Bill Strasserman stopped to catch his breath as he had run...sprinted the distance from the classic Shermer burger joint McFly's back to the grand halls of Shermer High faster than the lanky, out of shape geek had ever run before. It had only been a short couple of miles, but the teenager was covered in cold sweat by the time he reached his destination, feeling like he had just finished a marathon. Considering that today was a little chillier than the meteorologist had forecast the night before, below average even for a Midwestern state like Illinois thanks to that freak thundershower from this morning, the perspiration that seemed painted over Bill seemed less like a natural coolant system and more like his body was deliberately trying to give him hypothermia.
"I really need to join the gym" Bill nagged to himself in his exhausted voice, ashamed at his life choices. He wiped the torrent of sweat pouring down his brow, and finally, after a long minute, settled back into to a comfortable breathing routine.
Bill's more athletic friend Tom Ackerton had always encouraged Bill to get into shape, but Bill had consistently put it off, lazily rationalizing that he had plenty of exercise running away from Big Jon. Now that he had a girlfriend though, an absolutely gorgeous one(One that had formerly been Big Jon), he had come to the epiphany that he finally had a good reason to take care of his appearance, and he decided that he was going to take Tom up on that offer to bulk him up.
First though, Bill, absolutely needed to get his life preserver back, the thing that had eliminated all of his problems and significantly improved his life in one fell swoop, the magical green gemstone that he had found on his front porch this morning.
It wasn't just selfishness, Bill told himself. Sure, he wanted to use the gemstone to make further improvements to his life, and to the world in general, but more importantly, Bill had convinced himself that he was keeping the stone out of dangerous hands.
God forbid, if Gloria Vanapoulous got hold of the stone, or Rob Bolstrum, or any of the other bullies, or even his little sister Kimmy, Bill surmised that the world would be far worse off than it already was. He could only imagine what kind of reckless wishing sprees any of those cretins would go on, and how they would inevitably damage society.
Or, Bill reluctantly told himself, even Tom. Tom was a good guy, but could someone that depressed all the time be trusted to make sound decisions? Bill thought no.
Or the police for that matter. They couldn't be trusted to not use the stone for their own corrupt reasons, and certainly not the government. If some Feds came knocking on the Strasserman front door tomorrow demanding the gemstone, like hell was he just handing it over.
No. Bill Strasserman, self appointed guardian of the world, decided that he was the only one responsible enough to wield this stone . He wasn't going to waste this opportunity like some lottery winner blowing all of their money on hookers and coke. He wasn't going to use it to settle petty scores, or erase people from existence like Thanos from the recently released Infinity War movie. He going to be smart about this.
Bill's fatigued body and cramped legs carried him from the front entrance of the school, which was locked, to a side entrance that Bill knew was used as a quick exit for the students(And occasionally teachers like Ms. Barry) who liked to go out to smoke. Lucky him, a block of wood from Mr. Santini's shop class was lodged in between the door. He casually snuck inside and hoped that nobody would notice him. As quiet as a mouse, he tiptoed past Mr. Irons's office, who currently was busy using the phone.
As Bill roamed the eerie, empty hallways of post-in session Shermer High, he cursed himself for being dumb enough not to realize that the sharp side of the green stone would tear a hole through his backpack. How could he be so stupid!? The eighteen year old geek guessed that he had been too distracted by the almost divine beauty that was Joanna Ingerman, the amazon like blonde who was now both his loving, affectionate girlfriend and his bodyguard against Rob. Bill laughed at the thought. If Joanna was Wonder Woman, he figured that made him Steve Trevor.
But he was getting distracted. Bill figured that the stone must have slipped out of his pack at some point in the afternoon, probably as he was commuting from one class to another. and Eve Kazinski of all people found it laying on the floor and picked it up.
Eve Kazinski. Bill had mixed thoughts on her.
The redheaded Senior girl was just so perfect. Beautiful. Smart. Graceful. Naturally good at everything. Seemingly pure of heart. Went out of her way to be kind to even the biggest dorks in school like Paige Walters and Matt Harris, and helped out special needs students feel welcome and needed. Bill mentally compared her to a female Captain America. Just like Steve Rogers, she even had perfect teeth. She had even fixed Bill's transmission once!
