Chapter Six: The Missing Link
In her nervous pacing around the Muppet Theater’s
backstage area, Victoria glanced at the clock that hung on the wall above
Kermit’s desk more times than she allowed the big hand to move before glancing
again. Genevieve was gone for five straight hours, leaving Victoria to
deal with the possible suspicions that had developed on the disappearance of her
friend and fellow reincarnation. Four times in the last five hours Victoria had
been asked where Genevieve was; the response Genevieve instructed her to give
was “She’s out running errands.” Some residents had followed up with questions
about what type of “errands” Genevieve had been running; for this, Victoria was
forced to improvise a reply – she was not
instructed on how to answer these
questions.
(Narrative Note: This is the only other chapter in the story to take place entirely within the Muppetverse, following the prologue.)
She gave twelve various types of errands to each question,
some of which she even questioned herself over the plausibility. The anxiety
started to become too much for her to handle. She found herself wishing that
she were back at her lowly cabin back in the Disneyverse, living the perfect
life of solitude, away from all the stress.
(Character Note: In Tales of the Disneyverse, Victoria was first introduced as a resident of a realm based on the 2013 Disney hit Frozen, having lived in a cabin in the mountains near Arendelle until Elsa's winter spell, as well as a special visit from Fantasia's master sorcerer Yen Sid, convinced her to leave her home and the realm altogether.)
“Victoria?”
“She’s running errands!”
The response had been programmed into her brain. She was
so jumpy over Genevieve’s absence and all the interrogations that came with it
that she snapped at the one person who showed her an ounce of kindness and
respect that she so desperately wanted to have most days at the theater.
Standing in front of her that moment was a startled Sean
Thomas with an equally alarmed Walter by his side. “Is everything okay?”
Victoria took a deep breath and relaxed. “I’m fine.
Sorry. Was there anything you needed?”
“Just your help in bringing down a trunk full of costumes
from the attic.” Sean said. “It’ll only take a sec.”
Victoria smiled in relief. “Certainly.”
---------------
Victoria followed the man and the Muppet up to the hot,
stuffy area via a winding wooden stairwell. Upon entering, Walter could not
pass on having a “geek out” moment with all the props and other memorabilia
from the various skits done in the history of The Muppet Show. “Oh, man! Is that the Swinetrek model from ‘Pigs
in Space?’ And the rubber tire Gonzo attempted to eat to the tune of ‘The
Flight of the Bumblebee’ – with his bite marks still on it?”
(Pop Culture Note: Gonzo's "Flight of the Bumblebee" act was first done in the pilot episode of The Muppet Show, which aired January 16, 1977 in the United Kingdom and featured a guest appearance from Juliet Prowse.)
“Walter, could you maybe chill for a while, buddy?” Sean
respectfully urged. “The sooner we find the costume trunk, the sooner you can come
back up here to check out the relics.”
While Walter giggled like a giddy child, Victoria coughed
and gagged a few times. “Ugh. Stinks up here.”
Sean sniffled. “How can you smell anything from all of the sinus-clogging dust?”
Victoria coughed again. “That’s what I mean. I’m allergic
to the stuff.”
In his search for the trunk, Sean took a moment to glance
at her in surprise. “Really? So am I?” He chuckled at the coincidence. “Small
world, eh?”
Victoria smirked and muttered, “Not quite as small as
you’d think.”
“Say what?”
“Nothing.”
(Authorial Note: In reality, I am allergic to dust pollen. This is one of a few real-life traits that I've integrated to my "Sean Thomas" character, who bears the closest semblance to me, and his reincarnations.)
The three searchers moved aside several articles of
clothing and props, hoping to see a trunk beneath them. Four minutes of searching
had passed until Walter managed to find their target item between a folding
screen and a small black spotlight. “Here it is,” he alerted Sean and Victoria,
who immediately joined up with him as he stood in front of the wide and large
decades-old brown trunk.
“Man! It’s bigger than I’d imagined.” Sean noted. “Too heavy
to lift for one person.”
“Well, you did
bring an extra pair of hands for this purpose, didn’t you?” Victoria asked,
smiling as she showed off her hands
while wiggling all ten of her fingers.
Sean smiled back at her. “That I did. O.K. Victoria, you pick
it up from the front, and I’ll get the back.” Victoria commenced with the plan,
crouching beside the trunk’s front end and placing her hands at a section of
the object to get a good grip. “Make sure to lift with your legs, not your
booty.”
