For the month of October this year, I was taking part in a daily writing prompt challenge alongside a local Creative Writing group I'm part of. Whilst I'm likely to upload all of them eventually, this is the one I'm most eager to share quickly, as I had an idea that involved a friend, and so got permission from them to write something about them. So thanks,  HomleyPigeon!

Hope you enjoy!

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“Woah, you weren’t kidding. This place is stacked!” exclaimed Jamie as loud as he could whilst whispering looking at the row after row of colourful drinks. “How did you find out about this place?”

Robert flicked his thumb across the bottom of his nose, one hand in his jacket pocket. “I saw some small shady guy in a trenchcoat and sunglasses entering this morning and caught a glance through the door over him.”

“That sounds pretty sketchy to me given this place has been boarded up since, well, forever ago. You sure we’re not gonna get, y-know…” Jamie gestured with his thumb running over his neck whilst making a guttural sound. Robert just laughed.

“Nah, it’s fine; I scouted the place out an hour before you arrived. No security, nobody home, nothing. Just rows and rows of goods for the taking. And if someone starts unlocking the front, we’ll just hightail out of the fire exit and to our ride outta here; no problem.”

Robert’s confidence was certainly infectious, that’s for sure. This was certainly a goldmine waiting to be taken and sold on, but…
“What even are these drinks? None of them have labels, and they’re pretty bright. Are they even drinks at all?” Jamie mused. For once, Robert didn’t have an immediate answer. But he was determined to get one. Swiping the nearest bottle, he opened up a vibrant blue potion that could have been blue raspberry or curacao at a glance. He poured a few drops on the floor and waited. Nothing. It probably wasn’t acidic. The smell wasn’t great and didn’t match what you’d expect from the colour. It reminded him of beer. Oh well; he didn’t turn to a life of crime and not expect to have to take risks. Bottoms up!
Robert took two sips of the unknown liquid and coughed. It was drinkable, but had a strong kick to it. Probably some sort of spirit was mixed in, though the beer smell seemed apt for the taste.

“Seems alcoholic. Not great but-” he stopped. His voice had gotten a lot deeper and reverberated in a way that felt alien to him. “Testing. Woah, weird!”
“You okay, Rob?” Jamie asked, worry in his voice.

“Yeah, fine, Jay,” he responded, rubbing his throat. He sounded like a movie trailer announcer now. “The drink didn’t taste great, but this is one hell of a side effect! Here – try one!” A lime liquid carefully contained by cork flew briskly from the shelf at Robert’s behest. Jamie fumbled with the incoming elixir but managed to maintain his grip. He hesitated as he pulled at the cork. The bottle pressed against his lips. Pausing once again, his gaze ventured to Robert who gave him a supportive nod. The sweet smelling soda slid swiftly down his throat.

His peculiar potion seemed far more tolerable in taste than Robert’s. Like a sweet herbal tea, it spread warmth throughout his body like a growing fire. But not just that. His clothes began to feel tighter against his chest.

“Wh-what’s happening?” Jamie cried. Not as if Robert would know. His skin rippled and tensed up against his shirt. The bottle dropped and shattered as hands desperately fought with the buttons of his shirt to relieve the tension. With some he succeeded. With others the buttons shot out like bullets at the growing mass of his chest. Over the course of a minute, Jamie had grown as muscular as an olympic athlete, much to the chagrin of his clothes.

“No way. No friggin’ way,” Robert said disbelievingly. “How are you feeling, Jay?!”

“Yeah. Better than okay, even!” His timid voice was in stark contrast to his hulking body. “Clothes are definitely a bit tight, but I can always change them later. This rules!”

“I wonder how long they last. Sure, they’ll make a pretty penny as party tricks, but if they’re permanent…this stuff’d be worth more than ‘roids!” Robert realized, excitement rushing into his voice.

“Shame none of them are labelled, though. How can we sell them if we don’t know what they do?” Jamie brought up a good point, but instead of being answered it just gave them both a shared thought: what else could they do?”

Jamie turned with a feverish fervor to begin testing the stockpile of potions.

“Wait!” called out Robert. “The colours must be relevant. We’ll test the main colours and see if we can figure it out.”

“Sure…wait, there’s hundreds of them! How will we keep track?” Jamie countered. Robert merely strode towards the kiosk and pulled out a pad and pen from behind it. He threw them towards Jamie, who caught them with much greater ease than before. It seemed even his reactions had improved.

“Note down the colour and what it does while I test ‘em. Blue was voice, green was muscle. That much we know.”

“Hey, why’re you testing them?! That’s not fair!” Jamie argued.

“Quit you’re whining; you got muscles, I got a gig in voice acting. I’d argue you’re a leg up here.”

