If Wishes Were Horses 1/2
And I am back, with yet another Torchwood fanfic.
I sincerely apologize.
No, really. Not for writing more Torchwood, but for writing something so utterly ridiculous. The filename on my computer is "thisissodumb.rtf" This was an experiment, to see if I could write something quick and cracky. The answer is no. The premise is still really, really stupid, but it ended up taking... two months? to finish, and is only one page shorter than Dogpile. In any case, I did have fun with it, and there's even a piece of art to go with it - you can just scroll to the end if you want to.
Title: If Wishes Were Horses
Characters/Pairings: Jack, Gwen, Owen, Ianto, Tosh, OMCs. Canon pairings.
Rating: PG
Warnings: Mentions of sex, mature language, really really bad puns, ridiculousness.
Summary: A little girl makes a friend, who can create everything she's ever wanted. She wants cartoons. The rest of Cardiff isn't very happy about this. Torchwood to the rescue! ...if they can just figure out how to work around their unfortunate transformations.
It was raining, just slightly. The sky was gray and dismal, and water dripped from the sky onto the rooftops, which in turn drizzled down to the ground, mixed with dirt and rust and dead leaves.
Elizabeth sat on the curb, sadly splashing her rain boots in a puddle, ignoring the water dropping down onto her. She sniffled a little, her gaze fixed out at the street.
She didn't look up when someone sat next to her.
Are you alright? the person said.
"I'm lost," Elizabeth said. "I can't find my mummy and daddy."
I'm lost too, the person said, sounding very sad. I don't know what to do. I think I've been damaged.
Elizabeth looked up then, turning to look at the stranger. Her face scrunched up in a little frown. "Mum says I'm too old for imaginary friends."
The stranger flickered a little, offended. I'm not imaginary!
"Oh." Elizabeth thought about that. "Well, do you want to be my friend anyway?"
She giggled as the little golden lights next to her flared delightedly. I would love to!
"My name's Elizabeth," Elizabeth said. "What's yours?"
I don't have one.
"That's dumb. Everyone has a name."
They do?
"Duh."
Will you give me one then?
Elizabeth pondered. "How about Sparkle? Because you're all sparkly."
Sparkle, said Sparkle, mulling it over. Sparkle. I like that!
Elizabeth beamed, proud of herself. "What do you want to do?"
I don't know, said Sparkle. What do you like to do?
"I dunno," Elizabeth said. "I like cartoons, I guess. I was watching TV on daddy's phone but the battery ran out." She held the phone up as evidence.
What are cartoons?
Elizabeth smiled, getting to her feet and wiping her raincoat off, feeling important. "I'll tell you!" she said, and started down the street, telling her new friend all about her favorite shows as she went.
~~
"It's spreading," Toshiko said, staring at her computer in disbelief. "I still have no idea what it is, but it's definitely spreading out and getting stronger every minute."
"We've had calls and reports from all over town," Ianto added. "Machinery coming to life, wild animals and strange creatures in the streets, even the sky changing color."
"I know," Jack snarled over the phone, his voice coming in over the earpieces they both wore. "What do you expect me to do about it? We've been all over the place, fighting these stupid… whatever they are. I still can't get a sample, they just disappear as soon as they're down!"
"Screw that," they heard Gwen reply. Ianto could just imagine the two of them, running down the street, guns drawn, chasing the strange creature that had appeared suddenly in Pendefig Mall, and he smiled to himself. "I'm getting this damn sample if it kills me!"
"What's wrong with her?" Owen asked.
"The thing ate her wedding ring."
"It ate my wedding ring!"
Owen snorted and even Tosh had to suppress a giggle.
"There it is!" Jack shouted suddenly.
Gwen snarled, and they heard her burst into a sprint with a vehement, "You are going DOWN, motherfu-" before the rest was drowned out by the distinctive sound of gunfire.
Owen raised an eyebrow at his companions. "Whose idea was it to give her a machine gun?"
The sounds faded out gradually.
"Gwen?" Jack said. "Where are you? Are you alright?"
"What happened?" Toshiko asked, worried by the sudden change in tone.
"The whole thing just collapsed in on itself," Jack said, panting as he ran. "On top of Gwen. There's this red stuff everywhere, sort of transparent, looks almost like - "
"STRAWBERRY JAM," Gwen said, making them all jump. She coughed a little before continuing. "It's everywhere, we don't even have to analyze it. I got a sample alright, it tastes just like strawberry jam."
"It is strawberry jam," Jack said, sounding amazed.
"Jack," Owen said, "We all saw it on the CCTV. It had a giant eyeball and a mouth and hands and everything."
"Even so, this is definitely strawberry jam," Jack said. "I'm taking some back, we're gonna need a full analysis on this."
"You want me to do an autopsy on jam?"
~~
They didn't have any time to rest when they got back to the Hub. Ianto immediately handed Jack the phone to be berated by the police and government officials in his place. Gwen, with wedding ring back in its rightful place, handed over the jar of jam to Owen, who spent about half an hour using whatever equipment he could to analyze it, before finally coming to the conclusion, "Yup, it's jam."
Gwen ran downstairs briefly to change out of her strawberry stained blouse. Her mobile rang just as she made it back up, and she answered, waving off Toshiko's beckons for the moment.
"Hello?"
"Hey, Gwen."
"Rhys, now's not really a good time, can I call you back?"
"The lorries are talking, Gwen."
She paused at that. "What do you mean? Did you leave the radio on?"
"No I did not leave the radio on, Gwen, I mean the lorries, the actual lorries, they're talking."
Gwen swallowed. "Well, what are they saying?"
"How should I know, most of them only speak bloody Japanese!"
"Japanese?"
"Yes and they - " he was cut off by a scream from somewhere in the background.
"Rhys?" Gwen said, already mentally preparing to grab her gun and the SUV and run off to his rescue. "Rhys, what's all that screaming?"
"Oh," Rhys said. "One of them's turned into a robot now."
"It's what?!"
"Like in Transformers, you know? It just kind of reared up and rearranged itself and now it's a big robot."
Gwen was about to answer when Toshiko shouted something about finding the source of the energy. "Look, Rhys, are the robots doing anything? Are they hurting anybody?"
"Not really. It's just sort of standing around for now. Looks a little confused."
"Do you have anyone there who can speak Japanese?"
"Who can - well, yeah, I guess, I think Ken can. But Gwen!"
"Rhys, We're doing our best to put a stop to all of this, but we have to focus on the source or we'll be spread too thin. Try and talk to the robots, reason with them, if anything happens, call me right back, okay? Love you."
She hung up on his sputtering and ran to join the others at Tosh's desk.
"You found something?"
"I think so," Tosh said, pointing at a map on her screen. "All of these incidents started happening at about the same time, and at the same time as that, the Rift's been going crazy, it's releasing energy all over."
"So you think this is all one event?" Ianto asked.
"I sure hope it is," Jack said. "Otherwise we're gonna be busy for weeks."
"In any case, I think I can find the center of the incidents, and that will be where the source is. By tracing the energy's movements - "
"Do it," Jack said.
Toshiko typed, too quickly for Gwen to make out, and the screen changed again, showing all the energy flowing about the city as well as points marked out with timestamps of when the incidents were reported. Gwen frowned, reading them to herself. Here a talking dog, there a flood of ice cream, there the jam creature, three separate reports of flying pigs…
"Oh," Toshiko said.
"What?"
"Did you figure it out?"
"Um," Tosh said. "Yes, I think. But it appears to be moving."
"Moving where?"
"Right above us," she said, "And the energy wave is coming straight for us."
"Oh," Jack said, and looked uneasily at the ceiling. "Well that's not good."