Victoria frowned at the advice he gave her. “That was exactly what I was about to do. How did
you know?”
“Because that’s what I
did once not too long ago.” Sean reminisced. “My lower back hurt like hell for
several weeks.”
(Authorial Note: Another of my common traits - the occasional back pain, most often from strenuous activity.)
“And it’s what happened to Gary just this morning.”
Walter added.
“Right. So go up by the knees and not by the cheeks, got
it?”
Victoria snickered. “Got it.”
Sean nodded while crouching himself beside the trunk’s
back end. “Alright. Let’s do it, Victoria.”
The two worked together in getting the trunk, which was
heavier than Sean initially believed, off the floor. When it was barely a few
inches up, Walter noticed something that he was amazed no one else had: the
entire top of the trunk was covered with an unusual form of dust that sparkled
in a rainbow of colors. Paying no mind to the obscurity of it, his interest was
merely to get it off the trunk to keep Victoria and Sean from breathing it in.
Without any word of caution, Walter blew the dust off the
trunk. Unfortunately, the opposite of what he wanted to happen had happened. The dust, which Walter
intended to be blown away from the
two people lifting it, ended up billowing right in the face of Sean, causing
him to breathe it in.
“WALTER!” He yelled before going into a series of coughs
and hackings.
“S-Sorry!” Walter exclaimed. “I was only trying to keep
you guys from breathing it.”
“By blowing it into my face?!” Sean grumbled, his
coughing worsening each second.
Concerned for his health, Victoria asked, “Do you need a
moment…?”
Sean shook his head. “No, no. I’m fine. Let’s just get
this thing out of here. The theater’s depending on me to—ACK!”
A sudden surge of pain shot through Sean’s abdomen,
prompting him to let go of the trunk that he and Victoria worked with much
effort in getting four feet off the floor. He doubled over in his pain while
Victoria quickly lost her grip on the trunk, leaving it to fall back to the
floor with a loud slam.
“Sean? What’s wrong?” Walter asked, but Sean was in too
much agony to answer.
His body hunched over, Sean shut his eyes tight in
reaction to the increasing discomfort he felt in practically every portion of
his body from his head down to his feet. When he reopened his eyes after a few
seconds, Walter and Victoria realized how they had turned a bright shade of
green rather than their natural brown color. Sean’s caramel skin tone turned to
a lighter shade of itself, which he noticed once he brought his right hand up
close to his face and saw the change in complexion. His short, cropped black
hair grew longer and straighter. He lost height and build as he became
noticeably shorter – his clothes barely able to fit him. But the most
surprising occurrence was when his chest inflated into perfectly shaped female
breasts.
(Marvel Note: Sean Thomas's transformation almost parallels that of the Hulk, specifically in the change of eye color. It is merely a reverse, however, as Bruce Banner grows bigger and more masculine as he changes into his green alter-ego, while Sean Thomas becomes shorter and female. Both instances, of course, focus on metamorphosis in body chemistry.)
Walter and Victoria watched the metamorphosis in complete
awe as the African American gentleman transformed into a beautiful Native
American woman who stood in his place – a foot shorter than him. She appeared to
be the same age as Sean and was an excellent female reworking of him in the
eyes of Walter and Victoria.
(Narrative Note: This is the first and only "amalgamated reincarnation" of the series. Much like World of Disney's version of reincarnation, it involves a total bodily change in the host, taking on a whole different identity in the process. The only difference is that the host, in this case, is the "Sean Thomas" from an alternate timeline, who has yet to die and be reborn as Guardian of the Disneyverse like his original counterpart. Because of this, Sean Thomas literally lives a double life as himself and the reincarnated form he is fused with, inheriting their abilities and limitations to aging and maintaining a mental/physical symbiotic connection.)
As she gazed upon the woman that had replaced Sean Thomas
and stood in his clothes (which were practically baggy on her shorter frame),
Victoria heard a small thud that directed
her attention to Walter. The Muppet fainted from the shocking event, and
Victoria could not blame him for doing so. Of course, with Walter unconscious,
Victoria was left by herself to figure out what just happened; it was for the
best, considering how Walter would have only freaked out more.
Slowly and carefully, Victoria approached the woman,
whose bright green eyes darted all about as she “scanned” her new surroundings.
