out like a light.
Steph got herself out of bed on the last morning, and looked at the clock sadly. It was the day of leaving, where they would have to go home and be apart for a while. As crazy as recent circumstances had been, and the fact that reality had nearly ended the previous day, it had still been a fun trip, and as a result it was sad to see it end.
Steph was about to get a reminder of that when he spoke. "Oh, hey, this morning is, like so sad and yet so warm at the same time! I wonder how-"
She quickly glanced down at herself, to see she was Autumn Blaze again, whom she'd been three nights earlier. "Is it normal for this to happen?" she asked, as she got out of bed and saw Autumn's clothes neatly hung up for her. After showering, getting dressed, and picking up her loaded suitcase, she opened her door and walked out into the corridor to see two others already there.
One of them she recognised as Suri from a day or two, but something didn't seem right. She was wearing a Crystal Prep uniform, consisting of the usual parts of a tartan skirt, dark blue loafers with light blue bows, purple socks, a turquoise shirt with a blue scarf, and a purple blazer. She was dragging her suitcase behind her, drinking from a coffee cup.
Shortly behind her was Ocellus, struggling to move her case along because it was built for a twenty-something man, not a preteen, extremely scrawny bookworm.
"Bleaugh!" Suri said, finishing her cup and throwing it in a trash can. "The coffee here is awful. I'm looking forward to getting back to New York. There I can have a double caffeinated. They make that with two shots of caffeine refined using whisky production techniques."
"That sounds pretty disgusting," Ocellus said, lugging her case along as best she could. "Besides, that much caffeine in your system can't be healthy given the amount of stimulation and the crash at the-"
"I get it, you're a nerd." Suri continued onwards. "Here's the lobby. Somehow the others already beat us here. I hired a taxi to take us all to the airport so we could say goodbye there."
Standing in the lobby were also Gilda, Sci-Twi, and Sugar Belle.
"I think our transportation is waiting," Sci-Twi said. "This is exceptional service given that the cab has arrived 2 minutes and exactly 4 seconds ahead of schedule, which is quite impressive."
"The driver knows I'll file a complaint if he's late," Suri said bluntly. "Seeing as it's early, how about we head their early and then go to get a breakfast there together? It'll be our last meal together for what I suspect will be a long time."
"That sounds like a good idea," Sugar Belle smiled. "Why not get a cake whilst we're there?"
"We need to watch how many calo-"
"Sure!"
With that settled, they headed out into the car park.
The journey to the airport was pleasant and fairly easy, even with six girls squeezed into the back seat. The cab driver was very good and generous, and even knocked 35% off his price as part of the deal. So, in they went, into the airport, and soon found a nice place in which to eat breakfast.
Each of them had a classic American one of bacon and eggs, with pancakes (Autumn chose waffles, because waffles are apparently cool), and the drinks mostly consisted of coffee.
"So," said Gilda, raising her mug to the sky, "this is it for a bit. What a lot of rhyming. Anyway, I look forward to when we can do this again, guys. Fill to me the parting glass!"
"And drink the health of one and all!" the rest chorused, Ocellus struggling to lift her heavy mug (she had asked for a decaf on the grounds that caffeine before flying is a bad idea).
Once they had finished eating, it was time to go their separate ways. Suri, Autumn, Gilda, and Sci-Twi all headed for the domestic departure gates, and this left Ocellus and Sugar Belle.
"You sad?" Sugar Belle asked.
Ocellus nodded.
"Well, don't be sad because it's over, smile because it happened."
The pair headed for their gate and sat down in the departure lounge.
"Hey, Ocellus! Fancy seeing you here!"
Ocellus turned her head, and her face broke into the widest grin possible.
"Sandbar!"
The boy was smiling too, and Sugar Belle vacated so they could sit together.
"I hope we're allocated seats together. I don't know where you've been all this time, but I've missed you." Sandbar leaned in. "I think my folks will be delighted to meet you."
"Thanks," Ocellus smiled. "And," she whispered, "that kiss we shared was the best I've ever had."
"Let's see if I can top it."
Sugar Belle laughed at the ongoing scene. "Young love."
This story is dedicated in memory of Carl Laemmle (1864-1939), founder of Universal.
You brought over 100 years of magic to our screens.
JimmyHook19- James "Jimmy" Thomas Hook The Blue EM2- Thomas Haddington Misty Rose- Katrina Miller Thunderous- John Rooke MarblePieLover- Inkwell Devious Dazzle- Stephanie