"Don't we have, I don't know, shields or something?" Gwen asked. "Something to protect us?"
"In theory," Jack said. He turned swiftly to Toshiko. "Can you strengthen them? Divert energy or something? We're not gonna get through a point blank blast unscathed."
Tosh raised an eyebrow at him skeptically. "I cannae give her any more captain," she said in a mock Scottish accent.
Jack gave her a quick glare and turned to the others. "Any ideas?"
Owen shrugged and said with a smirk, "Dammit Jack, I'm a doctor, not a magician!"
"Seeking cover in the lower levels of the archives seems like the most logical choice of action, Captain," Ianto provided.
Jack didn't seem pleased with all the impersonations going on at his expense, but Ianto had a point. The five of them ran off to the stairs, with Gwen still trying to think of another character she could quote. Did Uhura have a catchphrase? Jack was obviously Kirk, whether he liked it or not…
They all crashed into each other as the wave hit, shaking the Hub slightly and knocking the lights out.
"Shit!" Jack said. "Tosh, Ianto, someone, get the lights back on!"
"Is everyone alright?" Gwen asked, though she figured her question was already half-answered since she could hear Tosh and Ianto scurrying off.
"Fine," Jack said, unnecessarily.
"I don't think I'm hurt," Owen said. "Can't really tell, of course, but I think I'm all in one piece. What about you?"
"I'm fine," Gwen started to say, but hesitated. "Actually, I feel kind of weird."
"Weird how?"
"Dunno. Off balance. And my back's kind of… it doesn't hurt, but it feels wrong."
"Owen, get up to the autopsy bay," Jack said. He shouted over his shoulder, "GET THOSE LIGHTS UP!" before turning back to Gwen, grabbing her hand.
"Can you walk?" he asked, over the sound of Owen clattering up the stairs.
Clattering? Gwen thought. "I think so. Nothing really hurts, I just - "
There was a loud buzzing sound for a moment as the lights flickered back to life. Jack stared at Gwen in shock.
"Gwen, you've turned blue!"
"I've what?" She raised an arm in disbelief, and found that it had, in fact, turned blue. "What the hell?"
"All those reports brought up environmental changes," Jack mused, "But I bet it affects people too, changing physical appearances…"
The lights flickered off again. They heard Ianto curse from the other room, and Myfanwy screeched in outrage at the continued disturbances.
"Come on," Jack said, heaving Gwen to her feet. She felt even more awkward now, like her legs were bending in all the wrong places, but she stumbled up the first few steps.
The lights came on again.
Gwen gaped up at Jack, opening and closing her mouth as she searched for something to say. He didn't seem to notice, and just kept pulling her up the stairs.
At the top of the stairs, she snapped out of it, and, feeling a little light-headed and giggly, asked, "Jack, is this turning you on?"
He blinked at her. "What kind of question is that?"
"It's just that you look a little horny," she said, holding back a giggle.
Jack shrugged. "Not any more than usual," he said, but he looked down to check his trousers anyway.
Gwen gave up suppressing her laughter and grabbed his hand, guiding it up to the sharp horn that seemed to have sprouted out of his forehead during the blackout. He felt it with his fingers, his face a mask of utter confusion.
"What in the world?!"
The Hub shook again, and they fell to all fours with a yell. Similar cries echoed from the other areas of the Hub as the others lost their balance as well.
The lights went out.
~~
"Jaaack!" came Ianto's voice, just on the verge of panic. "Jack, we have a big problem!"
"Shit!" Owen agreed, trying to get to his feet and finding it rather difficult.
"Oh my," Toshiko said, ignoring the monitor for once and staring at where her hands should have been.
"What the hell happened?" Jack said, bounding up the stairs, apparently unphased by his sudden transformation. He tossed his head back, taking stock of the damage to the Hub, Gwen following awkwardly behind with a steady clop clop clop!
He stopped and stared as he found his team; Tosh slumped over her keyboard in shock, Ianto slipping as he tried to join the others, Owen limping out of the Autopsy Bay. He sat down, his legs sticking out in front of him and his arms - no, front legs? - tucked neatly between.
"Myyy little pooonyyyy~" Gwen sang, still giggling with shock. She seemed to have mostly got the hang of walking now, carefully putting one blue hoof in front of the other. She laughed out loud as the others shakily joined her and Jack.
"This is so messed up," Owen said, flicking his tail experimentally. "We're straight out of a bloody cartoon!"
"I used to play with My Little Ponies," Tosh said quietly, watching Gwen trot around her desk.
"I did too!" she said. She stopped and looked over her shoulder delightedly. "Look, I've got wings! I always liked the ones with wings." She fluttered them, sending a couple feathers floating to the ground.
"Well lucky you," Owen snarled, collapsing to the ground. "You're up to six limbs then, and I've only got three." He waved his arm to demonstrate - the cast around his hand seemed to have changed along with the rest of him, holding the permanently broken appendage in place even though it had transformed into a hoof.
"You've got a horn, though," Tosh pointed out.
Owen frowned, rolling his eyes up as he attempted to see his own forehead. Jack looked up from examining his reflection in the fountain and smirked.
"Mine's bigger."
"Oh shut up."
"How did this happen, though?" Ianto asked from his seat nearby. "People don't just turn into cartoon characters."
"Apparently, we do," Jack said, getting up. Owen noticed with distaste that he stood quite a bit taller than the rest of them. "And we need to get to the bottom of this. Tosh, do you think you can get that program back up so we can trace the source of the energy wave?"
"How?" Tosh asked, stepping forwards awkwardly in an attempt to avoid Gwen, who had stopped prancing and fluttering and started advancing on her from behind. "I don't have any fingers! I don't know how you expect me to type - Gwen, what are you doing?"
"She's trying to see your tramp stamp," Owen said with a smirk.
"Cutie mark," Ianto corrected. Owen stared at him in wordless disbelief. He shrunk back defensively. "I have a niece!"
Gwen ignored them, busy trying to get a better look at Toshiko's flank as the smaller woman - pony - sidestepped her. "Yours is a computer, Tosh, how fitting."
Owen caved to his curiosity and stretched around to try and see his own… mark… against his grey-blue coat. "What's mine, I can't make it out from here."
"Maybe if you stood up," Gwen said, trotting over.
"Do you know how hard it is to walk when you suddenly have two extra legs and one of them doesn't even work?"
"It's a syringe," Gwen reported. "That's a little morbid."
"What's morbid about it, it means medicine. I was half expecting a skull or something. Something that says 'dead horse walking!'"
"Pony."
"Whatever."
"Coffee," Ianto put in, disgusted. "Really, that's what I get stuck with? Coffee? I do do other things around here, you know."
"What's mine?" Gwen asked, turning in a circle in her attempt to find out.
"It's a heart," Owen said.
Gwen sat down, disappointed. "Is that all? That's rather generic, isn't it."
"It's a heart and a gun," Tosh said. "You didn't let him finish."
"Well that was never on any of my ponies back home," Gwen laughed. "What about you, Jack?"
"The world could be ending and all you four want is to look at my ass," Jack said, shaking his head in mock shame. He turned around obediently.
Gwen cocked her head. "Huh," she said.
"Bit anticlimactic," Ianto agreed. "I was half expecting it to be censored."
"Why, what is it?" Jack asked.
"Just the Torchwood logo," Owen said.
Jack's ears and tail drooped, much to their amusement. "I've been here too long," he said. "I used to be freelance, you know, came and went as I pleased. When did this place become more than just a job?"
"Cheer up Jack, you can always have tattoo removal surgery like the rest of the girls with regrettable tramp stamps," Owen said, struggling to his feet. "Were we gonna try and track down whatever's causing all this or what?"
