"It's still a while until our turn," said the other Ty head. "Let's use that time to figure out what to do."
"You're right," Ty said. "But we might need some help."
The two Tys sat down and Ty grew out a few more heads--a few more brains could help them figure out what to do on stage. As most of the acts went by on the stage and the screens, the Tys thought about their act while at least one head watched the acts--he would report back to the others about everything he saw in case there was something that they should avoid doing, outdo, or change in their act. After a while, the Tys had decided what to do--and just in time, because it was now their turn in the competition. Ty went back to just two heads as he got up to go to the stage, but decided that he should just have one head at the start of the act. When Ty stepped out onto the stage, he looked exactly like a normal human being. As Ty looked out at the audience, he was nervous about being alone on the stage. Then he remembered that he didn't have to be alone, so he relaxed, and began his act.
Ty began by crossing his arms; the audience was unimpressed. But as Ty spread his arms out, they became covered in feathers. A pair of wings grew underneath Ty's arms as he spread them, and the feathers fell away revealing the wings of a pterodactyl. Ty gave his wings one flap and rose high off the stage, right up to the high ceiling of the theater. As he prepared to fall back down to the audience, Ty's wings were replaced with giant fins as he turned into a whale. The audience gasped and screamed as Ty fell towards them, many of them covering their heads, getting down, shrinking, or trying to run away. But nothing landed on them. Looking back up, the audience and the judges saw that the whale had disintegrated into a school of fish, and they were swimming through the theater as though it were a giant aquarium. The fit gathered back at the stage and began to change again. Their bodies changed into tiers, human figures, and reptiles. In no time, the Ty fish had changed into a large fountain--it seemed to be the Latona Fountain from Versailles, with tiers filled with peasants, frogs, turtles, and giant lizards. They were all spouting water beneath a statue of Latona, protecting her twin infants Diana and Apollo. Suddenly, the gilded animals and peasants, as well the marble family, began to come alive. The frogs croaked, the lizards and turtles crawled out of the waters, and the peasants--who were already being transformed into more of these animals--did so and disappeared behind the curtains. This left the fountain and the now-flesh family, only Latona disappeared, leaving her two children as they grew older and older. When they reached their adult forms, the two deities were joined by others who emerged from the curtains--the Ty animals and the Ty Latona who had gone backstage. Jupiter held a thunderbolt, Neptune a trident, Mars a sword, and Mercury winged shoes. Venus was even more beautiful than Transformation Contest Champion Alyssa, who was watching from a balcony and seemed impressed. Diana now held a bow and owl, while Apollo took the reins of a fiery chariot. All the figures on stage kicked off from the stage and into the air, apparently to land on the audience. But in midair, the Classical deities faded away as orbs faded in to take their places, as though the gods were turning themselves in the orbs. Then the true effect was revealed--the deities were becoming the bodies they bear their names in the Solar System. Apollo shone brightly as the Sun in the center of the room. Mercury and Venus orbited closest to the Sun, followed by Terra as the Earth and Diana as the Moon. Mars was next, followed by various asteroids--Ceres, Vesta, Pallas, Juno, Hephaestus, and Minerva. Next was Jupiter, along with its Galilean moons Ganymede, Callisto, Io, and Europa. Saturn and its rings were next, with seven of its moons--Titan, Iapetus, Rhea, Tethys, Dione, Enceladus, and Mimas. Uranus came after Saturn, rolling around the Sun rather than spinning, with five of its moons--Titania, Oberon, Ariel, Umbriel, and Miranda. Next came Neptune, with Triton, Larissa, Proteus, and Nereid. Beyond Neptune was Pluto and Charon, followed by Haumea, Makemake, and Eris. Various comets could be seen as they drew closer to the Sun, and it was difficult to make out the distant Sedna, let alone the Voyager and Pioneer space probes. After a few seconds, the Solar System started to move faster and faster. The rotating planets began to blur, especially as their orbits picked up speed with every second. It became difficult to distinguish the inner planets, and soon the outer ones were blurred as well. Within a minute, the entire Solar System was a rapidly rotating disc, and it seemed to be getting smaller as it floated back down to the stage. When it got there, the disc was just the Sun and nothing else. Then, something else was coming out from the curtains--it was another Ty as the Moon. It approached the center of the stage, and moved right in front of the Sun, darkening the theater. As soon as the eclipse reached totality, the solar corona lit up more than it normally would, engulfing the Moon and the stage in a bright flash of light. When the light cleared, a human figure remained, exactly the same as he looked at the beginning of the act, only now with a wider body and two heads. The shared body bowed to the audience--as applause roared from the audience. The Tys could see that the judges were impressed, but apparently they did not score until the end of the entire contest.
The emcee's voice broke through the crowd; Ty could see him now--he was an anthropomorphic boom mike.
"Ladies and gentlemen, Ty's performance has combined animal changes, age progression and regression, body modification, size change, sex changes, and who knows what other types of transformations! Let's all give him a hand, or as many as we can make!"
The audience seemed to comply, and it sounded as though more hands had been grown by several of the people in the crowd. The two Tys noticed Leroy's three heads and Ian's two heads out in the crowd, and the three groups waved at each other before the Tys walked backstage.
After the rest of the performers did their acts in the contest, the three judges--Shawn, the multi-limbed woman, and the multi-headed centaur woman gathered all the contestants back on stage, including Alyssa.
"Alright, everyone!" shouted one of Shawn's five heads.
"It's time to decide our winner!" shouted a second.
"Under your seats are iPads that have a ballot with each contestant," said a third Shawn head.
"Simply touch the contestant that you think gave the best performance," said the fourth.
"This vote will be process of elimination," explained the head on the middle body of Shawn's five. "After this first vote, we tally up the votes, and the half with the lowest votes are excluded from the next one. Remember to choose carefully. This will continue up until we have our finalists, at which point we--the judges--will decide amongst ourselves who the winner will be."
"And we all know who that's gonna be." Ty heard Alyssa's voice whispering in his left head's left ear--actually, it turned out to be her mouth stretched away from her face ten feet away.
The voting began. The Tys could tell that the Leroys and Ians were voting for him, but how many of the others would vote for him? After fifteen seconds, all the votes were tallied up on the big screens--fortunately, Ty ended up in the upper half, so he was not being eliminated right off the bat. The voting continued over and over, and both Ty and Alyssa scored in the half that was not eliminated. Eventually, the vote went down to just two--Ty and Alyssa. Whoever won the judges' vote would be the champion. Shawn's five heads talked with the female judges to decide the winner. Alyssa was filled with confidence; she was sure that she was going to win. Ty's two heads were nervous and worried, but neither would let it show at all. They just stood there and waited for the judges to decide. At last, they did, and they turned to the audience.
"This has been a hard decision, folks," announced one of Shawn's heads. "But after much debate, we have reached our decision."
"This is it," Ty thought.
"The winner of the transformation contest is..."