Eve's seemingly perfect life just seemed so damn odd to Bill. It's like she came out a storybook. She was a... what's the term...a Mary Sue!
"Son a bitch" muttered Bill as he finally made his way to the back of the school where the auditorium. He just had an epiphany. "Did Eve use the stone on herself?" he thought as he slipped through the double doors into the dark cavern of the auditorium.
It was certainly possible. When Bill had wished for Big Jon to turn into Joanna this morning, he had altered the very fabric of reality. He had created a brand new timeline where Jon had been replaced by Joanna, and only Bill seemed to remember that Jon had even existed.
Who's to say that Eve hadn't done the same, only to herself?
It disturbed Bill to realize that his memories could have been tampered with. Then again, he had done the same thing. Maybe there wasn't even such a thing as an "original" reality, just the reality the last wisher had created. Who had the original Eve been? For all Bill knew, maybe she had been some obese, pockmarked Freshman nerd that he didn't remember, and that version of Eve had used the gemstone to wish for this dream life as the princess of the school. Like the plot of that one episode of Buffy The Vampire Slayer. What had it been called? Superstar?
Bill was getting lost in his own paranoia again.
"Just find the stone" he whispered to himself as he stuck to the shadows.
It was a lot easier than Bill expected to sneak past the drama club. The pack of wannabe thespians were currently taking a break apparently, lost in their own lives and the lives of their characters A few were chatting amongst themselves on stage, still in their costumes. A few others were going over their scripts for the umpteenth time in the audience. Two kids dressed as greasers were laughing over a private joke they were sharing near one of the exits. It was a completely alien world to Bill, who didn't have a strong interest in the performing arts outside of consuming whatever superhero or sci-fi movie was coming out that month. And comics and video games, if those counted.
He made his way backstage through a side entrance, and after thirty seconds of searching, he found her. Eve Kazinski herself!
"Damn it!" he whispered through gritted teeth from behind a curtain.
He had been originally planning on stealing back the stone while play rehearsal was in motion. He had wanted to sneak backstage and rifle through Eve's belongings while the leading lady was busy singing her lungs out with her fellow lead Rod Alvarez, but now he couldn't do that. She was right here! And it looked like something was really wrong with her. Bill watched as she removed her blonde wig and tossed it to the floor in a huff. She turned around, and the eighteen year old saw that her face was red, and there were real tears in her eyes.
What was going on?
Did she fail on stage or something? Impossible. Eve had the voice of an angel, and from Bill had heard a more than capable actress.
He saw Eve ransack her makeup drawer. And then saw what he had been looking for! Bill had to slam his hand against his mouth to keep from gasping.
The stone! Eve had pulled out the stone from the makeup drawer!
Bill wondered what he should do. Should he just run up and grab it from her? While he was bigger than Eve, he wasn't particularly strong or athletic, while Eve was in perfect shape from years of all the different sports and cheerleading she had participated in. He wasn't sure he could overpower her, nor did he particularly want to. He wasn't a thug like Ingerman or Bolstrum.
He saw Eve make a wish. A wish to be herself again.
I knew it!
Bill waited. He watched the uncharacteristic temper tantrum follow from Eve's lips as she flailed about, frustrated at her failure. He saw her violently sit down on her stool, seemingly defeated by something for the first time in her life. Then, another girl, Eve's best friend Emily McLeod, came backstage to console Eve.
Bill watched with rapt attention as the real life drama unfolded around the two teenage girls. He saw how Eve rejected Emily's affection. Then they began to argue. He had no idea why the two friends were fighting, but apparently rehearsal hadn't gone well after all.
He saw the redhead push her best friend to the floor in a bratty temper tantrum. He saw her scream bloody murder at Emily. He saw the betrayed Emily scream back at Eve. He saw Eve reach for the stone, holding it threateningly in her tiny hand. He heard her make a violently angry wish.
Then, Bill saw the last thing he had wanted to see. He saw a vibrant green-gold aura erupt from Eve's gemstone filled hand as the world faded away...And then snapped back into existence a moment later.
Suddenly Bill found himself in the lobby of the gym, and something about his body felt very off...