"Right," Jack said. "Okay, if Tosh can't manage the computer like this, we'll have to track it the old fashioned way. Its last known whereabouts were up on the Plass - we'll go up and try and see if we can find it on foot. Hoof."
Ianto glanced up at the exit. "Does anyone know how to work a doorknob with hooves?"
Jack stopped in his tracks, frowning. He turned around and walked back around the fountain. "We'll take the invisible lift," he decided. "Come on, let's go."
"Can you work the lift with hooves?" Ianto asked, trotting to catch up with him.
"I still have this," Jack said, lifting his hoof that still had his wrist strap attached.
"Can you work that with - "
"Oh shut up, Ianto, I'll figure it out."
They all crowded onto the tile, barely managing to fit. Jack flipped open the wrist strap with his teeth and began trying to poke at the buttons with his nose.
Ianto glanced around the Hub, his ears perked. "Do you hear singing?"
Toshiko frowned, looking up. "The hot house," she deduced. "It looks like the flowers have started a choir."
"Lovely," Owen said sarcastically, lying down on his stomach again. "Just what this place was missing."
The lift started up with a jolt and Jack straightened up, feeling rather proud of himself.
As they started to rise into the air, they were startled by a screech, much louder than they were used to hearing. A great winged creature swooped down from the ceiling of the Hub, circling the rising lift with a familiar, if distorted, cry.
"Oh wonderful," Ianto said. "Myfanwy's become a dragon."
~~
Up on the surface, Cardiff seemed to be in a similar state. The five of them remained on the lift for a moment, staring in vague horror at the changes that had overtaken the city.
"It's so pink," Toshiko whispered.
"It's horrifying," Owen said.
Jack huffed, and, managing not to let his embarrassment show when it came out like a whinny, stepped over Owen down onto the pavement. "Come on, let's get going. The sooner we find this thing, the sooner we put everything back to normal."
"Well, maybe," Gwen said, hopping off after him. "We don't know that for sure."
"Do you have any other ideas?" he snapped at her. "Owen, stop lying around, we've got a job to do."
"I can't," Owen said, still lying on the lift. "Ianto's on my tail."
Ianto jolted out of his reverie at that, and danced in place for a moment, unsure of which limb needed lifting. Jack snorted at them and walked over to grab the tie Ianto was still wearing for some reason in his teeth, dragging him away from the fountain. Tosh hopped off behind him, and Owen struggled back to his feet in the rear.
"Sorry," Ianto said, "I was distracted."
"There is an awful lot to be distracted by," Tosh said, watching a bicycle ride past without a rider.
"It's the sun. It's wearing sunglasses."
Jack glanced up. "Well that's obviously impossible, so this must all be an illusion of some sort. Nothing's actually changed, we just perceive it that way."
The other four ponies glared at him.
"This does not feel like an illusion, Jack," Gwen said.
"I have four legs," Ianto added.
"And hooves!" Tosh said, stamping her front two in demonstration.
"A sufficiently advanced mind trick can have you believing anything," Jack said, stomping a hind leg angrily. "We can't necessarily trust our own senses in this."
"Well then what the hell are we supposed to believe, Jack?" Owen said. "How are we supposed to find this thing if we can't even believe our own eyes?"
"We'll have to make due," Jack said, stalking past them. "Even if our perception of reality's been altered, it all seems to relate back to the real world. The thing that caused all this is here, somewhere, we just have to find it."
The four of them stared after him. With a shared exasperated glance, they followed.
"Maybe it's both physical and mental," Toshiko mused.
"It's mental alright," Owen muttered, and he flinched as Gwen flicked her tail in his face.
"What do you mean?" she asked.
"Well Jack's right, the sun physically cannot be wearing sunglasses, they would have to be enormous and indestructible. But we can all feel the changes ourselves, so maybe it's both a physical change and an illusion, combined."
"Any way to test that theory?" Owen asked.
"No," Tosh said flatly. "Really everything could be in our minds. No real way to tell."
"Well if it actually is all a mass hallucination, that'll make our cover story easy. We use that excuse all the time," Ianto said, stepping over another singing flower. "Does anybody know where we're going?"
"We're supposedly after the source of all this."
"I know, but why are we going this way? Is there any reason Jack thinks this is the right way to go?"
Jack overheard, and he shrugged. "It's just a guess really. Feels right for some reason."
"Of course it does."
"Jack."
"I can't explain it any better, Tosh, I just think this is the right way to go."
"Jack," Toshiko repeated, trotting to catch up with him. "Your horn is glowing."
"What?" Jack said, ignoring the sounds of Owen and Gwen and Ianto all trying to stifle their sniggering.
"Well you are a magical sparkly unicorn," Gwen said. "Must be your special magic power to track aliens or something."
"There's no such thing as magic," Jack said crossly, definitively not looking at the woman riding by across the street on her broomstick.
Gwen ignored him, glancing back over her shoulder. "I wonder if I can fly," she said, flapping her wings experimentally.
"Those things are way too small," Owen said, "They wouldn't be able to generate enough lift for your body weight; they're too out of proportion. You'd have to beat them like a bumble bee does, and they're just not built for that kind of movement or speed."
Gwen just crouched down, wings spread. She jumped into the air and flapped madly, sending feathers cascading down onto all of them.
"Hah!" she said, panting as she flapped her wings to remain airborne. "We've already been transformed into brightly colored ponies, Owen, I think one more impossible thing isn't that hard to fathom."
"It's all bloody ridiculous," Owen said, sulking.
"Ridiculous or not, we have to find a way to stop it before it becomes dangerous."
"Dangerous?" Gwen asked, gliding down and hovering next to Jack's shoulder. "How could it be dangerous? Weird, yes, and a bit annoying, but it doesn't seem all that bad."
"Didn't you watch cartoons growing up?" Owen asked.
Ianto nodded. "Even the most benign of children's television tend to rely heavily on slapstick beyond the scope of human tolerance. Anvils and pianos falling from the sky, people falling off cliffs… Put into the real world, as seems to be the situation, people could become seriously hurt."
"Yeah, but we do have one advantage in all this," Jack said, smirking back at them.
"What's that?" Tosh asked.
He grinned and winked at her. "The good guys always win."
~~
"More ice cream, please!"
The clouds rumbled ominously in response, and as lightning struck nearby, chocolate ice cream rained from the sky. Elizabeth giggled and held her bowl up in the air; the dessert landed with a perfect plop!
Are you having fun, Elizabeth?
Elizabeth nodded happily, her lips smeared with chocolate. "Mm-hmm!" she said. "What about you, Sparkle?"
I am having lots of fun! What do you want to play next?
Elizabeth tapped her spoon against her lips. "I dunno. I can't really think of anything else. We've done everything!" Her bright smile dimmed a little as she looked around the street for inspiration. Her gaze caught on a couple of grown-ups, a cowboy and a fairy queen, riding their pumpkin carriage across the road as a little boy with wolf ears and a tail egged on the giant swans bearing them with little whoops of joy.
"We still haven't found my mummy and daddy," she said quietly. She put her bowl of ice cream down in her lap and stared sadly at it, resting in the folds of her raincoat. She tugged her tiara off and dropped it. "I don' really wanna play pretend any more, Sparkle."
But we were having so much fun, Sparkle said, sounding upset.
"Yeah, but I gotta find 'em," Elizabeth said. "Daddy always told me if I got lost I should stay where I am or ask a policeman for help."
A policeman?
"Yeah. Only I dunno where the police station is." Elizabeth looked around her. "I don't know where we are! Oh Sparkle, I think we're even more lost now!"
