Mark was absolutely intent on going through another morph the next weekend, and he told Tony that he wanted to try an absolutely random change. Tony argued and argued with Mark about it. Finally, as Friday night neared, they reached a compromise. Mark would write down five different possible transformations and would pick one of them that would then be applied to him.
Up in Tony's room at their house, Jeff held out five playing cards to Mark. On a pad of paper next to the chronivac, Jeff had written down, KING = XXXXXX and QUEEN = YYYYY to correlate each card to a metamorphosis. Mark looked at the backs of the five cards and grabbed one from Jeff's hand.
"Jack of diamonds. What's that?" asked Mark
Tony laughed "Isn't that the whole point? You'll know when you start to change"
"Alright, sock it to me" commanded Mark.
"Hold your horses" said Jeff. "I didn't know which one you were going to be so I couldn't even start setting up your new profile. This'll take a minute or two"
"Horses? So, you're going to make me a stallion?"
Eric laughed "Well you're already a little horse's ass, but stallion wasn't even one of the choices!"
Tony and the others laughed heartily at Mark's overanxiousness. When Jeff finished, they brought Mark into the car and blindfolded him. He begged, half seriously, for them to tell him what his immediate fate was but they didn't crack. Jeff drove for almost a half hour with the windows closed so that Mark couldn't hear anything to give away their destination. When they were just a few minutes away, Jeff had Mark pull off all his clothes where he sat in the middle of the back seat between Tony and Jack. Mark tried to figure out whether this indicated one or another transformation, but it didn't really seem to favor any one of his options. At last, Jeff stopped the car and pointed the emitter at Mark in the back seat.
"This is gonna take a minute or so. I set this to go pretty slow so you can feel all of this change" said Jeff. He looked to Tony and Jack. "As soon as he starts, you guys hustle him out of the car" Tony and Jack nodded and Jeff pressed enter. But Tony and Jack never agreed on out of which side of the car it was that they'd push Mark. Tony opened his door and gave Mark a that yanked Jack into the line of fire of the emitter while Jack simply followed through on his conception of the plan and pulled Mark and a now shocked Tony his way, pulling Tony inot the line of fire of the emitter.
"Oh no! You two dopes got it too!"
Eric laughed and laughed. "All three of you skinny asses . . !"
"What? What!" demanded Mark just as Tony followed through with his plan and yanked Mark out onto the grass beside the car. Behind him, Mark saw a giant white tent with red borders. Peppy calliope music filled the air. Mark looked at his brother Tony trying frantically to remove his pants before-
Rrrrriiiippppp. Tony's clothes shredded as his round ass expanded at lightning speed. Mark laughed. He also chuckled at the sight of Jack, still essentially himself from the neck down but with his red hair simply dropping off his head and his two ears now the size of pizza boxes, his nose drooping down to his waist.
"Aw jeez!"
"Oh god!"
His brother and his friend let out a single exclamation each before losing the power of speech. Mark examined himself, though and saw that his skin was now gray and looked as though he had perhaps weighed 500 pounds just moments before.
But Tony and Jack were somehow well ahead of Mark. Tony's hair had dropped off him, his skin was grey and wrinkled. Tony's nose had become a long dropping trunk and his ears were of the huge floppy pachyderm variety. Long ivory tusks grew out of Tony's upper jaw and his girth just kept increasing without slowing. He trumpeted his displeasure at this unrequested state of affairs but regained his composure, whipping his little tail back and forth as the only symptom of his exasperation as he examined his cylindrical forelegs. Not wanting to sink into self pity, he turned his attention to the others and saw Jack, following a completely different pattern of metamorphosis, still human sized but completely elephant in shape and appearance. Jack's skin was grey and wrinkled a small tail dangled over his rear. He had little tusks jutting out of his upper jaw but no fingers or toes to speak of. But in just a few seconds, Jack's body increased five, then ten, then twenty times and more in mass till he was a mature african elephant only a shade smaller than Tony. He, too, trumpeted his displeasure at this state of affairs. Mark was almost finished being transformed into an elephant and saw the whole thing completely differently. Like his brother, he'd always been skinny. Even as an adolescent version of a body that was a cross between a model and an athlete, Mark was slender. He'd thought it would be cool to see what it was like at the extreme other end of the spectrum. Now he was there. Completely a pachyderm, Mark trumpeted for joy. He walked over to his brother Tony and looked him in his eyes before rubbing his head against Tony's. He meant it as a gesture of affection and request for forgiveness and thought that the long slow sigh that elephanTony let out followed by rubbing his trunk on Mark's meant just that. Jack joined in and for the next minute or so, all three memorized each other as faces, scents and shapes were imprinted indelibly in their still human minds.