Jamie pouted. That was certainly a peculiar expression on such a ripped body. “Fine. But if you get something good, we’re switching. Deal?”

“Deal.”

The pair took turns sipping potion after potion. Robert’s first stint was full of limited luck. A red one made Robert’s hair ginger, so he tried a black one. At first it didn’t seem to do anything, but after a twinge of lemon aftertaste filled his throat, it was like a new instinct turned on; he didn’t know how he knew, but the feeling that he could emanate a whole smokescreen from out of his skin. Very nifty as a thief, but certainly situational and nowhere near as beneficial as, say, muscles. Everything changed when he tried a pink potion though. They’d assumed it was a dud at first. There was no physical change, nor a sudden feeling of extra instincts implying an unseen one. It was only as he placed the sipped bottle back on the shelf and he looked over their numbers in their entirety that it struck him.

“Quick! Give me a difficult maths problem!”

“Uhhh…249,000 /16.6?” offered Jamie.

“I said a difficult maths problem, Jay! That’s 15,000!” berated Robert.

“I’ll take your word for it, Rob. So I guess that potion made you super smart?” he queried.

Robert took a moment to contemplate things. “No, I think it’s specifically maths. I saw the shelves and realised exactly how many potions there are at a glance, but I can’t think of anything out of the ordinary for other subjects like geography or science. Well, except physics.”

“Great, so it made you a calculator!” Jamie joked. “Still, I think that’s a ‘good one’ for you, so it’s my turn!”

They switched roles for the next string of potions. Jamie’s first potion - a yellow one - helped out a lot in the moment by shrinking him. He lost about 10cm of height, but at least his bustling muscles were no longer straining against his clothes constantly. Next up was white, which made his vision so much sharper that it was almost disorienting at first. They switched again and continued until every major shade they could see had been sipped. Robert scanned over it, but couldn’t make any connection. Annoyingly however, his new knowledge was telling him the total number of possible combinations if they were to mix them.

“I don’t get it! We’ve tried everything and there’s no connection! What gives!” he cried out, angrily throwing the pad onto the floor.

“Well, I can think of one thing…” Jamie started. If his voice wasn’t as out of place before, it certainly was now it sounded like he’d huffed helium, long locks of hair having grown down to his ankles. “Maybe we’re only getting part of the effect since we’re only having a small sip?”

“That could be it. So, back to the start, see what happens?”

“Well…” Jamie looked down at the shovelled aside smashed glass from the first bottle he’d been given, the liquid having seeped between the floorboards.

“Well, I guess that means it’s up to me.” He flicked through the shelves until he found the blue elixir he’d first tried as Jamie leant down to pick up the notepad. Robert took a sip and gagged. Ugh. This was still one of the worst tasting ones. Exhaling deeply he buckled in and downed the foul liquid. Making a continual noise expecting his voice to get even deeper, instead he found himself feeling…gassy.

BRAAAAP! With a loud burp, he felt a spreading tingle throughout his face. He thought he was used to the feeling of transformation by now, but this was much more intense. This wasn’t something small. His whole face was stretching out into a long snout, blue scales encrusting his face from his elongating nose outward until not a speck of skin remained visible. His ears cracked and splintered, the tip and base elongating back almost as far as the snout had gone forward, the centre stretching out into a greyish black webbing. His ginger hair fluttered out, falling like fading embers from the increasingly draconian face, being replaced by twisted horns.
Jamie fell back in shock as he watched his friend’s body contort and twist. Robert’s shoes began to tear at the seams, feet expanding out against the leather, nails hardening to claws, tearing his socks apart from the insides. A loud RIIIIIIIP pierced through the collective sounds of bones and organs reshaping as the back of his trousers gave way to a long, snaking tail. Along with it, a shift in Robert’s sense of balance had him fall onto his hands and knees. As his hands grow, the thumbs shrink away, becoming vestigial as the remaining fingers expand outward with sharpening nails. He’s not on his knees much longer either as the leather holds on with all its might before bursting under the pressure. The clawed foot scrapes along the ground, the same blue scales encompassing it as the proportions of his leg radically shift to better suit being on all fours.
The growth was universal. In the grand scheme of things, Jamie’s clothes had been lucky. Robert’s expanding body pulled and teared at every seam, stretching and tearing all over the place without any hope of repair as his body grew and grew and grew. Small nubs began pushing against the back of his shredded shirt, expanding outward into wings far too large for this small building, knocking into the shelves on either side.
A venerable flood of falling potions coated Jamie, each concoction mixing into one sludgy soup. The fluid felt fine at first, but the more they mixed, the more they fizzled.
“Oh n-eeeeeeeeeigh!” screamed Jamie, hands clasping to his mouth at the animalistic noise escaping his lips. Everywhere the potions had soaked into him began to change. But unlike Robert’s, the changes were discordant. The reagents used were never intended to be mixed together quite like this, and the side effects were far more noticeable. His face pressed out into a horse’s muzzle; well suited for the magnificent mane he’d already grown. He felt his left arm ripping into two, painfully splitting as his fingers merged into insectile amalgam. The other harm had begun to feel cold and lifeless, solidifying as flesh, blood and bone became steel, circuits and electricity. Schrodinger’s tail emerged from his backside, unable to maintain any fixed form for long. It shifted constantly, as fickle as the wind. Donkey, now lion, now lemur, now fox. His form fluctuated wildly as each potion’s potent power fought for dominance; one second he was shrinking down to the size of a mouse, clothes falling off; the next his neck was expanding upward at an alarming rate like a giraffe’s.

