Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium: a tale/2/2
From Accct Wiki
Chapter 6: Human forms galore
The group, who I will refer to from now on as “Weirdies”, happily ate pizza at the Renaissance-named pizzeria. Suddenly, Maddie got an idea. “How about when we finish our meals, we go head out to Club Sugar, and get our groove on?” she asked the others.
Jess immediately agreed, but Mikey was extremely hesitant. “Um... no. I... I just--I can't dance,” he said sheepishly.
“Don’t worry, Mikey,” Maddie told Mikey. “I'm sure 9Volt and 18Volt could use some help at the turntables.”
Mikey brightened up at that statement. “Okay!” he said. “The music part I'm good at, it's the feet part where I fail.”
Jess smiled. “Great. Let's just hope I don't fall over again.”
“Don’t worry, the floor’s really soft,” Maddie replied. “But, I think we should go to the thrift store first, to get some more disco-like duds.”
Dimentio almost did a spit-take at this. “Thrift store? Where it smells like grammas?” He shook his head in defiance. “Uh, no thank you very much indeed. I'll just wear these clothes I found laying around in Dimension D that look like Ziggy Stardust's outfit.” He warped out of the pizzeria, presumably to Dimension D to retrieve the outfit.
Jess shrugged. “Whatever,” she said. “I don't mind shopping at thrift stores. I got part of a Halloween costume at Goodwill once.”
“Alright!” Maddie cheered. They paid for their food and left for the thrift store. “I like this thrift store,” Maddie said when they arrived. “They have some really cool costumes here. I'm sure we can find a cool disco one for the four of us, since Dimmie's wearing his own.”
“Okay!” Jess began sifting through the various outfits and costumes. “Hey, lookit this,” she said, holding up a duck costume. “I could go as Elton John!” She laughed, then put the duck costume back. “I kid, I’m not the duckie girl.”
Maddie giggled as she searched through the piles of pants. “Ooh, these pants have a pretty print on them,” she said finally. “I think these could work.”
“Cool.” Jess had also found a good pair of pants, one with sparkles on the legs.
“Those are pretty!” Maddie said. She turned to the dressing rooms. “Hey, Zoot! How are you doing?”
“Almost ready!” Zoot called out. A few seconds later, he came out in a pale blue long sleeve collared shirt, brown pants, black shoes, and a ruby sparkly newsboy cap. Maddie had to shield her eyes from the blinding charisma. Jess gave him a thumbs up, then found a hat that looked like the flower from the head of a Vileplume.
“I wonder how Mikey’s doing,” Maddie thought aloud.
“He’s getting his shell painted.” As a Wartortle’s shell could function as clothing along with defensive purposes, Mikey had no need of true “clothes”. He was busy having disco-esque designed painted onto his shell by a random turtle-painting artist.
“Sweet!” Maddie exclaimed. “I'm almost ready, just have to find the right hat.”
“Okay,” Jess replied. “I just need to find a shirt. I'll just wear the shoes I've already got...” She pointed to her shoes, a recently purchased pair of knock-off Crocs. “For an anachronism effect.” She searched through a pile of shirts.
“What about this one?” Maddie held up a frilly white shirt with silver sequins. Jess must have liked it, because she snatched it from Maddie’s hands as soon as she saw it. “I just need the perfect hat,” Maddie said as she rummaged around in the hat basket. She soon found one that looked like something a sergeant would wear. “Do you think this military one would work?” she asked.
“Sure,” Jess responded, giving the thumbs up.
“Alright!” Maddie exclaimed as soon as they had found the clothes they wanted. “Now, we just need to buy these, and then we can get our groove on!”
A pained expression suddenly crossed Jess’s face. “Uhh... problem with that...”
“What?”
“I GOT NO MONEYS.”
Maddie smiled. “Don’t worry,” she said. “I've got plenty of coins, with tons to spare.” Jess sighed in relief, then they(meaning Maddie) paid for the clothes. “Now, let's head back to the hotel, change into these outfits, and get to the dancin'!” Maddie declared. “To Hotel Diamond!”
“For glory! For gold!” Jess shouted. “I totally had an El Dorado moment there.”