Jeff reluctantly informed Tony and Jack that it would take him some time to figure out how to change them back, that he didn't want to make a mistake restoring them to their rightful profiles. Tony and Jack trumpeted their displeasure. But Jeff hurriedly typed away at the laptop trying to accomplish it.
Eric was less charitable. He couldn't stop giggling or laughing at their accidental fate. "You skinny asses all . . hahahahahahahahahaha! You shoulda seen your ass, Tony!" Eric held his hands about a foot apart, then two, then as far apart as he could reach and he burst into more laughter. Tony and Jack trumpeted angrily but this only increased the comedy of the situation for Eric.
Jeff was making progress calling up their profiles, but before he could get close to being ready to change them back, a dozen circus employees suddenly emerged from the tent and surrounded his three friends.
"Tony! Jack! Mark!" the leader of them called out. Eric looked quizzically at Jeff. "It was part of the deal that Mark would be called Mark" Jeff whispered. "I guess it applies to Tony and Jack, too"
The leader wore a sort of a ringmaster's outfit. A couple others were dressed as clowns. There was also a strong man and a couple of guys in indeterminate florid garb. The ringmaster grabbed Tony's trunk and then Jack's beside him and gave a frienly tug. Tony looked over his shoulder at Jeff. You're kidding. I have to be a circus elephant for the weekend. I was going to go to the circus with Claire. But Jeff shrugged back at him. Nothing I can do pal. Sorry.
The handlers were actually quite gentle with all three of them. As programmed, they regarded them as circus regulars. "How'd you three get outside like that? Huh, Tony? Huh?" said the ringmaster as he rubbed Tony's head between the eyes and despite himself, Tony had to acknowledge that it felt good. The ringmaster directed Jack to get behind Tony and grasp Tony's tail in his trunk and Jack did just that. Then he directed a visibly happy Mark to a position behind Jack and to grasp Jack's tail in his trunk and Mark followed orders. Then they were directed to get at the back of the train of elephants about to march into the big top. Tony grabbed the tail of another bull as big as him just before the line of pachyderms moved into the tent.
Inside, music blared and an audience full of kids cheered. Tumblers and jugglers dashed along in the huge circle about which the elephants marched. It was Tony and Mark's first experience of the circus. Their parents had never brought them, though they'd brought Cindy twice. Jack had been a few times and had a pretty good idea of what the elephants would be doing. First they circled the ring several times. The last couple times they all closed ranks and the tumblers and jugglers ran on top of them. Tony pressed his head against the rear of the elephant in front of him and felt Jack's head against his own gargantuan ass. When the tumblers and jugglers got to the relatively more diminutive Mark, they jumped off onto whatever raised box or platform was nearby. Next, the ringmaster gave a signal and, on cue, all the elephants put their front legs up on the elephant in front of them. That was followed by all the elephants, in turn, sitting back on their haunches and bicycling their front legs. "Jeez, this is easy stuff" thought Tony "even as fat as I am, I could do this stuff in my sleep" He could tell from the look in Jack's eyes when he glanced at him that Jack agreed. They did a few more tricks. Tony, Jack, Mark and all the others had to lift first one leg off the ground and then a different one. They all trumpeted on cue, Tony and Mark a half beat late of the rest. Then, to the shock of Tony, Jack and Mark, the ringmaster picked out Tony from the entire line of elephants to do special tricks. Tony walked forward a bit reluctantly. The ringmaster muttered "Fast, Tony, fast!" under his breath while smiling broadly at the crowd. There were all sorts of props in the center of the ring and Tony used most of them. Like a muscle memory that he'd forgotten or didn't even know he had, Tony found himself sittin on his rear spinning a beachball with his front legs. He caught indian clubs in mid air with his trunk after they were juggled and then one by one discarded by the circus's master juggler. He tossed a series of acrobats up in the air to do somersaults and land on his back using his tusks. He even rolled onto his back and sort of juggled two gymnasts by giving each in rapid turn a push from his rear legs to his front legs and then from his front legs into the air. His efforts had to be exactly calibrated given his huge mass, but by the end of the trick, Tony felt it was easy. He was so expert with his new pachyderm body, it gave him pause. The close of the act was Tony getting back on his feet and then executing some dance steps with a pretty, sequined girl. He went back to the line, applauded tremendously by the crowd including Jeff and a laughing Eric whom he saw in a middle row. After a few bursts of music, the elephants left the big top each ridden by a juggler, tumbler or pretty girl. The sequined girl got a boost atop Tony and patted his head. "Good boy, Tony! Good boy!" Somewhere behind him, Tony felt his elephant penis swell a bit. He let out a trendous trumpet blast on cue and left the tent.