Sparkle flared up in alarm as her friend started crying. She sputtered about around her, unsure of what to do.
Oh don't cry, Elizabeth! It'll be ok, you'll see!
"B-but, Mummy and Daddy…"
We'll find them! We'll find them, I promise! We just have to keep looking.
"But Daddy said to stay in one place!"
But we've been all over half the city anyway! And we didn't find them. So they must be where we haven't looked yet! Sparkle said, proud of her logic. If we just keep moving, we're bound to find them!
Elizabeth sniffed. "Y-you think so?"
Sure! And even if we don't we're bound to find a policeman. I could make you a policeman if you want! What're they like?
"I don't think a pretend policeman will help," Elizabeth said, wiping her eyes. "But you're right, we should keep looking."
Sparkle gathered around the tiara and placed it back on Elizabeth's head. What should we play while we look?
"I dunno, Sparkle, I don't really wanna play any more."
But you have to keep your spirits up, Elizabeth! We should keep playing. Or you could tell me more stories about those shows and books and stuff! I like those.
Elizabeth sighed a little, starting to understand why Mummy got so annoyed when she asked for another bedtime story.
"All right, all right. Let's see…."
~~
"How much further, Jack?"
"I already told you, I don't know." Jack was becoming weary of answering his team's constant questioning. "I don't know how this works any more than you do."
"Do you think it's a trap?" Ianto mused, lagging behind a little.
"Well we are being guided straight towards it," Owen said, barely managing to keep pace with his broken hoof. "So yeah, I think it's pretty likely."
"Trap or not, we still have to find it," Jack said firmly.
"Oh, I know," Ianto said. "Just wondering about how easy this all is."
"Wandering around a cartoon infested city all day is easy?" asked Gwen.
"Well it is for you, you've barely used your legs since you realized those little feathery blobs actually did something."
"You're just jealous," she said, sticking her tongue out at Owen.
"If this all is based on children's television," Toshiko said to Ianto, ignoring them, "Then we have to have the whole thing wrapped up within the half hour."
"22 minutes without advertisements."
"Maybe up to an hour or two, if it's a feature-length special." Tosh watched as two geese wearing bonnets waddled by, giggling at the quintet of ponies behind their wings. "I wonder what the advantage of making everything a cartoon could be."
"Could be an accident," Jack mused. "Some terraforming device tuning into CBBC or something."
"Can that happen?"
"Well something's happened. We won't really know what until we find what we're looking for."
"We don't know what we are looking for, though."
"Shut up, Owen, I'm sure we'll know it when we see iiiiiiiit-!" Jack cut off with a yelp as his horn started glowing even brighter; his head swung around, and he found himself dragged off against his will.
"Jack!" Tosh and Ianto both shouted, galloping after him in alarm. Owen cursed and stumbled along behind them, and Gwen doubled over in a fit of laughter yet again.
"This is all so bloody hilarious!"
"Well I'm glad someone's enjoying herself," Jack snarled, trying to slow himself down. "What the hell is going on with this dumb thing?"
"Plot device?" suggested Ianto.
Gwen passed the others with a flutter of wings. She turned and flew backwards to talk to Jack as he dragged all four hooves against the pull of his horn. "But Jack, if your magical unicorn power is to track alien threats, and we're looking for the alien threat, why don't you just let it lead you?"
Jack glared at her for a moment.
"Fine," he said. He tossed his head, lowered his still glowing horn, and charged.
Gwen yelped as he bowled her over, tumbling to the ground and knocking into Ianto. "Sorry!"
"'S alright," he muttered. They both struggled to their feet, with some attempt to help from Tosh that more resembled nuzzling. Owen limped past them, making an odd 'snerk' sound as he stifled his laughter at their failure to detangle their limbs.
"Shouldn't we catch up with Captain Horny over there?"
Gwen shook her head to clear it as she finally managed to step away from Ianto. "Yeah, no shit, thanks for that."
Ianto was still having some trouble raising himself off the ground, as his front hooves kept getting caught in his tie. "Did anybody see where he went?"
They all glanced around; Jack had disappeared.
"Great," Owen said. "You've lost him."
"We've lost him?" said Ianto. "I don't see you giving us any ideas."
"No, the bright ideas seem to all be coming from little miss heart-on-my-arse over there. Why don't you run right into the trap, Jack? Don't mind us, we'll catch up, never mind that we don't have magical alien tracking powers."
Gwen stomped her hoof indignantly. "Well we weren't getting anywhere with him dragging his feet - hooves - like that! If you were so concerned why didn't you go after him?"
Owen scowled at her. "You expect me to run with this?" he drawled, holding up his bum hoof once again.
"Well it's not like it hurts, and you don't run out of breath like the rest of us!"
Owen bristled. He turned away sharply, lashing his short tail as he stalked away towards where he'd last seen Jack.
Gwen's ears flattened against her head in embarrassment, but she didn't apologize.
Tosh glanced back and forth between the two of them.
"Owen!" she called.
Owen didn't look back.
"Owen!" Toshiko galloped after him. "Owen, we're never going to catch up, he has too much of a head start."
"Oh I'm sure I'll get there eventually, after all, I don't get tired. Lucky lucky me."
"Owen, that's not what Gwen meant," Tosh said. "Come on, we should stick together."
"Obviously Jack doesn't think so. We might as well just drop it, let the hero save the day as always. I wonder if any of the pubs around here will serve a talking pony. Not that I can drink anyway."
"Oh knock it off, Owen," Ianto said, catching up with a short canter. Gwen clopped on behind him, her head still down. "This is no time for you to be sulking."
"I'm not sulking."
"Yeah you are," Gwen muttered. Tosh and Ianto both glared at her to shut up.
"Look, we're not going to get through this if we can't even work together," Ianto continued.
"Oh sure," Owen said, rolling his eyes. "Because we're obviously going to save the world with the power of love and friendship. Let's all hug and discover our inner power we never knew we had."
"Oh!" Toshiko said suddenly, stopping.
"Oh what?" Owen said, turning to stare at her in exasperation. "Did you discover your special magical power?"
"No," Tosh said, "But that reminded me. Gwen, can't you just fly up and try and find Jack from above?"
Gwen blinked her oversized eyes at her. "Oh, I guess I can, can't I?"
She disappeared into the sky with a flutter. Ianto shook off a blue feather that landed on his nose.
"Think she'll find him?" he asked.
"He's a grey-blue unicorn with a brightly glowing horn being dragged through the streets by an invisible force," Owen said. "How hard can it be to find that?"
They all stood in awkward silence. A reindeer with bells and lights on its antlers trotted by, raising its top hat and nodding politely to them. They stared at the sky, waiting for Gwen to reappear from the clouds.
It was a few minutes before she finally dropped down and landed clumsily just behind them, panting heavily.
"Did you see him?" Toshiko asked.
Gwen waved her off with a hoof, still breathing heavily and fanning herself with her wings.
"Hang on," she said, "Let me catch my breath for a moment, 's hard work, flying." She flinched suddenly and looked up at Owen. "I'm really sorry, Owen, I didn't mean to say that, earlier, I mean, I was just frustrated - "
"'S all right," Owen said. "All in the past. No use beating a dead horse, right?" He smirked at her.
Ianto snorted. "How long have you been waiting to say that?"
"Just thought of it while we were sitting here waiting. Why, did I steal your opening? How long have you been waiting to say it?"
"Quite a while now," Ianto said with a shrug. "Thought it was a little insensitive though."
"Did you find him though?" Tosh asked again.
Gwen shook her head. "Not exactly. Did get a view of some of those robots Rhys was calling me about, they really do look like Transformers. Anyway, I didn't see Jack, but I think I can tell where he was heading."