Maddie laughed. She turned to Zoot, who was staring at some graffiti. “Zoot, quit starin' at that graffiti,” she told him. “We need to get back to our room so we can be ready for dancing!”
“That graffiti looks familiar,” Jess pointed out. The graffiti consisted of an image of a badly drawn dragon with the text “TROGDOR the BURNiNATOR was here”.
“I have a feeling that a certain wrestleman is also here.”
“We'll worry about that one later. Let's just go get changed now.”
“Okay.” They arrived back at the hotel, where they went to their room on the second floor to change. Maddie called first dibs on the bathroom.
“Ha HA, I have no need of the bathroom~!” Jess laughed. She snapped her fingers and in an instant, her T-shirt and recently torn jeans(from the fall near Mona Pizza, remember?) changed into the frilly sequined shirt and sparkly pants. The Vileplume hat appeared on her head. “A little something I picked up from Dimentio,” she said with false modesty.
“Oh, so you're stealing my trick now, are you???” Dimentio stormed in, wearing the outfit that he usually donned for his alter ego, Dimmy Starburst. However, as he was high on caffeine each time he changed into this Ziggy Stardust-like persona, he had no memories of ever doing such a thing. Let’s keep it that way, shall we?
“Yes,” Jess replied. “Hey, I'm a shapeshifter, I don't have any original tricks.”
Maddie clapped for Jess. “Cool! Both the trick, and the outfit!”
Jess took an exaggerated bow. “Thank you!” she cried. “You will notice my shoes did not change.” She was still wearing her knock-off Crocs. “Even if I was gonna change my shoes, I just can't do shoes yet.”
“But I can!” Dimentio gloated. “Ah ha ha ha! You haven't completely copied my style yet!”
“Oh shut up, skirt boy.”
Maddie laughed again. “Okay, if everyone's ready, we can head down to Club Sugar,” she said.
“Okay, let’s go!”
“Aw, yeah! Welcome to Club Sugar, only the coolest spot in the entire town!”
Jimmy T, the stuck-in-the-70s dancing man with the blue afro, greeted the Weirdies at the club’s entrance.
“Hey, Jimmy,” Maddie said to the disco dork.
“What it is, my doge?” Zoot said.
Jess stared at everything in the entire club. “Wowthisplaceissocool~!” she screamed in delight.
“Meh, I’ve seen better,” Dimentio said. Jess hit him. “Be polite!” she told him.
Meanwhile, the local Nintendo fanboys 9Volt and 18Volt were setting up the DJ station. They were checking off everything they had ready. “Okay, we have the turntables...” the smaller one, 9Volt, said.
“Word,” the taller 18Volt replied.
“The crowd...”
“Word.”
“And the special effects.”
“Word.”
“But, I feel like I'm missing something...”
At that moment, Mikey poked his head over the turntables to look at the Nintendorks. “Hey, guys. Whatcha doin’?” he asked. 9Volt shouted in excitement. “What?”
“I-I must be dreaming!” 9Volt exclaimed. “A real live Pokémon!” Then he fainted.
“Oh gawd. I just killed a kid.” Mikey looked around. No one had seen the incident, so he slowly backed away from 9Volt while humming “Get Off Of My Cloud” by the Rolling Stones under his breath. When Mikey had gotten far enough away, 9Volt woke up. “I’m up!” he said. “Where’s the talking Pokémon?!?!”
“You really need to calm down,” Kat, a five-year-old ninja, told him. “What kind of Pokémon was it?”
“A Wartortle!”
“You mean the turtle?”
“Yep.”
“COME HERE POKÉMON!!!!!!!” they both shouted. Meanwhile, a white alien named Orbulon was watching the scene in confusion/exasperation. “I can barely understand these humans at times,” he said to himself. “They can be so weird.”
Meanwhile, Jess was watching the scene play out. “Crap on a cracker, they’re after Mikey!!” she cried. “Time to resort to drastic measures!” Thinking quickly, she snapped her fingers and shot a string of pink energy at Mikey. It turned blue as soon as it hit his shell and caused him to glow. His limbs expanded, his torso narrowed slightly and his tail disappeared. When the light subsided, he was no longer a Wartortle. Mikey was now purely human. “Yipe! Where's my shell????? I feel naked!!!” he screamed.
