From here Eugene could see that this Willow girl was clearly younger than her despite her height. She must have been a Sophmore, maybe a Junior, it was hard to tell because of how tall she was.
"I'm so glad I found you, Eve! You've got to help me, I'm ready to try out for the squad, just like you said I could!" Willow said, giving Eugene a small nervous smile, revealing a set of braces strapped around her teeth. "I even got a uniform to put on so it'd look like the real thing!" Willow unfolded the wad of cloth tucked under her left arm to show what was clearly an older version of Shermer High's cheerleading uniform, spreading it as best as she could to show it to Eugene.
"Oh! Um...Wow that's, that's really...nice, Willow?" Eugene said, hoping it sounded like he knew what the girl was talking about. He cast a look backwards to see a crowd forming at the locker room door as the rest of the cheerleading team, including Gloria, Joanna and Emily had all lined up to see their interaction, looks flickering from confusion, disapproval and clear mean spirited grins as they watched their team captain talking to a girl that was clearly in the wrong place. He looked back to Willow, the curly haired stick staring at him intently with an excited look on her face, expecting him to say something else.
"Thanks! It was my mom's! She pulled it out of storage for me, she was so excited when I told her you'd let me try out!"
In reality, Willow had been Bill, finally reaching the high school on his mad dash from McFly's, suspecting Even of somehow getting the magical gemstone that had destroyed his bully Big Jon and turned him into his gorgeous and loving girlfriend Joanna. But the moment he had reached the auditorium, where he knew that Eve would be, Eugene made his wish that had twisted reality once again, this time twisting Bill along with it. Gone was the clever geek boy with the impossibly hot girlfriend, now there was only Willow Strasserman, who spent the days daydreaming of being an artist, drawing, painting and hanging out with her best friend Paige Walters. And constantly fending off Matt Harris, the boy that fancied himself Willow's true love and soul mate with constant creepy flirting and altering his class schedule so that he could be around her all day.
"Well, at least there's a boy chasing you, even if he is a creep" Paige had said one day while they sat in Willow's bedroom dreaming about hot boys.
"Yeah but why can't it be a nice boy? Like Tom Ackerton? I'd give anything to be his girlfriend! His girlfriend doesn't even like him with all those terrible rumors she always spreads about him!" Willow had said as she idly drew another silly anime picture to toss up on her DeviantArt gallery.
"He's so out of your league. You'd have to be a cheerleader or something to be with him" Paige had said while doodling something of her own.
That was when the idea had hit Willow. The next day during the study hall she had shared with Eve, she had gotten up her courage and asked the high school superstar if she could come try out for the team.
Why the Ahn'Ger Stone had changed Bill, it was impossible to say. Perhaps it was part out of malice, ruining its previous owner's happy ending for somehow getting exactly what he wanted with a single wish, perhaps it was defending it's choice of a new owner from the only other being that knew of it's existence. Whatever the reason, Bill had been replaced and now there was only Willow Strasserman, ready to try out for the team.
And now she was here, the slightly naieve sixteen year old taking the token friendly gesture from Shermer High's most popular student as a legitimate offer to become a cheerleader. And now Eugene was paying for it, another consequence of his original wish and being transplanted into a life in progress (even if said life was, in whatever counted as reality, barely two hours old).
"Um...Well you're kind of, um, late?" Eugene fumbled, unsure of what to do and cursing having ever found the magical rock, "We just ended practice, maybe come back tomorrow?"
Willow's small smile turned into a frown. "But there's a game tomorrow, you guys are going all the way to Highland Meadows, how am I supposed to tryout then? Do...were you just being mean when you said I could join?" Willow's eyes began to get watery behind the glasses she wore as the thoughts of being betrayed by the nicest, purest girl in the school turning out to be just like all the other mean girls that picked on Willow, Paige and all the other girls not fortunate enough to be hot.
Eugene's green eyes went wide as Willow let out a sniffle. "Oh! No don'-don't cry okay? We're just all tired and were leaving but, uh, just let me go talk to the guys. Girls. Let me go talk to the girls first okay? Wait right here!" He said as fast as he could, a hand reaching out to softly touch one of Willow's skinny arms as if operating on it's own. The former janitor turned with a swish of his cheerleading skirt and made his way as quick as possible towards the blonde goddess that was Joanna Ingerman, standing in front of the entire whispering throng that was the Shermer High cheer team.