She nodded off to her right. "There's something big going on over that way - monsters, fantastic creatures, you name it. And what looks like a big tornado or something, all in the middle of it. Definitely looks important, could be our source."
"A magical tornado?" Ianto said skeptically.
Toshiko shrugged. "Best idea we've got. And we know Jack can't help running towards whatever looks most dangerous, so it's our best bet."
Gwen got back her feet with only a small clatter of hooves, and set off at a brisk trot towards the tornado, Toshiko, Ianto, and Owen following close behind.
~~
Oh no, Sparkle said. No no no no no no no.
"Sparkle!" Elizabeth sobbed. "Do something!"
Sparkle dimmed and flickered wildly about the girl's head. I I I I I I I, she said, I don't know what I I I.
The creature before them snarled, it's needle like teeth grown to enormous proportions, its rancid breath making Elizabeth cough and whimper.
Malfunction, Sparkle whispered. Malfunction!
"Mal what?" Elizabeth squeaked.
The creature snarled again. Elizabeth huddled in the corner. "Sparkle I don't like this game!" she cried. "Make it go away!"
I can't I I I I I am damaged I don't know
"Change it to something else! A talking duck, I want a talking duck!"
A duck fell unceremoniously from the sky. It shook its head. The monster's head swung around and stared at it.
"Holy shit!" said the duck, and floundered backwards before taking to the air and flying away.
The monster turned back to stare heavily at Elizabeth. She clenched her eyes shut. "Mummy, Daddy," she whimpered. "Sparkle I want my Mummy!"
Sparkle said nothing, still just sparking helplessly in the air.
The creature lunged.
~~
Part Two
I sincerely apologize.
No, really. Not for writing more Torchwood, but for writing something so utterly ridiculous. The filename on my computer is "thisissodumb.rtf" This was an experiment, to see if I could write something quick and cracky. The answer is no. The premise is still really, really stupid, but it ended up taking... two months? to finish, and is only one page shorter than Dogpile. In any case, I did have fun with it, and there's even a piece of art to go with it - you can just scroll to the end if you want to.
Title: If Wishes Were Horses
Characters/Pairings: Jack, Gwen, Owen, Ianto, Tosh, OMCs. Canon pairings.
Rating: PG
Warnings: Mentions of sex, mature language, really really bad puns, ridiculousness.
Summary: A little girl makes a friend, who can create everything she's ever wanted. She wants cartoons. The rest of Cardiff isn't very happy about this. Torchwood to the rescue! ...if they can just figure out how to work around their unfortunate transformations.
It was raining, just slightly. The sky was gray and dismal, and water dripped from the sky onto the rooftops, which in turn drizzled down to the ground, mixed with dirt and rust and dead leaves.
Elizabeth sat on the curb, sadly splashing her rain boots in a puddle, ignoring the water dropping down onto her. She sniffled a little, her gaze fixed out at the street.
She didn't look up when someone sat next to her.
Are you alright? the person said.
"I'm lost," Elizabeth said. "I can't find my mummy and daddy."
I'm lost too, the person said, sounding very sad. I don't know what to do. I think I've been damaged.
Elizabeth looked up then, turning to look at the stranger. Her face scrunched up in a little frown. "Mum says I'm too old for imaginary friends."
The stranger flickered a little, offended. I'm not imaginary!
"Oh." Elizabeth thought about that. "Well, do you want to be my friend anyway?"
She giggled as the little golden lights next to her flared delightedly. I would love to!
"My name's Elizabeth," Elizabeth said. "What's yours?"
I don't have one.
"That's dumb. Everyone has a name."
They do?
"Duh."
Will you give me one then?
Elizabeth pondered. "How about Sparkle? Because you're all sparkly."
Sparkle, said Sparkle, mulling it over. Sparkle. I like that!
Elizabeth beamed, proud of herself. "What do you want to do?"
I don't know, said Sparkle. What do you like to do?
"I dunno," Elizabeth said. "I like cartoons, I guess. I was watching TV on daddy's phone but the battery ran out." She held the phone up as evidence.
What are cartoons?
Elizabeth smiled, getting to her feet and wiping her raincoat off, feeling important. "I'll tell you!" she said, and started down the street, telling her new friend all about her favorite shows as she went.
~~
"It's spreading," Toshiko said, staring at her computer in disbelief. "I still have no idea what it is, but it's definitely spreading out and getting stronger every minute."
"We've had calls and reports from all over town," Ianto added. "Machinery coming to life, wild animals and strange creatures in the streets, even the sky changing color."
"I know," Jack snarled over the phone, his voice coming in over the earpieces they both wore. "What do you expect me to do about it? We've been all over the place, fighting these stupid… whatever they are. I still can't get a sample, they just disappear as soon as they're down!"
"Screw that," they heard Gwen reply. Ianto could just imagine the two of them, running down the street, guns drawn, chasing the strange creature that had appeared suddenly in Pendefig Mall, and he smiled to himself. "I'm getting this damn sample if it kills me!"
"What's wrong with her?" Owen asked.
"The thing ate her wedding ring."
"It ate my wedding ring!"
Owen snorted and even Tosh had to suppress a giggle.
"There it is!" Jack shouted suddenly.
Gwen snarled, and they heard her burst into a sprint with a vehement, "You are going DOWN, motherfu-" before the rest was drowned out by the distinctive sound of gunfire.
Owen raised an eyebrow at his companions. "Whose idea was it to give her a machine gun?"
The sounds faded out gradually.
"Gwen?" Jack said. "Where are you? Are you alright?"
"What happened?" Toshiko asked, worried by the sudden change in tone.
"The whole thing just collapsed in on itself," Jack said, panting as he ran. "On top of Gwen. There's this red stuff everywhere, sort of transparent, looks almost like - "
"STRAWBERRY JAM," Gwen said, making them all jump. She coughed a little before continuing. "It's everywhere, we don't even have to analyze it. I got a sample alright, it tastes just like strawberry jam."
"It is strawberry jam," Jack said, sounding amazed.
"Jack," Owen said, "We all saw it on the CCTV. It had a giant eyeball and a mouth and hands and everything."
"Even so, this is definitely strawberry jam," Jack said. "I'm taking some back, we're gonna need a full analysis on this."
"You want me to do an autopsy on jam?"
~~
They didn't have any time to rest when they got back to the Hub. Ianto immediately handed Jack the phone to be berated by the police and government officials in his place. Gwen, with wedding ring back in its rightful place, handed over the jar of jam to Owen, who spent about half an hour using whatever equipment he could to analyze it, before finally coming to the conclusion, "Yup, it's jam."
Gwen ran downstairs briefly to change out of her strawberry stained blouse. Her mobile rang just as she made it back up, and she answered, waving off Toshiko's beckons for the moment.
"Hello?"
"Hey, Gwen."
"Rhys, now's not really a good time, can I call you back?"
"The lorries are talking, Gwen."
She paused at that. "What do you mean? Did you leave the radio on?"
"No I did not leave the radio on, Gwen, I mean the lorries, the actual lorries, they're talking."
Gwen swallowed. "Well, what are they saying?"
"How should I know, most of them only speak bloody Japanese!"
"Japanese?"
"Yes and they - " he was cut off by a scream from somewhere in the background.
"Rhys?" Gwen said, already mentally preparing to grab her gun and the SUV and run off to his rescue. "Rhys, what's all that screaming?"
"Oh," Rhys said. "One of them's turned into a robot now."
"It's what?!"
"Like in Transformers, you know? It just kind of reared up and rearranged itself and now it's a big robot."
