Bill gripped the Ahn'Ger Stone, the mysterious artifact that had he had found only a half hour before, and could almost feel the anger and rage he felt towards Gloria flowing into the gemstone. He couldn't believe Gloria. Even now, when his little sister had been erased from existence, when even his parents had been changed, she still blamed Tom for everything that had happened. And yet to so many others Gloria Vanapolous was queen of Shermer High, little miss perfect. So pretty on the outside, yet only Bill and Tom really knew of the cold, toxic heart that beat underneath that naturally tanned skin and dark hair. Well, now it was time for everyone to know. For Tom, for Kimmy, for his parents, and even for Willow, his daughter turned older sister.
"I wish everyone could see you for the monster you truly are!" Bill roared, and with crack of thunder, sickly green light that looked decidedly different from the other wish-granting flashes that morning poured out from Bill's hand. The teenager grinned at Gloria's terrified face, a slender hand pressed against her cheek where Bill had struck her moments before, not realizing it had led to the magical gemstone to become damaged, it's emerald shell cracked when it had collided with the wall before the enraged boy had retrieved it. But in the brief moment, before the flash blinded his vision and the world fell away under his feet, Bill realized that the light looked decidedly different from the earlier flashes.
But then the world re-materialized around him, and Bill found himself falling through the sky above a mass of blue-brown water, a large city straddling the coast as the sound of rushing wind filled his ears.
"OH SHIT OH SHIT!" Bill screamed at the top of his lungs as he began to spin in panic, his hands flying open on instinct and the Ahn'Ger Stone was ripped away into the sky, a glimmer of green as it caught the sunlight. Not that Bill noticed as he tumbled quickly towards the rippling surface below him. But he then felt strange, a burning sensation, piercing pain rushing through his body, almost like he was having...growing pains? But a million times more intense. He felt himself slow slightly as he seemed to get larger, his clothes shredding away from his enlarged form. But then he smacked painfully into the surface of the water and everything went black.
He had never seen the falling forms of many other individuals around him.
It was strange, this dream. Bill was wandering through what seemed like a hall of mirrors lit by green flourescent lights. In each one there was a different version of him. Fat, tall, short, skinny, girl, boy, stud, nerd, human, animal, alien, chair. Mirrors that showed family and strangers alike, all on their own adventures. He finally reached the end, where a small crystalline entity gave him a incredulous look, but it felt like it wasn't really looking at Bill, but rather someone behind him. Bill turned to look, seeing nothing but a damp concrete wall, and when he turned back to the crystalline creature it just sighed and snapped it's fingers as a brilliant white light engulfed him.
Bill felt wrong. Strong, powerful, but wrong. The groggy teenager opened his eyes and was surprised at how bright everything seemed, and how barren the world around him was. Above him was a large glimmering patch of light, shifting strangely and causing him to wonder what it was before the teenager realized where he was. He was underwater, laying in sand? He should have been panicking but there was only the throbbing pain across his body that was rapidly receding as he started to feel stronger and stronger. With a groan, Bill pushed himself out of the muck with arms that felt exceedingly more muscled than they had just a few moments ago, rising upwards as he picked himself up out of the muck. Water began rushing past his ears and he felt strange weights on his back. It was almost as if there was something back there helping him get balanced? Like a third leg or arm.
'What the hell happened?' Was all Bill thought as the world around him brightened further still as he rocketed towards the surface of the water.
Meanwhile, from the shoreline of Lake Michigan, even in the early hours of the day hundreds, possibly thousands of individuals had been gathering on the sandy shores as large cargo ships pulled in and out of port. But everything and everyone paused when the weird rumbling sound had come from the water, and the beach-goers began to scream in alarm as the ground shook as something VERY large and VERY powerful moved underneath them. And then the WHOOSH as a massive pillar of water erupted far off-shore, and something even larger appeared within it. Something that had scales, claws, massive plates that rose off it's back and a gargantuan tail that lazily whipped back and forth as if it had a mind of it's own. Something that had a threatening, predatory mouth lined with teeth and piercing eyes that showed only a hint of the intelligent mind behind them.
