Escaping Reality

Chapter Five: Change

Out of everyone, Titaniumwrench was the first to wake up, though she didn't really move much from her position. For some reason, her joints ached, and it really hurt to move. This prodded the girl to stay in place and try to go back to sleep, but the sunlight coming in from the window was making that rather hard. Eventually, Titaniumwrench lifted her head and rubbed her eyes sleepily right before she slowly spread out her arms to stretch.
         Once she had finished stretching and had blinked the sleep out of her eyes, the young girl looked around the room to see that nothing had really changed. However, when her eyes fell on the others sleeping around her, she froze.
         Everyone around her looked different in one way or another, some more extreme than others. She was able to recognize the Blade Twins and Darkfin, for they didn't look that different and seemed to have only aged. However, the other four were a different story, and while she had a theory, she wanted to check with the Twins and Darkfin first.
         Since Darkfin was the closest, Titaniumwrench began shaking her friend awake, the sleepy girl groaning in protest as she rolled over and tried to keep from waking up. "Go away..." the girl groaned groggily as she lazily threw her arm over at her friend to try and get her to stop.
         However, Titaniumwrench was persistent, and with about a minute or so of more shaking, she was eventually able to get the Transfan to wake up.
         "Ugh.... Titanium, why'd you wake me up?" said Darkfin as she sat up a bit and rubbed her eyes, though she then squinted a bit at her friend as she said, "And why do you look like you're thirty?"
         At this, Titaniumwrench furrowed her eyebrows in confusion and looked at her hands, noticing that they were no longer the hands of a young teenager, but instead belonged to that of an older woman. This new development freaked her out quite a bit, though she told herself to stay calm and gestured to the Blade Twins.
        Of course, while Darkfin saw the recognizable twins, she also noticed the other four girls that had definitely gone through more than just aging. "...Okay they look like they're the new cast for Lucky Star- Please tell me I don't look like an anime schoolgirl-"
        Smiling slightly at Darkfin's humor, Titaniumwrench shook her head before getting to her feet and stretching her legs a bit, Darkfin doing the same as she looked over the other sleeping six, both girls practically scrutinizing them all for details that would identify them.
         "Recognize anyone else other than the Blade Twins?" Darkfin asked, already rolling the sleeping twins out of the mystery list.
         Looking to Darkfin, the mute nodded and began to sign, 'The girl with the green hair reminds me of Starjinx's holoform,' to her friend, thankful that at least Darkfin could understand sign language since they grew up together.
         "Huh. That's true," said the Decepticon fan as her eyes fell on another girl, this one having pure white hair tied back into a pony tail. "And she looks like Katrina's holoform. Also, she's holding Kat's glasses so you gotta figure." She then continued to stare at the remaining two with her best friend, her face showing that she was fully concentrated on the two girls. "...And I think the one with the navy hair is Midnight. The other chick's gotta be Sasori then."
         Satisfied, Titaniumwrench nodded to her friend in acknowledgement, though she was still wondering how they'd even changed like that overnight. She was thinking about maybe it was a side affect of dimension-traveling since Starscream had changed as well when entering their dimension, yet that was animation style; this had to be something else.
         "Wanna wake up the others and hope they're who we think they are?" Darkfin questioned with a mischievous glint in her brown eyes. Having a feeling on what Darkfin was going to do, Titaniumwrench braced herself as her friend yelled, "Wake up!" as loud as she thought necessary, which had everyone else at least groaning a bit as they were woken up.
         "Ugh... Who turned on the light?" Starjinx grumbled before rolling over towards someone else.
         "Get your own space," yawned a tired Midnight as she pushed Starjinx back over to her part of the floor.
         As this happened, Starblade had sat up and was stretching, her eyes squinted shut in reaction to the sunlight. Nonetheless, the girl was still attempting to wake up, even if it was clear she just wanted to sleep in. Rubbing her eyes, the female twin then nudged her brother, who began the same ritual at a slower pace.
         "Hey guys... We need to- Holy mother of- Starjinx!?" Starblade's eyes widened when she noticed that half their group looked like they'd practically come straight from an anime, yet Starblade's eyes clearly showed she had recognized at least one of them, and that one was obviously Starjinx.
         "What? There better not be a spider on me!" Starjinx yelled, becoming even more alert as she practically curled up into a ball as if to avoid any spiders.
         "Guys, get up. And Jinx, there's no spider. You guys gotta see this though, so move your afts!" Darkfin barked, getting rather impatient with her friends.
         "I'm moving I'm moving! Primus!" Midnight grumbled as she got up and stretched a bit, Katrina doing the same thing while muttering, "Didn't have to be rude, you know."
         "Uh, guys? You have anime hair..." said Nightblade in an almost too quiet voice, Katrina being the only one that heard him besides his sister.
         "Wait- Are you serious?" Katrina then brought her pony-tailed hair around to see for herself, the girl staring in awe at her long, pure white hair. "Holy slag guys- I have my character's hair!"