Gwen was about to answer when Toshiko shouted something about finding the source of the energy. "Look, Rhys, are the robots doing anything? Are they hurting anybody?"
"Not really. It's just sort of standing around for now. Looks a little confused."
"Do you have anyone there who can speak Japanese?"
"Who can - well, yeah, I guess, I think Ken can. But Gwen!"
"Rhys, We're doing our best to put a stop to all of this, but we have to focus on the source or we'll be spread too thin. Try and talk to the robots, reason with them, if anything happens, call me right back, okay? Love you."
She hung up on his sputtering and ran to join the others at Tosh's desk.
"You found something?"
"I think so," Tosh said, pointing at a map on her screen. "All of these incidents started happening at about the same time, and at the same time as that, the Rift's been going crazy, it's releasing energy all over."
"So you think this is all one event?" Ianto asked.
"I sure hope it is," Jack said. "Otherwise we're gonna be busy for weeks."
"In any case, I think I can find the center of the incidents, and that will be where the source is. By tracing the energy's movements - "
"Do it," Jack said.
Toshiko typed, too quickly for Gwen to make out, and the screen changed again, showing all the energy flowing about the city as well as points marked out with timestamps of when the incidents were reported. Gwen frowned, reading them to herself. Here a talking dog, there a flood of ice cream, there the jam creature, three separate reports of flying pigs…
"Oh," Toshiko said.
"What?"
"Did you figure it out?"
"Um," Tosh said. "Yes, I think. But it appears to be moving."
"Moving where?"
"Right above us," she said, "And the energy wave is coming straight for us."
"Oh," Jack said, and looked uneasily at the ceiling. "Well that's not good."
"Don't we have, I don't know, shields or something?" Gwen asked. "Something to protect us?"
"In theory," Jack said. He turned swiftly to Toshiko. "Can you strengthen them? Divert energy or something? We're not gonna get through a point blank blast unscathed."
Tosh raised an eyebrow at him skeptically. "I cannae give her any more captain," she said in a mock Scottish accent.
Jack gave her a quick glare and turned to the others. "Any ideas?"
Owen shrugged and said with a smirk, "Dammit Jack, I'm a doctor, not a magician!"
"Seeking cover in the lower levels of the archives seems like the most logical choice of action, Captain," Ianto provided.
Jack didn't seem pleased with all the impersonations going on at his expense, but Ianto had a point. The five of them ran off to the stairs, with Gwen still trying to think of another character she could quote. Did Uhura have a catchphrase? Jack was obviously Kirk, whether he liked it or not…
They all crashed into each other as the wave hit, shaking the Hub slightly and knocking the lights out.
"Shit!" Jack said. "Tosh, Ianto, someone, get the lights back on!"
"Is everyone alright?" Gwen asked, though she figured her question was already half-answered since she could hear Tosh and Ianto scurrying off.
"Fine," Jack said, unnecessarily.
"I don't think I'm hurt," Owen said. "Can't really tell, of course, but I think I'm all in one piece. What about you?"
"I'm fine," Gwen started to say, but hesitated. "Actually, I feel kind of weird."
"Weird how?"
"Dunno. Off balance. And my back's kind of… it doesn't hurt, but it feels wrong."
"Owen, get up to the autopsy bay," Jack said. He shouted over his shoulder, "GET THOSE LIGHTS UP!" before turning back to Gwen, grabbing her hand.
"Can you walk?" he asked, over the sound of Owen clattering up the stairs.
Clattering? Gwen thought. "I think so. Nothing really hurts, I just - "
There was a loud buzzing sound for a moment as the lights flickered back to life. Jack stared at Gwen in shock.
"Gwen, you've turned blue!"
"I've what?" She raised an arm in disbelief, and found that it had, in fact, turned blue. "What the hell?"
"All those reports brought up environmental changes," Jack mused, "But I bet it affects people too, changing physical appearances…"
The lights flickered off again. They heard Ianto curse from the other room, and Myfanwy screeched in outrage at the continued disturbances.
"Come on," Jack said, heaving Gwen to her feet. She felt even more awkward now, like her legs were bending in all the wrong places, but she stumbled up the first few steps.
The lights came on again.
Gwen gaped up at Jack, opening and closing her mouth as she searched for something to say. He didn't seem to notice, and just kept pulling her up the stairs.
At the top of the stairs, she snapped out of it, and, feeling a little light-headed and giggly, asked, "Jack, is this turning you on?"
He blinked at her. "What kind of question is that?"
"It's just that you look a little horny," she said, holding back a giggle.
Jack shrugged. "Not any more than usual," he said, but he looked down to check his trousers anyway.
Gwen gave up suppressing her laughter and grabbed his hand, guiding it up to the sharp horn that seemed to have sprouted out of his forehead during the blackout. He felt it with his fingers, his face a mask of utter confusion.
"What in the world?!"
The Hub shook again, and they fell to all fours with a yell. Similar cries echoed from the other areas of the Hub as the others lost their balance as well.
The lights went out.
~~
"Jaaack!" came Ianto's voice, just on the verge of panic. "Jack, we have a big problem!"
"Shit!" Owen agreed, trying to get to his feet and finding it rather difficult.
"Oh my," Toshiko said, ignoring the monitor for once and staring at where her hands should have been.
"What the hell happened?" Jack said, bounding up the stairs, apparently unphased by his sudden transformation. He tossed his head back, taking stock of the damage to the Hub, Gwen following awkwardly behind with a steady clop clop clop!
He stopped and stared as he found his team; Tosh slumped over her keyboard in shock, Ianto slipping as he tried to join the others, Owen limping out of the Autopsy Bay. He sat down, his legs sticking out in front of him and his arms - no, front legs? - tucked neatly between.
"Myyy little pooonyyyy~" Gwen sang, still giggling with shock. She seemed to have mostly got the hang of walking now, carefully putting one blue hoof in front of the other. She laughed out loud as the others shakily joined her and Jack.
"This is so messed up," Owen said, flicking his tail experimentally. "We're straight out of a bloody cartoon!"
"I used to play with My Little Ponies," Tosh said quietly, watching Gwen trot around her desk.
"I did too!" she said. She stopped and looked over her shoulder delightedly. "Look, I've got wings! I always liked the ones with wings." She fluttered them, sending a couple feathers floating to the ground.
"Well lucky you," Owen snarled, collapsing to the ground. "You're up to six limbs then, and I've only got three." He waved his arm to demonstrate - the cast around his hand seemed to have changed along with the rest of him, holding the permanently broken appendage in place even though it had transformed into a hoof.
"You've got a horn, though," Tosh pointed out.
Owen frowned, rolling his eyes up as he attempted to see his own forehead. Jack looked up from examining his reflection in the fountain and smirked.
"Mine's bigger."
"Oh shut up."
"How did this happen, though?" Ianto asked from his seat nearby. "People don't just turn into cartoon characters."
"Apparently, we do," Jack said, getting up. Owen noticed with distaste that he stood quite a bit taller than the rest of them. "And we need to get to the bottom of this. Tosh, do you think you can get that program back up so we can trace the source of the energy wave?"
"How?" Tosh asked, stepping forwards awkwardly in an attempt to avoid Gwen, who had stopped prancing and fluttering and started advancing on her from behind. "I don't have any fingers! I don't know how you expect me to type - Gwen, what are you doing?"
"She's trying to see your tramp stamp," Owen said with a smirk.
"Cutie mark," Ianto corrected. Owen stared at him in wordless disbelief. He shrunk back defensively. "I have a niece!"
Gwen ignored them, busy trying to get a better look at Toshiko's flank as the smaller woman - pony - sidestepped her. "Yours is a computer, Tosh, how fitting."