Bill blinked in confusion at the sudden change in location. Where before he had been hidden backstage in the school auditorium, now he was standing out in the open, in the brightly lit lobby of the Shermer High gym! And everything seemed...bigger? And brighter? Bill stared at the trophy case next to him, squinting as the overhead lights produced a harsh glare on the metallic surface of the trophies within. He eyed the blurry, distorted reflection of himself in the polished gold of a football trophy from 1996 when he realized that there was something wrong with him.
His head was too large. And something was wrong with his hips.
Suddenly very concerned, Bill slowly raised an arm, noticing that where once he'd been wearing a t-shirt, now his arm was covered by a full red sleeve. And his arm itself felt lighter than it had moments ago. The hand crept upwards as he kept his eyes lock on his distorted reflection before violently recoiling as he touched something soft hanging below his ears.
"Holy shit!" Bill hissed, and a hand clutched at his throat, which suddenly no longer contained the tell-tale bump of a masculine Adam's Apple. His voice was different! It was...lighter?
"Oh no" Bill whispered, and without looking down he darted for the bathroom doors nearby, not paying attention to which one he entered, only bothering to focus on how small his hands were now, how narrow his fingers looked. How there was an absence between his legs, and how his ass tried to knock him over as his center of gravity was thrown off. And then he was there, standing in front of the bathroom mirror.
Bill had been, just as he feared, changed by Eve Kazinski's wish. Instead of a short haired eighteen year old male who could have done with a little more exercise, there was just a tall girl with frizzy, curly dirty blonde hair wearing glasses. Small breasts poked through the featureless and red long sleeved shirt he was now wearing, and his hips seemed barely contained by paint-stained jeans. His lips were a little puffier, fuller, small ears hidden beneath his curly mane and decorated by small earrings in the shape of BB-8.
And was he...younger? If he was, it was almost imperceptible to Bill's new eyes, which retained their original color but looked so large behind the pair of glasses that sat on his small feminine nose.
"Oh Eve, what the hell did you do!?" Bill groaned as he pulled the glases off and watched the world go blurry before slipping them back on. He looked a LOT like his mom, and a little like Kimberly so at least he was pretty sure he hadn't magically been transplanted into another family. And the former boy had retained his mind and memories, even if he had no idea what his name was now. There was still a way to get out of this, he just needed to find Eve and the stone.
He felt a buzz in the pocket of his jeans and cautiously slipped a slender hand into the pouch, sighing in relief as the familiar rectangular shape of a phone met his touch. He grasped the cellular device and pulled it out, unlocking the screen with a simple swipe and thankful that the girl he now was hadn't put in a screenlock code. But that was where the relief had ended. On the home screen was the usual scattering of apps, but they were arranged in front of a picture of some anime that Bill didn't know (he was much more of a Western Animation guy). But it wasn't the picture that made what little body hair he now possessed stand up on edge; no, it was the date.
October 19th, 2018.
He had been sent back in time! Instead of being a month away from graduating, the school year had practically started over!
"But why?" Bill wondered out loud in his reedy voice. He noticed that there was a text message waiting on the messenger app, and at a loss of what to do now that he was back in the past, Bill simply tapped on it.
Hey Willow! Good luck! Tell me how it goes okay? xoxo -Paige
Message Received 6:25pm 10/18/18
Willow? Was...was that his name now? Bill could only assume so, and the picture next to the small row of text was clearly the chubby face of Paige Walters, one of Shermer High's social outcasts that seemed to not fit in with any of the cliques no matter how hard she tried. And apparently, Willow was at cheerleading practice? But that didn't seem right, Bill wasn't dressed for cheelrleading and even with the somewhat relaxed expectations of what cheerleaders were supposed to look like anymore, Bill clearly didn't look the type. Did that mean he was part of the 'Losers' now as well?
But at least the time rewind made some kind of sense now. In the spring there were no sports that needed cheerleaders, they were strictly for the football and basketball seasons.
"I wonder if the Stone doesn't consider cheerleading competitions a sport" Bill chuckled darkly to himself before turning back to the phone, looking for more information about who he was now.
