Spyro: A.C.I.D. Reign
Chapter 7: Transmogrification Troubles
This chapter is the probably the weirdest one in the entire story. It bears no similarities to Cocho (a.k.a. CK Dragon)'s "Going Beyond", but I'll use the same name system as her Phayees(Ripto) is Ripto and Ripto(Phaydees) is Phaydees, with all due respect.
The original transmogrifier (not the Neopets one) © Bill Watterson.
Ripto was absolutely miserable. He had never felt this way before. Being stuck in a castle with the people he hated the most wasn't necessarily a picnic to him. Phaydees certainly livened up the place, with her whimsical habits, cooking skills, and overall angry demeanor, not to mention the fact that she redecorated the entire castle so it looked more like a mix of the Addam's mansion meets Castle Bam. One thing was, Phaydees was constantly singing. Whether she was tearing down the corridors at four in the morning, chanting "Love Roller Coaster" and waking up an aggravated, sleepy-eyed Ripto, or could be heard in her room three floors up, happily head banging to Siouxie and the Banshees, Phyadees loved the sound of her own voice. She was also a great cook. Although Ripto wouldn't touch her cooking, with paranoid thoughts that it was laced with poison, everyone else loved it, especially Gulp. Phaydees wasn't going to resort to physically torturing him -much. She knew the exact things that would annoy the short wizard and irk him out of his thick skull. And she absolutely loved it. She even went as far as to force him to go shopping with her, much to his dismay. Hour after hour Phaydees dragged the small riptoc through Hot Topic, Wet Seal, Angry Young and Poor and a number of other stores Ripto didn't have the patience to learn the names of. Sitting in 'boyfriend chairs' as Phaydees called them, and carrying her purchases was about more than he could take.
But there still was the matter of that impulsive kiss. What had made Ripto do that? He pondered hour after hour, trying to come up with a reasonable explanation. It was as if some outside force beyond h control had made him do that. Was he actually beginning to love her again? He dared not even to think about it. It was obvious that she hated him, and he felt the same way, but he did used to like her…..but that was in A.C.I.D. and Ripto tried his best to block those horrible memories out of his mind. Besides, Corky was the one she loved, even if he was dead. Ripto preferred to keep his emotions to himself, none of which showed feelings toward Phaydees. If any, they were ones of extreme hatred and anger.
One day, Ripto was recovering from being pummeled by Zoloe (who had made a full recovery) in the stomach five minutes earlier, when he heard a loud, triumphant scream from one of the laboratories. He walked over to see what was happening, trailed by an equally curious Zoloe. Phaydees 'laboratory' was actually a room full of computers and dangerous, evil-smelling chemicals. Shelves lined with spell books containing ancient knowledge and forgotten languages adorned the walls. Two cages containing nothing but skeletons hung from the ceiling, frozen forever in a position of anguish. He had no idea why they were there; maybe they were the remains of experiments gone wrong.
"I fixed it!" Phaydees exclaimed proudly. She ran in circles around a laboratory table happily while she waved something about her head. If he wasn't careful, she would trip on her own skirt.
"What?" Ripto asked dully. He wasn't as thrilled she was.
"This transmogrifier. It's the only thing I brought with me into suspended animation, well, apart from Zola," Phaydees said quickly. Zola nodded her oddly-shaped head.
"Well, what about Zoloe? You said she was an expert at transmogrification," Ripto asked, hoping that Phaydees would find a fault in her plan.
"Oh her? She's been in and out of so many transmogrified bodies that she's learned how to manually, without a transmogrifier," replied Phaydees.
"So how's this thingy work?" Zola asked. She snatched the small laser-like gun from Phaydees hand and started pressing random buttons. Sparks flew from its depths and blue light engulfed the gun and illuminated Zola's hands. Suddenly, two beams of light shot out of opposite ends of the transmogrifier, one red and one blue. The blue one hit Phaydees in her exposed stomach, causing her knees to buckle and collapse. The red one hit Ripto in the face. He slammed against the wall.
"Uh….." Phaydees let out a moan of anguish in a voice unlike her own. "Jesus….what happened…" her voice tapered off and she clamped a claw over her mouth and looked down at her body. "Holy crap….ACK! I'M PHAYDEES!!!"
"But that's impossible, I'm right here….AAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!" Phaydees screamed in Ripto's voice. "This is all your fault Phaydees! By turning me into you, you've found the ultimate torture…wearing a thong." Phaydees cringed. It wasn't possible; somehow the two villains had switched bodies, that's why their voices switched. Ripto was now Phaydees and she was in his body.
"Well this is interesting, I didn't put on underwear this morning," Ripto(Phaydees) replied with an evil smile on her face.
Phaydees(Ripto) turned deathly pale and cringed. He rushed upon Zola, and grabbed her buy the throat and shook her violently, shouting out random swears and insults such as "How would you like all the blood drained from your sorry body?!!" and "You're gonna get your hooves rippedso all you have to walk on are bloody stumps!"
Ripto(Phaydees) didn't try to stop him either; she looked more interested than earnest to help her friend. She wanted to watch him suffer as he ran around frantically screaming, with his eyes lit up with flames.
"THAT'S IT!!!! I'VE HAD ABOUT AS MUCH AS I CAN TAKE; I WILL KILL YOU ALL! Starting with that thing…" Phaydees(Ripto) advanced with demon speed upon the transmogrifier, balls of shadowfire in his hands, ready to obliterate the laser which caused him to snap. Immediately, he destroyed it. This was the kind of power he had always longed for. The same effect as the last one happened, two lasers shot out of either ends of the transmogrifer. One hit Ripto(Phaydes), who luckily, braced herself and stood her ground, who let out nothing more than a slight startling scream as her essence was replaced from it's current resting place into her real body. The real Ripto however, was thrown up into the air and forced backwards, through bottles of noxious chemicals, cutting his skin and stinging the wounds. Upon hitting a wall, he collapsed. All of a sudden, he got up, muttered a healing spell to ease the pain, and hugged himself. "I'm me again!" the real Phaydees proclaimed happily.
"Now as for you, Zola…" Phaydees said as she reached for the transmogrifier and muttered a spell at the same time. A ray of pulsating green light shot from her hands and hit Zola in the shoulder. She was unable to move; her arms and legs were bound to her sides, but she was not unconscious.
"Walk," Phaydees commanded with a hint of force in her voice. Zola arose and walked stiffly. Phyaydees smiled as she led the goat with her spell to a small underground dungeon. Little did she know about Ripto, lurking in a dark corner, plotting exactly what he said he was going to do….
The short wizard walked down the halls of his chateau until he found what he was looking for. There was Gulp, casually talking with Zoloe. He ushered a shifty eyed Zoloe away at scepter-point, for he needed to talk to Gulp. Ripto just needed someone to listen to his scheme.
"Gulp, tonight I'm going to kill Phaydes," Ripto said as slumped against a wall. He sounded sort of relieved at the fact.
"Why?" Gulp asked.
"Personally, she's been the bane of my existence ever since all of this started. And I plan on doing what I should've done a long time ago," he stated plainly.
"Aw, c'mon bossman. I thought she like you?" Gulp asked.
"Her?" Ripto snorted. "I show no affection for that goat whatsoever."
"She's everything you're not. Smart, tall, powerful…" Gulp's list went on.
Ripto rolled his green eyes and continued "But first, there's somebody I want you to dispose of…"
Okay, this chapter was sort of a filler (sort of?!); I have writer's block again now that school starts on Wednesday. I'll get in to the transmogrifier quest in Philamon in the next chapter, which I couldn't really put in here…[runs off to get more apple juice]
