"Hey Ion. I'm Ion."

The kingfisher was confused, and a bit annoyed. It was extremely important that they keep moving - they needed to be at a specific convenience store at the exact right time to buy a winning lottery ticket. That way, they could spend the next six months not worrying about cash, and focus instead on how far they could transform themselves or those around them.

With this stranger wasting their time in front of them, the time-stuck bird would have to choose their own numbers, which brought a whole host of problems on some cycles. However, they were distracted by the intruder's... unexpected appearance. The flickering critter looked like a mash-up between themself and a velociraptor, standing slightly sloped with razor sharp teeth sticking out of its beak. A stiff tail covered in blue and white feathers waved intently behind it.

"I'm sorry... what?"

"I'm you, but not really. You've been stuck in a six-month time loop for thousands of years, and I'm a reality-shifter who started existing the second you opened the door."

"Um... okay? Look, I've got shit to do, so-"

"Oh, don't worry about that! I took care of it for ya." The raptor-bird flashed a lottery ticket in its talon - a quick pick with the correct numbers, purchased minutes ago. "That is, unless you'd rather hang out with me somewhere else."

The pure kingfisher raised a wing-arm to pluck the ticket from their near-duplicate... then tore it to shreds. They would do anything to break a cycle and try something new. "Okay, you have my attention."

The raptor-bird's frilly ears perked up with glee. "Excellent! Wanna start by... playing a prank on Ion?"

The bird tilted their head. "I have no idea what that means... but I'm in." With that, the two Ions shook hands, then promptly disappeared.

---

In a basement studio in some other universe, a kingfisher stretched their arms in time with the wings on their back. Ion had earned some decent tips at the restaurant tonight, and had a couple fresh ideas for a track they were working on. They loaded up their favorite DAW on their computer, but they suddenly heard a crash before taking a seat. Confused, they looked over their shoulder, only to find their chair slammed into a wall. They were also... taller, somehow.

Ion turned themself around, unknowingly using scores of extra muscles to do it. When the kingfisher's front end completed a 180, they discovered they had... some extra legs. A lot of extra legs, in fact, attached to extra bodies that twisted and turned to fill half the space. As the newly minted train watched dozens of pairs of wings ruffle, they swore they saw another few bodies appear at their back end.

Judging by how natural their newly lengthened body felt, Ion suspected that they weren't supposed to know that they had been changed. Looking through the windows near the ceiling for a culprit, the bird-taur found two familiar faces looking down at them, giggling with delight. They were... themself. Well, one was exactly themself, one was just sort of similar.

"Hey! What the hell is this?!"

With that, the two trickster Ions ran away with glee, high-fiving with their respective wing-arms. It took the third Ion a few minutes to run all of way out the back door and catch up - picking up speed on fifty-one pairs of talons was not an easy task, but the bird-taur managed to get pretty fast over straight lines.

---

This is a little story to go with a commission I got from  Cervelet a while back. Definitely check out their gallery if you're into loads of TF - they're constantly drawing a huge variety of fun shapes and sizes. You can see their submission here.
Just experimenting with a new way to post my art commissions. Enjoy!