         "Hey- Same!" exclaimed Starjinx as she examined her own green hair as well as her skin. "And I'm tan. Literally just like Jinx."
         "Got Mid's hair. This is just awesome," said Midnight while flipping back her navy blue hair.
         Meanwhile, Sasori was examining her own form, not only noticing her hair had gone from being super-short to down to her shoulders, but she'd also gained a slightly thinner figure as well. "I seem to have gotten the entire make-over, though I'm not complaining, much," said the girl as she tightened the belt on her jeans a bit.
         "...Well at least we've established you're our friends and not a bunch of emo drug addicts living here," Darkfin said with a shrug.
         "Uh, emo drug addicts aren't gonna come all the way out here. Maybe some homeless people but not emo teen druggies," Starblade pointed out, though it was clear the comment had now gotten her thinking about the possible residents of the Quotev House.
         Not even listening around for Starblade's comment, Starjinx picked up her metal bar from earlier and stated, "Well just in case there are emo drug addicts, I'm carrying around my own little weapon for self-defense."
         "Yeah, I don't think we're gonna need those. Not only do we all look like we're thirty, but a lot of us seem to have at least some muscle," Midnight pointed out, the Decepticon fan gesturing to her biceps as well as just about everyone else's.
         "I don't know where this sudden fitness came from, but I'm not complaining," Darkfin said with a shrug right before she turned her attention to Katrina, who was heading for the doorway. "Hey Kat! Where you going?"
         "To find a mirror," Katrina replied as if it was obvious. "I wanna see my new look for myself, and hopefully there's a mirror around here that'll let me."
         "I gotta agree with her there, especially since I don't even look like my old self from what I can tell," Sasori agreed before following Katrina out.
         "So we're all just gonna find a mirror now?" Midnight then looked around as she watched just about everyone shrug and follow the two out, Midnight then following suit since she had nothing better to do, plus she also wanted to see what she looked like for herself.
         "Uh, question. Where the pit are we gonna find a mirror?" Starjinx questioned as she flipped her green hair back and took a glance at her friends.
         "Well when I went to the bathroom here, there was this large mirror over the sinks," Starblade informed them as she walked alongside her brother.
         "Thought so, but I really don't wanna go into any bathrooms if we can help is. They're probably the worst place to go in a place like this," Sasori said with a disgusted expression.
         "I don't care at this point so long as I have a mirror I can take a quick look into," said Katrina before turning to look over at Starblade. "Can you lead the way, Star?"
         "Sure, but after this we have to go get food, cause I'm starving and I'm pretty sure everyone else is too," Starblade replied as she took the lead.
         As if on cue, everyone became aware of how hungry they were; the last thing they had eaten were freezy pops, and those were from yesterday before they'd ended up in this dimension. However, they pressed forward, letting Starblade lead them to the building's bathroom in their area before gesturing to a room with a door that barely clung to its hinges.
         "There," Starblade informed, turning to the dark room. "At least that should be it."
         Deciding to be the bravest of the group, Midnight ventured forward and grabbed the door handle, though the second she began moving it, one of the hinges gave away. As the door broke off its top hinge and swung downward, Midnight reared back to avoid getting hit and fell to the ground, her friends helping her to her feet as the door snapped off its last hinge and hit the floor with a bang.
         "Note to self: All doors are evil," Katrina said to herself in a weak attempt at humor.
         "Let's just get to the mirror," Darkfin said impatiently as she took a step inside, her foot immediately making a splash sound as it made contact with a puddle. "Ew- Okay this is disgusting! There's sewage everywhere!"
         Katrina then headed in after her friend, though made sure to stay on the door rather than venture into sewage like Darkfin had done. Grabbing onto the side of the entrance, the white-haired girl craned her neck into the bathroom, trying to get her eyes to adjust to the lighting in the now dimly lit bathroom. Finally, she caught sight of a row of sinks, though there was an excessive amount of slush under them as well as what appeared to be a large dirty window; at that moment, she knew she had located the mirror.
         "Hey Darkfin! Can you go over there and wipe that dirt off the mirror above the sinks? I think I found it!" called the Autobot fan, Darkfin inwardly groaning about the thought of walking through all the muck on the floor.
         Gathering up her guts to go and taking a deep breath, Darkfin trudged through the sludge, her shoes making sickening sucking noises as she walked to the mirror. "You're lucky these aren't my favorite shoes!" the girl yelled back as she reached the sinks and began wiping a bunch of dust and dirt off the mirror. "Can you guys see your reflection?" she called when she was done, Katrina then leaning in even more and squinting to try and get a good visual.
         "Too dark!" Katrina called back, though she could still see her reflection in the mirror, barely; it was just too far away and too dusty. "I think you're gonna have to break off a piece of the mirror or something!"
         "Well how am I gonna do that?!" Darkfin yelled, her hands on her hips as she stared at the group in the halls.