Owen caved to his curiosity and stretched around to try and see his own… mark… against his grey-blue coat. "What's mine, I can't make it out from here."
"Maybe if you stood up," Gwen said, trotting over.
"Do you know how hard it is to walk when you suddenly have two extra legs and one of them doesn't even work?"
"It's a syringe," Gwen reported. "That's a little morbid."
"What's morbid about it, it means medicine. I was half expecting a skull or something. Something that says 'dead horse walking!'"
"Pony."
"Whatever."
"Coffee," Ianto put in, disgusted. "Really, that's what I get stuck with? Coffee? I do do other things around here, you know."
"What's mine?" Gwen asked, turning in a circle in her attempt to find out.
"It's a heart," Owen said.
Gwen sat down, disappointed. "Is that all? That's rather generic, isn't it."
"It's a heart and a gun," Tosh said. "You didn't let him finish."
"Well that was never on any of my ponies back home," Gwen laughed. "What about you, Jack?"
"The world could be ending and all you four want is to look at my ass," Jack said, shaking his head in mock shame. He turned around obediently.
Gwen cocked her head. "Huh," she said.
"Bit anticlimactic," Ianto agreed. "I was half expecting it to be censored."
"Why, what is it?" Jack asked.
"Just the Torchwood logo," Owen said.
Jack's ears and tail drooped, much to their amusement. "I've been here too long," he said. "I used to be freelance, you know, came and went as I pleased. When did this place become more than just a job?"
"Cheer up Jack, you can always have tattoo removal surgery like the rest of the girls with regrettable tramp stamps," Owen said, struggling to his feet. "Were we gonna try and track down whatever's causing all this or what?"
"Right," Jack said. "Okay, if Tosh can't manage the computer like this, we'll have to track it the old fashioned way. Its last known whereabouts were up on the Plass - we'll go up and try and see if we can find it on foot. Hoof."
Ianto glanced up at the exit. "Does anyone know how to work a doorknob with hooves?"
Jack stopped in his tracks, frowning. He turned around and walked back around the fountain. "We'll take the invisible lift," he decided. "Come on, let's go."
"Can you work the lift with hooves?" Ianto asked, trotting to catch up with him.
"I still have this," Jack said, lifting his hoof that still had his wrist strap attached.
"Can you work that with - "
"Oh shut up, Ianto, I'll figure it out."
They all crowded onto the tile, barely managing to fit. Jack flipped open the wrist strap with his teeth and began trying to poke at the buttons with his nose.
Ianto glanced around the Hub, his ears perked. "Do you hear singing?"
Toshiko frowned, looking up. "The hot house," she deduced. "It looks like the flowers have started a choir."
"Lovely," Owen said sarcastically, lying down on his stomach again. "Just what this place was missing."
The lift started up with a jolt and Jack straightened up, feeling rather proud of himself.
As they started to rise into the air, they were startled by a screech, much louder than they were used to hearing. A great winged creature swooped down from the ceiling of the Hub, circling the rising lift with a familiar, if distorted, cry.
"Oh wonderful," Ianto said. "Myfanwy's become a dragon."
~~
Up on the surface, Cardiff seemed to be in a similar state. The five of them remained on the lift for a moment, staring in vague horror at the changes that had overtaken the city.
"It's so pink," Toshiko whispered.
"It's horrifying," Owen said.
Jack huffed, and, managing not to let his embarrassment show when it came out like a whinny, stepped over Owen down onto the pavement. "Come on, let's get going. The sooner we find this thing, the sooner we put everything back to normal."
"Well, maybe," Gwen said, hopping off after him. "We don't know that for sure."
"Do you have any other ideas?" he snapped at her. "Owen, stop lying around, we've got a job to do."
"I can't," Owen said, still lying on the lift. "Ianto's on my tail."
Ianto jolted out of his reverie at that, and danced in place for a moment, unsure of which limb needed lifting. Jack snorted at them and walked over to grab the tie Ianto was still wearing for some reason in his teeth, dragging him away from the fountain. Tosh hopped off behind him, and Owen struggled back to his feet in the rear.
"Sorry," Ianto said, "I was distracted."
"There is an awful lot to be distracted by," Tosh said, watching a bicycle ride past without a rider.
"It's the sun. It's wearing sunglasses."
Jack glanced up. "Well that's obviously impossible, so this must all be an illusion of some sort. Nothing's actually changed, we just perceive it that way."
The other four ponies glared at him.
"This does not feel like an illusion, Jack," Gwen said.
"I have four legs," Ianto added.
"And hooves!" Tosh said, stamping her front two in demonstration.
"A sufficiently advanced mind trick can have you believing anything," Jack said, stomping a hind leg angrily. "We can't necessarily trust our own senses in this."
"Well then what the hell are we supposed to believe, Jack?" Owen said. "How are we supposed to find this thing if we can't even believe our own eyes?"
"We'll have to make due," Jack said, stalking past them. "Even if our perception of reality's been altered, it all seems to relate back to the real world. The thing that caused all this is here, somewhere, we just have to find it."
The four of them stared after him. With a shared exasperated glance, they followed.
"Maybe it's both physical and mental," Toshiko mused.
"It's mental alright," Owen muttered, and he flinched as Gwen flicked her tail in his face.
"What do you mean?" she asked.
"Well Jack's right, the sun physically cannot be wearing sunglasses, they would have to be enormous and indestructible. But we can all feel the changes ourselves, so maybe it's both a physical change and an illusion, combined."
"Any way to test that theory?" Owen asked.
"No," Tosh said flatly. "Really everything could be in our minds. No real way to tell."
"Well if it actually is all a mass hallucination, that'll make our cover story easy. We use that excuse all the time," Ianto said, stepping over another singing flower. "Does anybody know where we're going?"
"We're supposedly after the source of all this."
"I know, but why are we going this way? Is there any reason Jack thinks this is the right way to go?"
Jack overheard, and he shrugged. "It's just a guess really. Feels right for some reason."
"Of course it does."
"Jack."
"I can't explain it any better, Tosh, I just think this is the right way to go."
"Jack," Toshiko repeated, trotting to catch up with him. "Your horn is glowing."
"What?" Jack said, ignoring the sounds of Owen and Gwen and Ianto all trying to stifle their sniggering.
"Well you are a magical sparkly unicorn," Gwen said. "Must be your special magic power to track aliens or something."
"There's no such thing as magic," Jack said crossly, definitively not looking at the woman riding by across the street on her broomstick.
Gwen ignored him, glancing back over her shoulder. "I wonder if I can fly," she said, flapping her wings experimentally.
"Those things are way too small," Owen said, "They wouldn't be able to generate enough lift for your body weight; they're too out of proportion. You'd have to beat them like a bumble bee does, and they're just not built for that kind of movement or speed."
Gwen just crouched down, wings spread. She jumped into the air and flapped madly, sending feathers cascading down onto all of them.
"Hah!" she said, panting as she flapped her wings to remain airborne. "We've already been transformed into brightly colored ponies, Owen, I think one more impossible thing isn't that hard to fathom."
"It's all bloody ridiculous," Owen said, sulking.
"Ridiculous or not, we have to find a way to stop it before it becomes dangerous."
"Dangerous?" Gwen asked, gliding down and hovering next to Jack's shoulder. "How could it be dangerous? Weird, yes, and a bit annoying, but it doesn't seem all that bad."
"Didn't you watch cartoons growing up?" Owen asked.
Ianto nodded. "Even the most benign of children's television tend to rely heavily on slapstick beyond the scope of human tolerance. Anvils and pianos falling from the sky, people falling off cliffs… Put into the real world, as seems to be the situation, people could become seriously hurt."