It let loose a growl as it's clawed, building sized hand rubbed it's blunted wedge shaped head. The sound caused the entire city of Chicago to grind to a halt as it rolled across the skyscrapers, down the streets and over the millions of people that had just started their day. Everyone froze and turned their gaze towards the lake as something else responded. As the stunned silence began to wear off and more and more of the populace caught glimpses of the towering being in the water, chaos erupted on the streets of the American metropolis.
"Ugh, Tammy, where are you!?" Bill cried out, not realizing that he was no longer 'speaking' in English. In fact, he was no longer saying any sort of discernible words at all and instead sounded like the massive beast he now was. He blinked for a moment as he stared into the city of Chicago, recognizing the skyline from the Sears Tower and several other landmark skyscrapers. But why did it look so small? Were those ants on the beach? Why were they all running away from the water?
"BILL! BILL HELP ME!" cried Tammy's voice from somewhere off to his right. Bill's eyes opened wide as he turned towards the sound, unaware of the huge waves his body caused as his titanic reptillian mass displaced the water with ease.
"TAMMY!" Bill called out as he made his way through the water towards the beach. Windows shattered in smaller buildings and cars closest to him but they were so small that they escaped notice. "TAMMY WHERE ARE YOU!?"
"I'M HERE!" Came her reply.
Bill's vision finally locked on a something large and gray with a streak of brilliant gold running along it laying along the beach nearly where the cargo ships were docked. Whatever it was it was huddled defensively around Navy Pier, the wharf that had been converted into a shopping and entertainment center, which itself was covered in some weird looking mass of..seaweed? A massive rose was rapidly growing at the center of the ball-like mass as tiny figures fled the building that it was covering, but it seemed inert. Instead Bill turned his gaze to the lumpy mass on the beach below. It looked almost like a caterpiller? As Bill crossed the distance with surprising speed he could see the massive ball of flesh undulating in the sand as...whatever it was turned to face him, mandibles dripping with some kind of sticky webbing as two blue eyes stared upwards at him in terror.
"Bill, oh god, what happened to us!?" Tammy's voice said from the mouth of the thing. It wiggled to look at itself and recoiled in disgust.
"Tammy? You look like some kind of worm! Let me..." Bill said as he opened his arms wide. He almost felt like he should pick Tammy up and he bent over to do so before her wriggling body recoiled once more. Streamers of some kind of silk flew from her disgustingly insect-like mouth. On the pier above the mass of seaweeds seemed to tremble.
"NO! YOU'LL HURT ME!" Tammy cried out, "BILL, YOU'RE A GIANT LIZARD! I'M A WORM! WE'RE MONSTERS!"
Bill blinked in confusion before looking down at himself for the first time. Instead of pink, slightly hairy and only a little flabby skin and plain bony fingers, instead there was only an expanse of green scales and muscles. Massive clawed hands were stretched out before him, alien and strange. Bill turned to look at the nearby skyscrapers and could see, in their millions of panes of reflective glass, that he did indeed look like some form of colossal dinosaur. He even had a tail and plates on his back!
"Oh. Oh shit. OH FUCK!" Bill cried out in surprise, and the sides of the buildings he was facing erupted as his voice shattered them all into countless shards of glass that fell onto the swarm of ants...of people below.
And to those people below, in their sheer and utter panic to get away from the titanic creatures only heard a series of roars and chittering, not understanding or comprehending. The only thoughts in their minds were to escape, to get away from the monsters that dwarfed everything else around them. There was a massive exodus but there was no escape as three new monsters rose out of the cityscape.
One was insect-like, two glittering wings rising above a chitinous body that ended in two scythe-like claws. Another one stretching it's wings, a dark red as fires roared to life as it's body oozed a magma-like substance from a cruel, long beak. And another one, larger than all the others that rose in front of the approaching storm clouds from the west. It had three heads on three serpentine necks, two huge wings and a body covered in golden scales.
The world erupted in noise as the new monsters began to scream. A familiar female scream coming from the insect while masculine roars of anger came from the red winged reptile and the golden dragon.
And to make matters even worse for the Chicagoans, something massive and green descended from the sky. It was a teardrop within a teardrop, radiating with strange light as it settled over the center of the city.