        "Use this!" Starjinx then emerged from the crowd with her metal bar in her hands, the girl leaning through the doorway and stretching out to hand it to Darkfin, who walked over and grabbed it. "Just don't let it touch that slag- I fragging love that bar!"
         "Yeah, got that," Darkfin said to herself as she got ready to full-on smash the mirror and hopefully grab a good-sized piece of the mirror.
         Taking a few practice swings, the black-haired girl then swung the bar hard, causing the mirror to shatter on contact and fall to the ground. Due to how quickly the mirror fell, not to mention the sewage flying everywhere, the girl reared back and nearly fell into the slush, though hit a wall rather than the floor whilst dropping Starjinx's bar. She then looked over at the sinks to see that quite a few chunks of mirror had fallen into them, the girl cautiously reaching over and grabbing one that she figured was large enough to use, then headed back over to her friends, who had all jumped away from the entrance.
         Holding up the mirror piece, she then looked over her group with a really annoyed expression before tossing Katrina the mirror piece. "You all owe me a new pair of flats."
         "Guess we're adding flats to our shopping list," Sasori said whilst Starjinx questioned Darkfin on where her bar had gone.
         "Whoa..." Katrina breathed as she held the piece of now-dusted off glass away from her far enough as to include her entire face, her bright blue eyes staring in awe at her reflection. "I look just like my character..."
         "My turn!" exclaimed Sasori as she quickly snagged the piece of glass from Katrina, her purple eyes also widening as she took in her whole reflection. "Hey I look like my OC too! Only thing I need is a ninja outfit!"
         One by one, the shard was passed around, each of the eight taking in their changed appearance. The most astonished ones were the majorly changed four of course, though even the mainly normal side of the group was still rather surprised by their own appearances, especially the fact that each was older and a bit more muscular. Eventually, Nightblade got a hold of it, though handed it back to Katrina once he was done fully taking in his slightly changed appearance with his sister, both of which were the last to get the mirror shard.
         "We're turning into our characters..." Nightblade said with a frown, not really liking that idea. After all, getting stuck in another universe was one thing, but completely morphing into something else was something different entirely.
         Sasori, however, wasn't at all sharing Nightblade's worries; in fact, she was practically ecstatic. "Really?! This is awesome!"
         "No, not awesome!"Starblade exclaimed, a hint of fear in her voice as she became her worried self again.
         "How is it not awesome? We've been dreaming of becoming our characters since the beginning!" Sasori protested, reminding her of all their internet chats on Quotev.
         "That was online. This is real life!" said Starblade in rebuttal.
         "Maybe that's why Starscream looked so weird when we saw him in our dimension; he was legit turning into Bayverse Starscream," Katrina theorized, though she wasn't heard above the noise of the others; practically everyone was arguing now, and no one except Titaniumwrench and Katrina were silent.
         It only took a minute or so before Katrina became annoyed, the white-haired girl growling a bit as she took a deep breath and yelled, "Shut up!" This caused just about everyone to stop their banter and look to their angry friend, even if it was clear that she wasn't in the mood.
         "We need a plan," Katrina reminded them, trying to keep their attention as she continued to speak. "We're stuck here until the Autobots find us, and the Autobots are halfway across the country or somewhere else depending on the season. Therefore, we're gonna have to suck it up and work together until we can get their attention. Arguing and freaking out aren't going to help us; we have to work together."
         The group then began exchanging glances with each other for a bit, each taking the girl's points into consideration.
         "Makes sense," Starjinx commented, being the first to speak up. "In order to survive, we-"
         "Shh!" hissed Midnight, cutting off the green-haired girl; before Starjinx continue her sentence, she was once again shushed by Midnight.
         "Hey! I'm talking here!" growled the girl as she crossed her arms in annoyance, though when Midnight whisper-yelled, "Listen!" the others soon caught on.
         The group each heard the sound Midnight was getting anxious over: The sound of a groundbridge closing and pedsteps on the ground. At first, the faction was questionable, for no one spoke. However, when they heard the annoyed sigh of a certain seeker, everyone knew who it was.
         "I can't believe we are out here to check out imaginary signals," Starscream growled, the scoff of the one and only Decepticon medic being heard in response.
         "Imaginary? I think not, dear Starscream," Knockout replied as a few beeps were heard, each of the group members very tense, including the Decepticon fans. "If the scanners were faulty, then the signals wouldn't have shown up over here again," he continued, more beeping being heard from whatever device the medic had.
         "In fact, our four signals are definitely emanating from somewhere close by..." The medic then started walking a bit, a huff being heard from the very annoyed second in command. However, the beeping device was beginning to ping more and more, not to mention the sound of Knockout's pedsteps were getting... louder?
         Out of sheer fear, everyone tensed, the sound of the mech's pedsteps causing everyone's heartbeat to quicken. Finally, he stopped walking, though the pinging of the device was still being heard. And that's when Knockout practically smirked as he said, "There you are."