Tournament of Change P4

Chapter 4: The Tournament of Change, just a week away! Can you believe it, guys?!

Meerina and Axel (after having swapped bodies) were teleported into the hallway of what appeared to be a large castle, one that was made out of playing cards like everything else in this world. They had been brought there by the Knight of Friday to meet the king of this world, after Jam nearly destroyed the whole universe.

Meerina and Axel stared agape at the hallway they were now in. "This is amazing!" Shouted Axel as she looked around the dimly lit hallway, marveling at the various playing cards dotting the area. The knight nodded and turned to leave, "Glad you approve! Try not to annoy the king, or else you'll become a part of this hallway. For now, I take my leave,"

Meerina gasped, "Y-You're not coming with us?! Does this king scare you that much?!"

The knight nodded, "You have no idea! Besides, I have other things I need to take care of. You'll need to meet with the king yourself,"

"B-But-"

Before Meerina could finish, the knight-captain disappeared in a flash of light. Axel snapped her fuzzy fingers, "Damn, that Knight of Friday guy is a tricky fellow!"

Meerina gazed down at Axel's body and sighed, "Y-Yeah..." Meerina didn't want to admit it, but Axel's body reminded him too much of what he had gone through. Both Jam and Meerina came to this universe to save Axel, only for Jam to nearly destroy everything by mistake. Now Meerina was standing there in the form of the unintentional catalyst of this disaster.

He was clad in an orange prison jumpsuit and was twice the height he'd normally be, along with having a skinny human frame. He held his fur-less human hands in front of his face, his fingers quivering as he looked at them. Axel looked up at him, "You alright, Meerina?"

He shook his head, "N-Not at all, Axel. I'm sorry! I don't hate your body or you or anything, I've just been through a lot in the past few hours!"

Axel pointed at the door at the end of the hallway, "Then maybe we should take it up with the king, huh?"

Meerina composed herself and cracked a small smile, "Yeah, you're right. We have no means of escape, so this is all that we can do!"

Axel gave him the thumbs up, "Of course! I have your back no matter what happens,"

The pair then made their way to the door at the end of the hallway and opened it. They stepped into the room and found themselves inside a throne room made out of playing cards. A large and imposing Card-Knight stood in the center, one with a crown. He was being waited on by a surprisingly skinny Equinian dressed as a butler. The king looked up at them and spoke with a loud, booming voice, "You must be Meerina and Axel, I take it?"

The pair collectively gulped as they stared up at the imposing king. "A-And you're the 'King of Saturday'?" Stammered the former meerkat.

He let out maniacal cackle, like a supervillain from a 90s cartoon, "Of course! I built this place and this entire world! Though I did run of materials, so I had to... Improvise,"

"So you made the world out of your own subjects?" Asked Axel as he stared daggers at the king.

The king laughed, "Of course! Living beings make excellent inanimate objects, don't they? Equinians breed like rabbits, meaning we can continue to build a beautiful kingdom for us Card-Knights as long as we have a surplus of them,"

The horse butler looked at him with concern, "Are you sure that's what you want to say when your loyal butler is aroun-" Before the butler could finish, the king smirked and poked him with his index finger.

Saturday laughed, "What butler?"

Just then, the butler looked down to see his hooves turning to gold, "No, please, milord! I've been helpful!"

Axel and Meerina watched in horror, unable to do anything as the horse butler slowly turned to gold! "You have been helpful, but like all Equinians you are sadly..."

The gold continued up the equine's body, freezing every part of him in the process. It reached his face, freezing his equine muzzle in a panicked scream. Saturday laughed as he poked the statue, causing it to fall over with a loud "CLANG!" sound. The king laughed and finished what he was saying, "...VERY expendable!"

Meerina panicked as she looked at the statue, "I-Is that permanent?!"

"Yes, my dear meerkat-in-human's clothing. It agonizes me to see living beings remain unchanged. That's why I detest mortals, it sickens me to see them in their own bodies. It's why I go through so many butlers, I can't stand letting them remain as who they are!"

"Is that also why Axel and I have to be swapped in your presence?" Meerina asked with an eyebrow raised.

"Of course! I'd rather have mortals be each other around me then wear the worthless carcasses they are born in. Swaps pale in comparison to removing someone's animacy though. If I had my way, I'd make you all inanimate objects forever! At least then you'd have some kind of value,"

Meerina shook his head, "You can't just turn people into objects forever! Being objects for a bit can be fun, but depriving all living beings of the ability to move until the end of time is just cruel!"

Axel nodded, "Exactly! You can't just turn everyone into building blocks for your amusement!"

The king laughed, "Well, we can argue semantics until we're blue in the face, but that's not why I brought you both here. I am hosting a tournament, one where transformation and body-swap is prevalent!"

"W-What's the catch?" Stammered Meerina.

"The catch is that if your team loses, I turn everyone inside your universe into playing cards and ABSORB them. And if you don't participate, I'll do the same regardless!"

Axel gasped, "You can't!"

"Oh, but I can and I will if you don't play my game! Like I said, I have a desire to make mortals into objects and this tournament will satiate it. So, bring me a team of 13 combatants from your universe and adjacent ones in one week's time. I'll also construct a team of 13 from worlds that exist within popular media. You will be brought back here in a week's time, hopefully you can meet my expectations!"

"But-"

Meerina was cut off by the villainious King of Saturday, "Enough! I banish you back to your universe and to your own bodies. Also, feel free to bring that reality-destroying pet chimp of yours along with you! It'll be fun watching him writhe in pain as I take everything from him, just like how he almost took everything from me!"

With that, the king waved his hand, returning Axel and Meerina to their proper bodies and teleporting them back to their own universe. Once the pair had returned, they stood up and walked towards Jam's tree-mounted lab. Meerina looked up and noticed the lights were shut off and nobody appeared to be home, "We're back, but where's Jam?