“Hello,” Victoria said, which inadvertently made herself the center of the woman’s
focus.
“C-Can you tell me who I am?”
Victoria frowned. “You mean you don’t know?”
“I…I think so.”
“That’s good. That’s good.” Victoria tried to sound as
encouraging as possible – it was a totally new experience for her. “Uh…do you
know who you really are?” It was an
even more puzzling thing to ask but right in the sense of the situation.
“Sean Thomas? That’s his…my name, isn’t it?” The woman rubbed her hand against the left side
of her head, bunching up her long black hair. “He’s still up here. I can still
feel him inside.” To Victoria, the woman appeared confused and even scared as
she once again gazed at the room she stood in. She discovered a standing mirror
not too far from her that she spotted her reflection in. Walking over to it, the
oversized pair of blue jeans she wore out of her transformation (from their actual owner) had fallen to her ankles,
along with an oversized pair of dark grey Nike briefs. She barely seemed to
notice this as she stepped out of them and the pair of brown hiking shoes that
were no longer in her size either. An outline of her sizable buttocks could be
made out through the king-size blue t-shirt that she wore like a dress with the
collar hanging from her toned shoulders and exposing them; it was all that
covered her otherwise naked body.
It dawned on Victoria as to how this strange incidence
came about as soon as she thought back on that dust Walter blew in Sean’s face.
The dust was reincarnation remains, which could only have meant that the
woman’s rebirth happened within Sean
himself. It was a startling revelation for Victoria – any one of the Guardians
that she met back in the Disneyverse could have been in that dust, only now
taking on a new amalgamated form with the original.
(Narrative Note: Reincarnation has proven to be unpredictable throughout the World of Disney series. Although it's initially believed that there's a specific linear pattern to it, some instances have shown that it can be uneven with surprise forms taking shape.)
Victoria knew that she had to rectify this situation
immediately; it was the wrong time and place for it to happen. She harkened
back to an experience Genevieve shared with her about Yen Sid training newly-reincarnated
Guardians to manage their own identity. Putting it into effect, she once again
asked the woman (this time with more emphasis), “Do you know who you are?”
The woman turned to Victoria, her lips quivering along
with the rest of her body. “I’m Sean Thomas. NO! I’m…I’m…I don’t know! Yes, I
do! I’m Sean! NO! I don’t…I’m…” The confusion began to take its toll on her
mind. Victoria realized how two personalities were conflicting inside. Not
before long did the woman clutch her head in pain and collapsed to the floor
with a loud thud (much louder than the one Walter made).
“What is going on up there?”
The yell came from downstairs, and Victoria recognized
the voice as Christina’s. “Oh, crap,” she nervously muttered, knowing that –
between the sounds of the trunk slamming earlier and the woman’s body thudding
a mere second ago – Christina was on her way up to the attic. Quickly did
Victoria tend to the quivering, agonized woman lying on the attic floor. With
the woman incapable of coming up with an identity of her own, Victoria had no
other choice but to name her.
“Natalie.” It was the first name that came to Victoria’s
mind, and it appeared to have a profound effect on the woman, whose trembling
and suffering had ceased all at once, regaining composure. “Your name is
Natalie,” Victoria clarified to her.
(Biographical Note: "Natalie" is based on and inspired by model/actress Natalie Nicole Graves, who I met through Facebook. Natalie's emergence in the World of Disney series happened on my realization of her making a perfect "female version" of myself within a story. Although we have different eye colors, Natalie and I share the same Native American bloodline and respective hair and skin tones. The only way I could show this off in terms of fiction was to create the "amalgamated reincarnation" twist with her in mind as the first form that merges from my Muppetverse character. Since Marvel Mayhem, Natalie has graduated into being a major character, featured in other installments like World of Disney 3 and The Disney Access and planned for others to come.)
Natalie seemed back in control again, once she was established
with a name to suit her personality separate from the one of the man whose form
she shared. However, she still remained somewhat dazed, but Victoria owed this
to the reincarnation process kicking in. “Thank you,” she gratefully told
Victoria, who smiled in satisfaction of her assist.
