Troy took in the park a few seconds before he spoke the words of the spell.
He could feel Lancer’s expectant gaze on his back, but ignored it for a moment. The warm light filling the park, the sound of the city whose buildings rose on all four sides of the park, the children laughing and running around, parents scolding them or watching them from benches. Sunbathers lay on the grass, joggers both solo and grouped, all enjoyed the end of the day.
Then, he pointed-not at the park, but towards the college and entertainment district, where the game store was located-and said. “Mass Shift.”
He turned directly around to the way he came and pointed at the suburbs. “Mass Half.”
North, downtown. “Mass Shift.”
South, industrial districts. “Mass Half.”
Each spell pulled energy from him until he was driven to his knees. He watched reality itself slowly ripple as the spells transformed not only the citizens but the buildings around them. It was awe-inspiring.
The buildings downtown became towering sculptures of glass and marble, twisted into unearthly shapes that defied gravity and good architecture. It started from one skyscraper and spread in a wave that cascaded towards the park. Troy guesstimated it would be a good minute before it reached him.
Citizens twisted and transformed, freezing momentarily as their changes overtook them, and then continued on their way.
A road-crew was finishing for the day. A rather hefty, huskily built man wearing construction clothes and carrying a backpack left the rest of his co-workers and was walking towards the public bathrooms at the edge of the park was caught in the shift, pausing and transforming into an ogre. Troy stared as the crew transformed one after another into orcs and ogres and dwarves-muscled and tanned from being in the sun all day. A fat old businessman walking past them suddenly thinned, growing taller, elderly features youthening and becoming pretty, ears pointing. The woman walking next to him grew snakey hair and a pair of sunglasses appeared on her face, presumably to keep her from petrifying anyone as she transformed into a medusa.
Cars became sleek and a bit old-timey, more like something from the fifties. Their engines appeared to be glowing cylinders that were exposed to the air. The ripple from the business district surged forward, swallowing businesses and people alike. In a few seconds, the ripple of transformation would hit the park.
A rumble from Troy’s left caught his attention.
Back towards Troy’s home, reality had taken a different path. Buildings seemed to have been built of of gigantic redwood-like trees. Those that weren’t were more like burrows or caves. As Troy watched, the source of the rumbling became clear. A huge stone mesa arose, smack dab in the center, smaller mesas rumbling up near it in a stony cluster. It appeared to function like a megastructure, homes and patios and balconies appearing, even lifts along the side taking commuters up to the top where he could see more homes built from the strange trees.
The businesses changed. Several salons shifted to fur-parlors and billboards for heartworm medication and other diseases that would normally only affect animals appeared on the road leading back to where he came. A comedy club called the House of Yucks now had an animated neon sign of a laughing hyena instead of the animated laughing lips it usually had.
People walking towards the park shifted and changed as well. He could see a karate class being taught by a Japanese instructor at a strip-mall warped and altered, the karate club shifting into a traditional dojo, and the instructor becoming a Shiba Inu instructing a variety of animals. A tall window cleaner became a gecko, the scaffolding beneath him disappearing as he clung to the side of the building with his sticky hands. A small family walking towards the park suddenly shrank, becoming rabbit anthros, the children multiplying.
One important point that Troy noted was that not all of the people changed. Humans appeared to comprise at least 25% of the citizens in the city. That could be a problem if he was forced to change himself. Troy…didn’t really know what he wanted to be, just as long as it wasn’t human. He’d rather play reality roulette.
All across the city, the ripples radiated, finally crashing into each other, the buildings surrounding Troy becoming a hodge-podge of differing styles.
Troy felt the waves crash into him just as surely as he saw the ripple of reality as the spells converged on him, the epicenter.