--

Jam awoke later in what appeared to be the base of a mountain! There was grass as far as one could see and a bright blue sky, all of which looked way better than the card-based hellscape that he was previously in. The monkey sat up and breathed a sigh of relief, "Phew, it was all a dream! I must've been whisked away to some kind of alternate universe and imagined that whole-"

Just then, Jam heard Wukong talking from afar. Jam creeped through the grass and peered through a bush, only to see Wukong communicating with Meerina. He was using a magical scroll, which displayed the face of the person he was talking on the parchment in real time. It was like using "Face Time", but with magic! Jam watched their conversation from afar, too nervous to intervene.

Meerina sighed, "You sure I can't talk to him?"

Wukong shook his head, "Meerina, you can't. I have to train Jam first or what happened here today will happen again and again, especially during the event. I will help him, as that's my duty as his father!"

Meerina nodded, "A-Alright. Axel and I will round everyone up, while you mend my husband-to-be's spirit!"

"Thanks, Meerina, see ya!" With that, Wukong closed the scroll. Jam felt awful that he couldn't speak to Meerina, frustrating him immensely. This frustration built in him and transformed him once again! Jam's feet turned black as coal, hardening and fusing together into a set of pig's hooves. His body became incredibly fat, his monkey muzzle pushing out into a large pig's snout!

His monkey tail shrank and curled into a spring-like pig's tail. Despite being a pig now, Jam retained his brown monkey fur. "Oink?! What the heck?!" Shouted Jam, which alerted Wukong to his presence. The Monkey King put away the scroll and pushed the bushes apart, revealing the hairy pig hiding behind it.

"Well, looks like we have a nosy piggy!" Wukong said with a chuckle.

"It's not funny, oink! It's funnier when it happens to other people!"

"If you say so! A better look for you than a world destroying dragon, I'd say!"

Jam hung his fat head in shame, "Yeah, so that actually did happen..."

Wukong slapped the pig on his flabby backside, "Hey, relax! I can't even name the amount of things I've destroyed in a blind rampage before, yours was a light breeze compared to when I took on the entire Celestial Realm! Regardless, you still have a chaotic uncontrollable power within you. That's nothing a good ol' fashioned 'training arc' can't fix!"

Jam's eyes opened wide as his body glowed once again, reverting him back to a monkey, "T-Training for what?!"

Wukong smiled and gave him a thumbs up, "The 'Tournament of Change' of course!" Wukong then proceeded to explain the whole situation to Jam, giving him a detailed explanation of what it entailed. Jam paid a surprising amount of attention to Wukong as he explained himself.

"I dunno if I want to do a tournament, I'm a pacifist! And I should really go back to my own universe!" Jam said, trying to knuckle-walk away before Wukong grabbed his tail.

"Where are you going, son? Did you forget that your powers are out of control and that you could threaten the universe again?"

"That's why I'm going where nobody can find me!"

"And you're just going to give up? Is this truly the Jam we all know and love?"

"That Jam is going far away where he can never hurt anyone again!"

"And that is?"

"Detroit!"

"Geez, that whole 'transforming into a dragon and nearly destroying the universe' thing did a number on you! And here I thought our first meeting as father and son would be a joyous one!"

"You are not my real dad!" Jam said, baring his teeth at Wukong as he started to transform again. His hands and feet became hooves once more, his body reshaping and taking on a four-legged stance. His tail grew longer and rattier, his ears growing to rabbit-like length. His monkey muzzle pushed out, giving him a wide equine muzzle with large nostril holes. When all was said and done, Jam had transformed into a donkey, "Hee-haw, again?! Why do I shapeshift at random now?!"

Wukong looked over Jam to see what the miss was and found three black spots, "A-ha, that's it!"

"What's it?"

"There are three black spots on your body, left over corruption from when you transformed into that evil dragon. Your powers and emotions are out of control, those three spots being representative of it. If we can overcome your three fatal character flaws, those spots will disappear!"

Jam gulped, "And if not, haw?"

"Well, you'll probably destroy the universe! Let's not try to think about that though! We'll climb 'Fruit and Flower Mountain', have you meditate at the top and overcome your three flaws along the way,"

"Wait, 'Flower and Fruit Mountain' is where I am?! The place where you were born and started your grand legacy?!"

"Yep, and now it'll be the place where you're reborn and start a new legacy! Now, get a move on!" Shouted Wukong, right before hopping on Jam's back.

Jam kicked his legs, "Get off, 'Dad'!"

"Ha, so you are admitting our relation now? Well, if I'm officially your 'Dad' now, I should have a dad bod!" Wukong snapped his fingers, causing his weight to magically increase. His once skinny monkey frame grew much fatter, pounds of flab being added to every inch of the monkey-man. His legs became chunky and weak, his arms flabby and misshapen. His fingers started to look like bloated sausages, along with the monkey gaining several chins in the process.

The monkey's increased flab proved to be a strain on the donkey's back, "Haw, get off!"

"Oh, relax! You can take it! Better take us to our first destination, donkey boy! Before I decide to make myself fatter, that is!" Shouted Wukong as he tugged on the donkey's ears with his flabby hands.

"Hee-haw, this is going to be a long training arc..." Grumbled the donkey-fied Jam as he began to carry his fat father up the mountain. And so, Jam's mission to re-find himself began. He knew his quest to control his newfound godlike powers would be a taxing one.

Meerina and Axel were also in over their heads, now having to recruit 10 additional members to their team (which already included themselves and Jam). Which guest characters are going to make the cut? Find out next time when we meet Science Saddles and Horseradish, the equine allies that could possibly tip the scale in our heroes' favor!