Eventually, the changes slowed, and with exception of the tail, stopped. Robert and Jamie looked at each other with confusion and horror.
“W…we…should pr-probably get out of h-here!” Robert eventually managed to force his lips to speak. It was hard, the words unfamiliar to his new face. But at least he still could.
“Neighhh! Brrr! Whii-i-i-nny!” was Jamie’s reply. Realising words were out of the question, he gestured with his three arms. Large circles over his entire body, hands open wide. Almost as if he were saying “Looking like this?!”

At that moment, the two of them heard the click of a lock. They exchanged a glance and booked it for the fire exit. Unfortunately, being unfamiliar to moving on all fours and given his immense size, Robert stumbled, falling on top of Jamie as he struggled to get a flamingo leg to co-operate alongside a walrus flipper, pinning him under Robert’s weight.

The door unlocked, and a short, bearded man in a trenchcoat and sunglasses entered. Whatever his reaction to the carnage in his secret shop was at first completely obscured behind black glass and full facial hair, but as soon as he reached up and took off the sunglasses, the whole visage shimmered like a mirage and the pair were left looking very confused at a pigeon on stilts.

“What the hell are you doing in here?! And more importantly, what the hell have you done IN here?! Such a mess! So much damage! I’d need three of me to get this back ready for business within a week!” The pigeon flew off the stilts to survey the damage. “Two…no, THREE whole shelves of potions destroyed, a broken window, glass everywhere…not to mention a dragon and…oh, that tail’s interesting. Which of these potions did you fall in again? I can imagine plenty of people would pay for that!”

“Neiiiiigh!”

“Fine, fine, I get it,” the pigeon sniffed, landing behind the kiosk and rummaging through one of its cupboards.”

“L-look, pigeon. Errrr, pal. Y-y-yeah we might have screwed up sl-slightly, but at this point I think we both would d…do anything to turn back and forget this whole thing.” Robert pleaded. Jamie nodded, blowing strongly out of his flared nostrils.

“I’m sure you do, and I can help you. On both counts,” the pigeon began, mumbling the words as his beak pulled two pieces of paper out from a pile, hopping over to the entangled pair. “But I’m also going to need a hand fixing the damage you’ve done. So, you sign these contracts, you work for me until the damages are paid off, and I can never see you again. Sound fair to you? Just sign on the dotted line…Err, a clawmark will suffice from you, dragon boy.”

“One condition,” Robert said. Impressively, Jamie found a way to sigh even with a horse head. “We still need to live while we work off this debt, so you’d better be willing to pay us a cut of the profits. Deal?”

“Oh, that’s more than agreeable to me, dragon boy,” the pigeon responded all too eagerly. “In fact, that’s already a clause in the contract.”

The two thieves gave each other one last glance, sharing a look that without words shared the victory they’d managed to pull from the jaws of defeat, and they signed without hesitation. Once both contracts were signed, the ink & clawmark began to glow, filling the room with a cloud of pink smoke. As it cleared, the three of them stood on equal footing. The two checked themselves over, ensuring nothing was wrong with their bodies. True to Homley’s word, they’d been changed back.

“Thanks, Homley! We can always count on you to clean up after our messes!” Homley said.

“No problem, Homley, but remember that I’m only gonna turn you back; you have to work on repairing the damage yourself!”

“I’d have it no other way, Homley! Besides, I have Homley to help me, don’t I?”

“That’s right, Homley! Always ready to help another Homley!”

The original Homley clasped their wings together, satisfied with the final outcome. Flying back onto the stilts, he grabbed their sunglasses and put them back on, making the trenchcoat and beard disguise shimmer back to life. “I’m going to have to get more ingredients to replace all the potions you broke, Homleys. Make sure everything’s cleaned up and orderly ready for brewing when I get back!”

“Of course! Leave it to us!” The two former thieves saluted as Homley made his way out of the store before flying to the storage room for cleaning supplies.