Phoning it in 6

"It was all that was in the magazine to wear," I replied. Well, besides cowboy boots, spurs, and hats, none of which I needed.

We walked right into the end of a song and dance number.

"Kyle's mom is a big fat fuckin' bitch! I'm just talking about Kyle's mom, yeah!" Craig sang, ending with a power slide on his knees while doing jazz hands in the middle of the courtyard.

"You guys sang 'Kyle's Mom' without me?!" Eric sounded heartbroken.

"Not on purpose, dude," Kyle quickly assured him. "It just came out of nowhere."

"He doesn't like his mom?" I ask Bebe quietly.

"His parents betrayed the resistance and it cost a lot of good people their lives, including his little brother, Ike. We'll probably never know the full story, but considering his parents, it's almost certain his Mom made the decision and his father simply went along with it. Kyle changed his last name and refuses to speak of them, but even before that Eric hated Kyle's mom and made up songs about her. Get a couple of shots in him and he and Eric will sing them together. It's strange the kind of things that bring people together, but there you have it," she said quietly.

"That would do it," I agree. "Everyone read to go to the greatest place on Earth?" I called out cheerfully. I'd like to get us all some place safe before something else happens and I'd like that safe place to have running water and toilets.

"Disneyland?" Wendy guesses.

"Close enough to drive over if you feel like it," I reply surprising everyone. "I'm aiming for downtown LA."

"I think it was nuked," Leo says thoughtfully.

"The empty world I told you about. I was going to try for Las Vegas, but casinos, while entertaining, don't exactly have a lot of supplies. Downtown LA however has plenty of stores and hotels," I explain.

"No robots, right?" Red asks.

"Not unless those Terminators you told me about were invented in the mid 80's," I reply.

That garners a laugh from everyone.

"Vegas sounds cool, but I guess... Hold on a second, weren't you going to teach us to summon things?" Leo asked.

"That's a good point," I say. "Hunger is a good teacher."

"Still sounds cool," Eric says. "To Vegas!"

"OK, everyone get packed up and police that campfire," Leo orders, handing me my backpack and going to grab his own gear.

"It feels great to be able to do this myself," Jimmy says as he easily gets his gear together and then helps Karen with hers, still marveling at being able to simply stand and walk without assistance.

Murphy grabs my arm, and hands me the handle of the little red wagon.

"We'll be moving half a dozen times, not just one step," I tell everyone. "So remember to follow at each step and not wander off."

"Partner up," Leo orders. "One person keeps an eye out, the other watches Merlin."

"That works," I say, as everyone lines up behind me.

"All ready?" Leo asks.

"All ready, sir," the group choruses.

"Proceed at your own pace," he tells me.

Murphy climbs in the wagon and drops bits of bacon into the fishbowl for the fish to eat.

I take a deep breath and concentrate. A single step forward takes us a quarter of the way to our destination as the castle walls shift into a cave with a sandy floor. There is a rough hewn stone table filled with rows of glowing colored crystals, like a stone age Light Brite and a doorway sized disk of light on one wall showing a grocery store.

I take a pull of water off my canteen and stretch. Kyle grabs Stan's belt as he leans through the portal and grabs a shopping cart full of food and pulls it through the portal, leaving a confused young woman who'd just turned away to wonder where her cart went.

"Risky," Leo notes as the portal changes a second later to show a primitive forest.

The pair wince and Stan says, "Habit."

Leo nods, satisfied they are properly chastised.

"OK, next step everyone," I say. Taking a deep breath I step forward and the walls melt into rows of slot machines and the jangle of coins and chatter of gamblers fills the air. That was a bit tiring, but we're almost there.

"Holy shit," Red mutters as everyone looks around us, seeing dozens of adults relaxing, smoking, and gambling, a sight they hadn't seen in nearly half a decade.

"Last step," I tell everyone as a security guard lifts his walkie talkie to report our heavily armed group. I take a step forward and the noise of the jabbering humanity that surrounded us vanishes, leaving only the sound of the slot machines as they flash their lights and play their music to attract an audience that no longer exists.

"This the place?" Leo asks as everyone scans the area, taking note of the clothes scattered about and red sand covering a large portion of the carpet.

"This is the place," I agree. "Zero population and the utilities should keep running for... months. Maybe years."

Leo hands me my backpack and I take out a Sears catalog and start pulling out swimwear for everyone including myself, though the assless chaps were cooler than the swim trunks I quickly put on.

"By the numbers, people," Leo orders.

"Security office," Eric and Bebe chorus.

"Housing," Wendy and Stan say.

"Food and supplies," Craig and Red add.

"Normally we'd all set up a perimeter and guard against Terminators while everyone goes about their jobs," Shelly says, "but we are no longer in familiar territory and we don't need to scavenge for supplies and guard against attack, so why don't we do something different?"

"it's kept us safe and even if it's no longer needed it's familiar and will help everyone relax and feel comfortable in our new environment," Leo explains. "Tonight, we can discuss new procedures."

"Yes, sir," Shelly agrees. "Karen, Jimmy, we are no longer wounded so let's start robbing the dead. We go row by row, keep an eye out for guard uniforms as we need keys and walkie talkies."

"Looks like we're base," Kenny tells Leo as everyone departs, leaving the four of us standing there, five if you count the fish.

Leo nods and morphs into a copy of me. "OK, how does that shadow shifting skill work?" he asks.