“I turned you human for a while for your own protection,” Jess said to the former Wartortle. “C'mon, I'll help you up.”
“But I feel so exposed without my shell...”
“That's why I gave you clothes, d00fus.” Mikey’s human form came with a Wartortle-themed disco outfit. He was less than pleased. “”I’m not wearing this,” he said firmly.
“Okay,” Jess smiled evilly. “You can go streakin’ then.”
“On second thought, the, um, the fabric is quite comfy...”
9Volt and Kat weren’t too happy with Mikey’s transformation, either. “Aw, man, the Wartortle's not a Wartortle anymore,” 9Volt moaned. “Oh well, better head back to my turntables.”
“No turtle?” Kat whined. “Well, better find Ana.”
Zoot was amazed at Jess’s newly revealed power. “THAT WAS AWESOME! MAKE ME HUMAN! MAKE ME HUMAN!” he cried. Jess shot the same pink energy at Zoot, which also turned blue when it hit him. His proportions were already much like those of a human, so all that really happened was he grew a few feet. His aqua green skin turned a peachy flesh color and he grew an extra finger on each hand. “YAY! I'M GONNA DO SO MANY THINGS!” the now-humany Zoot exclaimed. “I'M GONNA OVERDOSE ON SUGAR, I'M GONNA STEAL THE BUS, I'M GONNA—”
“Sleep.” Maddie pressed her hand against Zoot’s forehead, making him fall asleep.
Meanwhile, Dimentio had made his way over to the turntables. “Man! Today HAS to be my lucky day!” 9Volt exclaimed, his eyes lighting up. “First a Wartortle, and now one of the Super Paper Mario villains! I mean, this is so cool!”
“Uh, yeah, sure, whatever,” Dimentio replied. “Say, do you think you could play a special song for me?”
“Anything for someone from Nintendo!” 9Volt then spoke into the microphone. “People, we've got a request!” he said to the dancers.
Dimentio handed 9Volt a copy of “Rock On 1983”. “It's the first one on there,” he told the Nintendo fanboy.
“Okay! Anything for you! Unless, of course, if it has to do with Floro Sprouts.” 9Volt put the CD in the player and every nook and cranny of Club Sugar was soon filled with Bowie goodness. “Okay! Now, here's our request! It's called "Let's Dance"!”
Let's dance! Put on your red shoes and dance the blues
Let's dance to the song they're playin' on the radio
Let's sway while color lights up your face Let's sway sway through the crowd to an empty space
If you say run, I'll run with you If you say hide, we'll hide Because my love for you Would break my heart in two If you should fall Into my arms And tremble like a flower
Let's dance for fear your grace should fall Let's dance for fear tonight is all
Let's sway you could look into my eyes Let's sway under the moonlight, this serious moonlight
If you say run, I'll run with you If you say hide, we'll hide Because my love for you Would break my heart in two If you should fall Into my arms And tremble like a flower
Let's dance put on your red shoes and dance the blues
Let's dance to the song they're playin' on the radio
Let's sway you could look into my eyes Let's sway under the moonlight, this serious moonlight
When the song was over, everyone applauded because of the great dancing everyone had done. Jimmy T had, of course, danced better than everyone, though Dimentio’s Bowie-obsession has brought him to a close second. However, it wasn’t a contest, so whatev. “That was awesome!” 9Volt cheered happily. “I can't believe I played a request for a Nintendo character!”
Dimentio gave 9Volt the thumbs-up. “Thanks, kid!” he told him.
“No problem!” 9Volt replied. “Can I get your autograph?”
Dimentio thought about it for a bit. “Hmm, I hardly ever give autographs,” he said. “But since you did a favor for me, I'll make an exception.” He took out a piece of paper, signed it and gave it to 9Volt, who was so overcome with joy that he fainted. “Crap on a cracker, now I killed the kid.” He slowly backed away from 9Volt while softly humming “Ashes to Ashes” by David Bowie(of course).
“I've never been happier in my life...” a dazed 9Volt said.
“Word.”