Christina’s evident footsteps echoed into the attic,
pressing Victoria into rushing Natalie back on her bare feet. Upon her arriving
in the attic, Christina’s furious complaints accompanied her even angrier
footsteps: “Got me comin’ all this way up here with my pregnant self, makin’
all this stupid noise while we’re down here tryin’ to work and sleep!” At the
moment she finally stepped upon the attic floor, Christina was greeted with the
questionable sight of Victoria standing with the half-naked Natalie, both of
them holding hands.
Needless to say, Christina instantly flew into fathomable
rage. “No, you two have not been
doin’ the nasty up here!”
Victoria’s bright blue eyes widened from the accusation.
“What? No, we haven’t! I don’t even
know what ‘doin’ the nasty’ even means!”
(Character Note: Being born from a fairy tale world, Victoria's knowledge of urban phrases - especially of the sexual type - is highly restricted.)
“It means that your butt’s going to be fired once my
husband hears of this,” said Christina, before she took notice in the
unconscious Walter lying nearby. “Oh, lord. You even got poor Walter involved
in th—”
Her judgmental outburst came to an abrupt end as soon as
she realized how Victoria’s “friend” had moved away from her side and towards
herself. The hypnotic look on Natalie’s face unnerved Christina, who feared falling victim into some sort of sexual encounter by the strange woman.
Natalie’s body swayed so much that Sean’s oversized blue shirt fell to her
feet, leaving her body completely
exposed. Both Victoria and Christina’s eyes swelled in surprise and even a bit
of fascination from how toned Natalie was. Good
heavens! She’s got the body of a goddess, Victoria thought.
(Authorial Note: Marvel Mayhem is the only story in the World of Disney series to feature full-on nudity in more than one scene, this being the first. Because of this, I was forced to give this story a "T" rating on FanFiction.net. What only kept it from receiving a higher rating was my depiction of Natalie's nudity, which does not go into heavy imagery.)
Face-to-face with the heavily uneasy Christina, who stood
stiff as a board, Natalie smoothly ran her fingers across Christina’s face, her
tanned hands a heavy contrast against Christina’s bright peach skin. Standing
so close to Natalie, Christina could smell “Hawkridge,” an Old Spice fragrance that she normally detected on Sean. It was not
faint but rather incredibly strong, as if Natalie had just put it on. As much
as Christina wanted to voice her suspicions of this, she found herself hesitant
to with Natalie moving her fingers through her dark blonde hair,
shifting back strands that hung over one side of her face to completely display
its full beauty.
(Authorial Note: In reality, Natalie does wear the "Hawkridge" fragrance of Old Spice and has even inspired me to, after integrating it to our characters.)
Victoria witnessed the entire scene with awareness to the
idea of Natalie finding some familiarity with Christina – the half of her mind
that belonged to Sean helping her to do so. As awkward as it appeared,
especially from the spot Victoria watched it transpire (Natalie’s fully nude
and toned body standing before that of the clothed, pregnant Christina), it was
rather beautiful at the same time. She noticed Natalie’s hands making their way
down Christina’s pregnant body until they stopped at her bump, lifting up the
stretchy purple shirt she wore to cover it and revealing the precious mound of
flesh that accomplished in being free of stretch marks. The belly button stuck
out, a sign of the impending arrival of the bundle of joy within.
Natalie crouched and placed her right ear against
Christina’s belly to hear the unborn child moving around. Her head jumped back
once she felt the powerful kick of a foot through the flesh and right into her
face. “Our baby,” Natalie said with a smile that seemed telling to Victoria. It
was almost like the kick awakened Sean’s consciousness within Natalie.
Although it was an amusing turn of events, Christina was
frightened to the point where all she could have done was rush out of the
attic, pulling her shirt back down as she did so. Victoria was certain the odd
experience would keep Christina away from her for the relative future; yet,
there was also the unsettling prospect of her and Genevieve losing their
residence at the theater. But she chose not to dwell too much on that thought
and instead focused on Natalie, who was seemingly more in control of herself
with Sean’s subconscious now dominant with hers.
“I can sense entire universes around this one.” Natalie
calmly said. “I can see the past, present, and future of every one of them.
It’s helped me to know now who you and Genevieve really are…and what I am now.”
Victoria gave a tense nod. “So…you’re not mad?”
“Even if I was, I don’t got time to be now. Genevieve’s
in trouble.”
Victoria grew cold over this news. It undoubtedly
explained the prolonged absence. “Well…what can we do to help her?”
(UP NEXT: Plenty of Reunions!)
No comments:
Post a Comment