"Normally you activate the potential by walking the Logrus or spending a couple of years studying magic and meditating," I explain, "but I've been trying to think of a way to shortcut all that and I think it'll work. Wanna give it a try?"

"Sounds good to me," Leo agrees.

"Excellent." I place my hand on his shoulder and focus on the potential to shift shadow that he gained by morphing me. It activates like I'm flipping a switch, taking a decent sized chunk of my energy with it.

"That felt weird," Leo says, shivering.

"Yeah, but it worked," I assure him. "Now lace your fingers with mine, palms up like we're holding something." We lace our fingers together and I can see Kenny resist the urge to use our hands for a chair. "What's your favorite type of pizza?" I ask.

"Hawaiian, just like my native Hawaiian forefathers," Leo assures me.

Murphy chuckles, amused at the idea that Leo thinks he's Hawaiian, but I keep mum. For all I know, blond haired white guys are the native Hawaiian population in his world. I've heard stranger.

"Try and concentrate on how this feels," I tell him as I shift shadows slowly, searching for a Hawaiian pizza.

"Cool," Kenny says as dark smoke seems to gather over our hands only to turn into a pizza box with Greek writing on it a moment later.

"Only more time?" Leo requests.

"Sure," I agree. "But this time a meat lover's," I tell him.

"Got it," Leo says with a smile as another pizza appears in our hands, this time in a metallic looking cardboard box.

"Why are the boxes so different?" Kenny asks.

"Because I was concentrating on the pizza, not the container," I explain. "You get what you want a lot quicker and easier if you only focus on the important aspect, leaving the inconsequential bits to sort themselves out." I release his hands.

"What should I try for?" Leo asks as we set the pizza boxes on a change machine and open them.

"Soda," Kenny tells him.

"Alright," Leo agrees and closes his eyes. It takes him nearly a full three minutes before he manages to materialize a case of cola. "It worked!"

"Generic?" Kenny asks as he examines a can which is simply white with blocky black lettering labeled COLA.

"Figured it'd be easier," Leo replies. "I was more concerned with it being cold."

"Not quite what I meant by only concentrating on the important bits as it's easy to get name brand as generic, in fact I think it took you more effort to get generic specifically, but making sure it was cold was a nice touch," I admit, before eating a slice of pizza.

"My turn," Kenny says, holding out his hand to me.

He quickly copies my DNA and morphs into me so I can activate his ability to shadow shift. He picks up the basics right away adding breadsticks and dipping sauce to the pile before experimenting himself.

Wendy and Stan returned first.

"Where did you guys get pizza?" he asks.

"He taught me and Kenny how to summon things by using it to summon lunch," Leo replies cheerfully.

"Cool, can you teach me?" Wendy asks.

"I can teach five people tomorrow," I reply. "I'm tapped out for right now."

"Tapped out?" Wendy asks.

"I can enhance a certain amount each day," I explain. "I've reached my limit for the moment, but tomorrow I can enhance five of you to do it as well."

"Woof," Murphy says pointedly.

"Or four and Murphy," I say. "Did you use the morphing cube?" I ask him.

Murphy grabs my hand and I yawn as he acquires my DNA. He shifts into my form with a fluid grace that no one else, not even me, has shown.

"You're naked," Wendy points out to him.

"I'm always naked," he replies easily, before taking two slices of pizza and dropping one in the fishbowl, which erupts in floating tropical fish once more as a few dozen astral fish start exploring the room.

"You can talk?" Stan asks.

"Woof," Murphy deadpans and grabs a soda.

"We grabbed the keys to a five bedroom suite from the front desk," Stan says, changing the subject. "It was reserved for someone named Tom Jones."

Leo nods. "Nice work." Turning to me he asks, "How do we shape shift?"

"Morphing is like flipping a switch but the feeling is similar," I explain. "Just picture how you normally look and concentrate on wanting to look 'normal' again. The hard part will be not accidentally morphing while doing it."

The three copies of me close their eyes and immediately morph back to normal. It takes at least half a dozen shifts before they manage to control it enough to tell the difference between the two abilities.

"This is difficult," Leo says with a sigh. "It's like trying to type a letter with your eyes closed while someone keeps moving the keyboard."

"When we acted up as kids, they'd make us mirror changes on each other to practice, instead of letting us do it the easy way with a mirror," I tell him before realizing what I said.

"Easy way?" Stan asks with a grin.

"Sorry, it's been so long I forgot," I apologize. "To be considered a master of shapeshifting, you have to be able to do it in your head on the fly, but the basic skills are easy to learn if you have a mirror handy."

The three walk an aisle over to use the mirrored wall while Stan and Wendy laugh. Leo returns just a minute or so later looking like a taller, handsomer version of his base self.

"That is so cheating," Stan complains.

"If you got it, flaunt it," Leo says with a smile. "And if you don't got it, go and get it."

"Couldn't agree more," Kenny agreed, as she showed off curves he didn't have five minutes ago, as a blonde playboy centerfold wearing a micro bikini.

"I honestly can't say I'm surprised," Wendy says with a shrug while everyone else agrees.

Murphy grins at everyone as they stare at him. He's six feet tall and covered in light blue fur. Even the fish has half a dozen projections eying him.

"It's the Cookie Monster," Stan says after minute.

"What? I like the Cookie Monster," Murphy says. "I mean, woof."

Typing by: Abyssal Angel