"What does Asserman want, Eve?" Joanna siad as Eugene approached, giving a small glare towards the nerdy girl that was trying to regain her composure on the other side of the gym.
"She..she just wants to try out for the team? I guess I, uh, said she could?" Eugene said as he grasped at what little information he had in this insane adventure/nightmare he was on. "I thought that I should, um, check with you first? Since we're...um...co-captains and all"
Joanna frowned and rubbed the bridge of her nose. "Eve, we talked about this. You can't keep saying 'sure come try out' to every girl who asks! I know you're just being nice and it's sweet of you, but it just a waste of time when we have to sit here and watch another Sally Know-Nothing hop around embarassing herself."
"Well I agree with Eve. Let's let Willow try out!" Gloria said as she pushed her way through the collected girls, her thick black hair like a shark fin sliding through a most blonde and brown sea until she was standing next to Joanna with a cruel smile on her face, "After all, we can't let our precious Evelyn break a promise now, can we? We let Emily on when she asked, after all..."
"Oh shut up, Gloria!" Eugene heard Emily's voice say as the girl that was apparently Eugene's best friend. The smaller girl split from the sea of white and yellow uniforms and pulled Eugene towards the empty bleachers while Eugene watched Gloria and Joanna share a look, almost as if the two of them were actually silently agreeing on something.
It made part of Eugene's mind blare out a wordless alarm that told him nothing other than it meant nothing good.
"You're not really going to let her try out, are you?" Emily said as the two of them reached the bleachers, standing in front of the considerably smaller pile of duffel bags. "We both know that poor girl is about to make a fool out of herself, and you know Gloria hate her. She'll probably take a video of Willow flailing around and blast it all over social media! And with how sensitive Willow is, who knows what it'll do to her! I know that you just want to be everyone's best friend, Eve, but the best thing for you to do, the right thing for you to do, is tell Willow to go home"
"But...she's crying! I...I don't know what to do!" Eugene said as he started to feel entirely overwhelmed again. Didn't he JUST leave a situation like this? Only now he wasn't the one everyone was going to be laughing at. He cast a sideways glance at the pink duffel bag that had 'EVE' on the front. If he could just get to the magical Stone, maybe he could make fix it with a wish?
'Yeah, like that has worked so far' Came a tiny voice in his brain that Eugene barely heard. He needed to find a way out of this nightmare, where everything he seemed to do only made things worse.
"Well" Emily said, an evil thought entering her mind. What Gloria had said had been true, Emily was only on the team because of Eve. She wasn't as gorgeous as Eve, Joanna, Gloria, Vanessa or many of the girls and her own cheer skills were just good enough to keep her from the chopping block, but just barely. Maybe...Maybe if Willow did get on she wouldn't be the bottom rung anymore? And maybe get some respect from the other girls while they all took to giving Willow a hard time...And what would a little white lie do? Eve wouldn't even care so long as Emily played it right.
"Well if you don't want to deal with her crying...Maybe she'll surprise us? I know her little sister Kim or whatever wants to be a cheerleader in a couple years, I'm pretty sure I've seen them at the park practicing a couple of times. Maybe she should try out! But whatever you do, I'll support it, girl!" Emily said after a few moments of watching Eve look back and forth between Willow and the rest of the group. And it was sort of nice, in a jealous sort of way, to watch her best friend, who Emily loved like a sister, start crumbling under pressure. It was a nice change of pace from the usual perfection Eve brought to, well, everything.
Eugene looked back to here and the waiting faces of the rest of the Shermer High cheerleading squad, to Joanna's look of disapproval to Gloria's impish grin. He was unfortunately being pushed towards making a decision that was going to end in disaster, and he had to make it soon.
Option 1: Eugene does the right thing, going back and telling Willow she can't try out. Willow is understandably devastated and leaves in tears.
Option 2: Eugene crumples under pressure and tells Willow she can try out, much to the younger girl's glee. It goes about as well as expected.