Luckily, Tony, Jack and Mark shared the same cage, along with the elephant that had been in front of Tony. As soon as they got there, food and water was placed in front of them. They were all tremendously hungry and yet still amazed afterward at how much vegetation they managed to eat in one sitting. They played with their water afterward, shooting jets of it at each other using their new trunks. They slept next to each other and each of the three woke up the next day in shock, at first, at finding himself a huge pachyderm and not human. They began the day eating ravenously and finished it eating ravenously. In between, they gave two shows. In the Saturday afternoon show, Jack turned out to be the star. He did all the same tricks as Tony had done and equally well. In the evening show, slightly smaller Mark was the star of the show but performed even more tricks and more difficult tricks than Tony or Jack had.
Sunday began with rides. Tony, Jack, Mark and other elephants were outfitted with small platforms with chairs. There was a special platform where customers who paid to do so mounted their african elephant steeds. Tony could see some girls approaching the front of the line as the elephant in front of him was loaded and departed. A hard plastic platform was pushed down onto Tony's wide back and he saw the girls more closely. His spirits sank. One of them was almond eyed brunette Claire. "What's his name?" he heard Claire ask of him. "Tony" said the handler who would ride in the one front seat. "That's ironic" said Claire. "My boyfriend's name is Tony. He was supposed to be here with me but didn't answer my phone calls."
"I hope this Tony is more reliable" she chuckled and despite his incredible mass, big enough that he scarcely noticed carrying 3 people on his back, Tony felt an inch tall. How humiliating. He followed the elephant in front of him and gave a trumpet on cue from his handler. At the end of the ride, though, his spirits perked up a bit. "See" said the handler "Tony's the smartest one we've got".
"My Tony's very smart too. He's just a bit absent minded at times. I wouldn't be surprised if he started reading some book and simply forgot to call. Not malice or infidelity, just wrapped up in the world of a book. He'd do that" she said and walked off.
Well, this is definitely a physical world, thought Tony and one I want to be out of soon. After the promenade, the elephants participated in an afternoon show in which Tony, again, was the star and then an early evening show in which Jack was the star. They were brought back to their cage and from one side of their cage, Tony and Mark could see a clock. It was 7:55. They trumpeted happily and allowed Jack to waddle over and see it. He trumpeted happily, too.
A few minutes later, they saw Jeff peek around a corner of a tent flap. They guessed that he was using the chronivac to confirm their identities. He looked from the display to them and gave them the "okay" sign. Mark, Jack and Tony trumpeted happily.
"Mark! Mark first!" Jeff half shouted half whispered. Mark moved to the near end of the cage. Jeff pointed the emitter at him and hit "enter". Mark felt his huge mass start to diminish immediately. Next, Jeff zapped Jack and finally Tony. As before, the changes took different paces and followed different sequences. Despite going first, Mark was the last to be fully human. Jack lost his huge elephant mass first, just as he'd gained it last. He was truly an elephant man, walking on two legs but with the face and tail of a pachyderm when he squeezed between the bars and made his way over to Jeff. Tony was almost completely human before he could leave the cage.
They ran out to Jeff's car waiting at the edge of the parking lot and pulled on shorts and shirts inside.
"So, who's the fat ass now, Eric?" asked Tony