He took a second to scroll up and was assaulted with dozens of texts, ranging from short emoticon tag to full blown conversation spiels. The most recent one was clearly about Matt Harris, the little sociopath that followed Paige around like a lost puppy, only now it seemed that Willow/Bill was his new object of lust and it made 'Willow' very uncomfortable. And it also confirmed that Bill was now two years younger than he'd been minutes ago; Paige and Matt were Sophmores, and now he was again as well as the magic of the gemstone had regressed him to sixteen.
"Well that's just fucking great!" Bill swore as he pounded a tiny fist against the bathroom counter, glaring at his new reflection, "I hope I still have my damn driver's license! I wonder what Joanna is-" Bill paused in the middle of his tirade as a dark thought washed over him. If he was sixteen again, and if he was a girl...There was very little chance that Joanna Ingerman was still his girlfriend. He was alone again after barely having known what it was like to be in a loving relationship for less than a day.
"No. No no no! I'm not letting it end like this! That rock belongs to me and Joanna is my girlfriend!" Bill growled as he slid Willow's phone back into his pocket. He had to find that magical gemstone and he had to fix this, even if he had to steal in back from Eve! Bill charged out of the bathroom, heading for one of double doors that led out into the gym proper when he spied a pile of yellow and white clothes sitting in the middle of the lobby. He stopped and changed direction, swooping up the pile of clothes and un-wadding it to see a VERY dated version of the Shermer High Salamanders logo on it. He spun the torso piece around to find 'Strasserman' stenciled in white across the back.
'This must have been mom's...' Bill thought to himself. His mother, Martha, had been a cheerleader in her high school days. She must have given 'Willow' her uniform to try out in. Well, if nothing else it would maintain his 'cover'. Bill had no intention of making a fool of himself in front of the rest of the cheerleaders, which most definitely included Gloria Vanapolous and Joanna (he knew from Tom, at least in the previous reality, that Gloria wasn't above using failed try-out videos as leverage over other girls).
"Just gotta get to Eve and fix this mess." He muttered silently, wadding the uniform up and holding it under his left arm as he made his way back to the gym doors and walked into the gym.
The cheerleaders were clearly done with practice, most of them heading into the girl's locker room to change out of their uniforms while Joanna Ingerman stood at the doorway, arms crossed under her incredible boobs as she made sure no girl was left behind. Bill frowned for a moment, his eyes lingering on his sudden ex/neverwas girlfriend before he focused. He hoped Eve was still in the gym, the thought of having to venture into the viper's nest to find the redhead easily topping the list of things he had no desire to do. At least while he looked like this. But then he saw the brilliant red hair, now in a ponytail as opposed to hanging freely as had been before the wish, and it's owner standing next to the bleachers. It was Eve! Now all he needed to do was get her attention. Not willing to get any closer to the cheerleaders than he had to, Bill chose to go loud.
"HEY EVE!" The former boy shouted at the top of his new voice. He winced as it echoed throughout the gym. He hadn't meant for it to be that loud, but it seemed to have grabbed the popular girl's attention. Eve whipped around like a cat, and even from across the gym Bill could see that she looked scared, confused. As if this entire situation was as alien to her and is was to him. The few remaining cheerleaders were staring at him before they began talking to each other. Bill couldn't hear what they were saying, but from the looks of disdain he could tell they were probalby making fun of him. Whatever. At least Eve wasn't taking part in the gossip, which meant she still might have been the same kind soul that he remembered.
"EVE!" Bill yelled again, waving his free hand in the air. That seemed to finally spur the redheaded beauty into action, and she made her way across the gym, swishing in her cheerleader outfit until finally she was in front of Bill. She gave Bill a weird look as if she was sizing him up before she spoke.
"Um...hi?" She said in her melodious voice. But Bill could still tell she was confused.
'Here goes...' Bill thought as he gave Eve a small, nervous smile.
"I'm so glad I found you, Eve! You've got to help me, I'm not actually a girl! My name is Bill, and I believe you have something that belongs to me..."
Option 1: Bill desperately tries to get Eve Kazinski to work with him in returning to the old reality, not realizing that Eve wasn't all that she appeared to be.
Option 2: Eve, or rather Eugene, panics about losing the Stone and her/his only ticket out of this reality and runs from Bill/Willow.