“I wish that my true parents were here, right now!” screamed Bill with righteous fury in his voice, almost foaming at the mouth like a rabid dog. He on the verge of sobbing, lost and unable to think straight due to a toxic combination of ire, anxiety, and grief over the perceived loss of his family. If he could see himself, he would be aghast at the mess he now was.
To add to this maelstrom, twinges of guilt already began to manifest. Bill was normally not a violent person, and despite feeling that she deserved it, he saw the look of fear in Gloria's eyes as he loomed over her. He was about to apologize to Gloria for hitting her before he noticed that it wasn't exactly his beet red face she was staring at with rapt concern. Instead, she was staring at his glowing fist. His eyes trailed downward...
Bill opened his palm, revealing the damaged Ahn'Ger Stone and the effect that it was generating. Despite the crack running through it, the stone was currently shining brighter than it had the first two times it had been used. To Bill, it was as if he was holding a miniature star in the palm of his hand. He stared at the stone in genuine awe, astonished at its power.
Time seemed to be slowing down to the teenage boy, as if every second were an hour and every minute a day, but despite this feeling, or perhaps because of it, the magic of the stone struck again. He watched as time and space warped around him like he was on the world's worst acid trip. The domicile that Bill, Tammy, and Gloria were standing in began to melt into a riot of colors and configurations. Before reality finally reset itself once more, the last thing that Bill heard was his name being called out by Tammy's haunted voice. She feared losing him, and Bill feared losing her, but the latter could not dwell on lost on. Bill instead wondered what insane life he was heading to next.
**
“Bill! Bill!”
The ringing of Bill's name suddenly caught his attention. He looked around, and found himself back in his bedroom. After breathing a deep sigh of relief, now somewhat used to the nature of shifting locations, the teenage boy quickly inspected for anything that was out of place, and by anything, Bill meant anything. To his relief, Bill found that nothing in his room seemed to be altered or bizarrely out of place. His baseball cards, his comics and video games were still all organized to his specification, and the clothing in his dresser were still all the same. His telescope was still present. Even the white walls were the same.
He quickly looked down at himself. He was still dressed in the same clothing and shoes.
He patted himself down. Nope, no tail. No forked tongue. No breasts or any signs that his body had been altered in any way. Not even the color of his shirt was different.
“Woohoo, I'm normal!” he muttered to himself in an attempt to keep his sanity.
Most importantly, the Ahn'Ger Stone remained in his hand, back to its dormant state, though unfortunately still damaged.
“Bill! Champ, we need you! Please come downstairs!” shouted the same voice again. Bill didn't recognize it, which deflated his already shaky confidence that reality had indeed returned to normal in its entirety. Cautiously, Bill didn't answer back, not knowing who this person was. Slowly, he walked out into the hallway, back to the family photo that had set him off.
It wasn't there.
The location of the family photo wasn't there. Not even the one with his fake parents.
He continued to take stock of the house. Other than the missing portrait, everything else looked normal.
Anxiety concerning his family's whereabouts began to resurface in Bill's mind once more. He was about to inspect Kimberly's room to see if it had returned to its relentless assault of pink, but he was interrupted in this pursuit.
“Bill! What are you staring at? C'mon honey, or we'll be late!”
The teenager was shaken out of his state by yet another voice at the bottom of the stairs.
“C'mon, pumpkin. We're all packed and ready to go! We're just waiting for you, and we can't leave until our darling Bill is ready. .”
He turned his head and discovered perhaps the last person that he had expected to see again.
It was Tammy! Not the Tammy he just left...it was the grown up Tammy. The middle aged one that he's married to in 2058! She was dressed casually in cut off jean shorts and a white top, a pair of dark sunglasses tucked into her collar. If Bill could guess, she looked like she was ready to go on vacation or a trip to the beach. But it was still April...
Walking down the stairs in a daze, he approached the older blonde woman once known as Tom Ackerton with confused emotion and disappointment that nope, things were not entirely back to normal after all. Once he reached the last step, Tammy immediately rubbed Bill's hair, though the gesture felt more playful than romantic.
“God, I'm going to miss you when you leave for college” she said, hugging him with a tight, affectionate squeeze.
“Tammy?” he asked with confusion as she held him tightly.
“Getting too old to call me Mom?” as she let him go to look deeply into his eyes.
“Mom?” asked Bill in surprise.
As Bill looked into the eyes of his best friend slash future wife slash girlfriend, he definitely noticed that hopelessly devoted look was gone. Instead, it was replaced by something else. Still affectionate, still loving, but different. He wanted to say that it was the look his real mom gave him, but he didn't want to go down that road.
“Tammy!? Where is that kid? I'm not waiting another second!” once again shouted the mysterious voice.
A dark haired man entered the foyer, dressed in a black t-shirt and tan pants. He looked rather handsome, reminding Bill a bit of John Stamos, but the teenager had never seen this man before in his life. The man began to speak with an annoyed countenance.
“Bill, what are you doing? You want to go on vacation or do you want to spend all summer stuck in your room?” he asked with an exasperated tone to the teenager who was slowly realizing what was going on.
“Hold your horses, Gene, for Pete's Sake!” said Tammy with a hint of annoyance before grabbing her son's hand. The man exited through the front door dramatically before Bill looked into Tammy's face again.
“C'mon Bill, summer awaits!” smiled Tammy, pulling him forward towards the front door as they followed the man named Gene. They piled onto the front porch.
As Tammy locked the front door, Bill saw the family station wagon packed with luggage, and a couple of of passengers waiting in the back. The weather was stiflingly hot, the front lawn was vibrantly green, as were the row of trees lining the opposite street.
Reluctantly, Bill followed the smiling woman down the front porch. As she locked it, Bill checked his watch.
“July 25th, 2018. 8:45 A.M.”
He had just jumped forward three months in time. Tammy was apparently his mother now, and a complete stranger was his father...unless...no. No! That black haired man couldn't possibly be Gloria, could it? It was the only semi-reasonable answer the teenager could grab onto. The stone clearly wasn't afraid to alter people's gender.
Reluctantly, he entered the backseat, still holding tightly onto the broken artifact that he thrust his life in three bizarre new directions over the course of one morning. He turned to look at his fellow passengers.
Option 1: It was Kimberly and Willow! The Ahn'Ger Stone brought back his little sister into the mix without sacrificing his former daughter Willow, still his older sister. However, both siblings look subtly yet noticeably different due to different parentage, confirming Bill's suspicions that Gloria is his new father. When Bill sees his own altered appearance in the window reflection, he makes another angry wish.
Option 2: It was his real parents! Well...his real parents as they were as teenagers, anyway. With his older sister Willow off on her own summer sojourn with her college friends, Bill's new parents asked if he wanted his two best friends Greg Strasserman and Martha Hanson to tag along with him on a Vanapolous family vacation.