"Yeah, but we do have one advantage in all this," Jack said, smirking back at them.
"What's that?" Tosh asked.
He grinned and winked at her. "The good guys always win."
~~
"More ice cream, please!"
The clouds rumbled ominously in response, and as lightning struck nearby, chocolate ice cream rained from the sky. Elizabeth giggled and held her bowl up in the air; the dessert landed with a perfect plop!
Are you having fun, Elizabeth?
Elizabeth nodded happily, her lips smeared with chocolate. "Mm-hmm!" she said. "What about you, Sparkle?"
I am having lots of fun! What do you want to play next?
Elizabeth tapped her spoon against her lips. "I dunno. I can't really think of anything else. We've done everything!" Her bright smile dimmed a little as she looked around the street for inspiration. Her gaze caught on a couple of grown-ups, a cowboy and a fairy queen, riding their pumpkin carriage across the road as a little boy with wolf ears and a tail egged on the giant swans bearing them with little whoops of joy.
"We still haven't found my mummy and daddy," she said quietly. She put her bowl of ice cream down in her lap and stared sadly at it, resting in the folds of her raincoat. She tugged her tiara off and dropped it. "I don' really wanna play pretend any more, Sparkle."
But we were having so much fun, Sparkle said, sounding upset.
"Yeah, but I gotta find 'em," Elizabeth said. "Daddy always told me if I got lost I should stay where I am or ask a policeman for help."
A policeman?
"Yeah. Only I dunno where the police station is." Elizabeth looked around her. "I don't know where we are! Oh Sparkle, I think we're even more lost now!"
Sparkle flared up in alarm as her friend started crying. She sputtered about around her, unsure of what to do.
Oh don't cry, Elizabeth! It'll be ok, you'll see!
"B-but, Mummy and Daddy…"
We'll find them! We'll find them, I promise! We just have to keep looking.
"But Daddy said to stay in one place!"
But we've been all over half the city anyway! And we didn't find them. So they must be where we haven't looked yet! Sparkle said, proud of her logic. If we just keep moving, we're bound to find them!
Elizabeth sniffed. "Y-you think so?"
Sure! And even if we don't we're bound to find a policeman. I could make you a policeman if you want! What're they like?
"I don't think a pretend policeman will help," Elizabeth said, wiping her eyes. "But you're right, we should keep looking."
Sparkle gathered around the tiara and placed it back on Elizabeth's head. What should we play while we look?
"I dunno, Sparkle, I don't really wanna play any more."
But you have to keep your spirits up, Elizabeth! We should keep playing. Or you could tell me more stories about those shows and books and stuff! I like those.
Elizabeth sighed a little, starting to understand why Mummy got so annoyed when she asked for another bedtime story.
"All right, all right. Let's see…."
~~
"How much further, Jack?"
"I already told you, I don't know." Jack was becoming weary of answering his team's constant questioning. "I don't know how this works any more than you do."
"Do you think it's a trap?" Ianto mused, lagging behind a little.
"Well we are being guided straight towards it," Owen said, barely managing to keep pace with his broken hoof. "So yeah, I think it's pretty likely."
"Trap or not, we still have to find it," Jack said firmly.
"Oh, I know," Ianto said. "Just wondering about how easy this all is."
"Wandering around a cartoon infested city all day is easy?" asked Gwen.
"Well it is for you, you've barely used your legs since you realized those little feathery blobs actually did something."
"You're just jealous," she said, sticking her tongue out at Owen.
"If this all is based on children's television," Toshiko said to Ianto, ignoring them, "Then we have to have the whole thing wrapped up within the half hour."
"22 minutes without advertisements."
"Maybe up to an hour or two, if it's a feature-length special." Tosh watched as two geese wearing bonnets waddled by, giggling at the quintet of ponies behind their wings. "I wonder what the advantage of making everything a cartoon could be."
"Could be an accident," Jack mused. "Some terraforming device tuning into CBBC or something."
"Can that happen?"
"Well something's happened. We won't really know what until we find what we're looking for."
"We don't know what we are looking for, though."
"Shut up, Owen, I'm sure we'll know it when we see iiiiiiiit-!" Jack cut off with a yelp as his horn started glowing even brighter; his head swung around, and he found himself dragged off against his will.
"Jack!" Tosh and Ianto both shouted, galloping after him in alarm. Owen cursed and stumbled along behind them, and Gwen doubled over in a fit of laughter yet again.
"This is all so bloody hilarious!"
"Well I'm glad someone's enjoying herself," Jack snarled, trying to slow himself down. "What the hell is going on with this dumb thing?"
"Plot device?" suggested Ianto.
Gwen passed the others with a flutter of wings. She turned and flew backwards to talk to Jack as he dragged all four hooves against the pull of his horn. "But Jack, if your magical unicorn power is to track alien threats, and we're looking for the alien threat, why don't you just let it lead you?"
Jack glared at her for a moment.
"Fine," he said. He tossed his head, lowered his still glowing horn, and charged.
Gwen yelped as he bowled her over, tumbling to the ground and knocking into Ianto. "Sorry!"
"'S alright," he muttered. They both struggled to their feet, with some attempt to help from Tosh that more resembled nuzzling. Owen limped past them, making an odd 'snerk' sound as he stifled his laughter at their failure to detangle their limbs.
"Shouldn't we catch up with Captain Horny over there?"
Gwen shook her head to clear it as she finally managed to step away from Ianto. "Yeah, no shit, thanks for that."
Ianto was still having some trouble raising himself off the ground, as his front hooves kept getting caught in his tie. "Did anybody see where he went?"
They all glanced around; Jack had disappeared.
"Great," Owen said. "You've lost him."
"We've lost him?" said Ianto. "I don't see you giving us any ideas."
"No, the bright ideas seem to all be coming from little miss heart-on-my-arse over there. Why don't you run right into the trap, Jack? Don't mind us, we'll catch up, never mind that we don't have magical alien tracking powers."
Gwen stomped her hoof indignantly. "Well we weren't getting anywhere with him dragging his feet - hooves - like that! If you were so concerned why didn't you go after him?"
Owen scowled at her. "You expect me to run with this?" he drawled, holding up his bum hoof once again.
"Well it's not like it hurts, and you don't run out of breath like the rest of us!"
Owen bristled. He turned away sharply, lashing his short tail as he stalked away towards where he'd last seen Jack.
Gwen's ears flattened against her head in embarrassment, but she didn't apologize.
Tosh glanced back and forth between the two of them.
"Owen!" she called.
Owen didn't look back.
"Owen!" Toshiko galloped after him. "Owen, we're never going to catch up, he has too much of a head start."
"Oh I'm sure I'll get there eventually, after all, I don't get tired. Lucky lucky me."
"Owen, that's not what Gwen meant," Tosh said. "Come on, we should stick together."
"Obviously Jack doesn't think so. We might as well just drop it, let the hero save the day as always. I wonder if any of the pubs around here will serve a talking pony. Not that I can drink anyway."
"Oh knock it off, Owen," Ianto said, catching up with a short canter. Gwen clopped on behind him, her head still down. "This is no time for you to be sulking."
"I'm not sulking."
"Yeah you are," Gwen muttered. Tosh and Ianto both glared at her to shut up.
"Look, we're not going to get through this if we can't even work together," Ianto continued.
"Oh sure," Owen said, rolling his eyes. "Because we're obviously going to save the world with the power of love and friendship. Let's all hug and discover our inner power we never knew we had."
"Oh!" Toshiko said suddenly, stopping.
"Oh what?" Owen said, turning to stare at her in exasperation. "Did you discover your special magical power?"
"No," Tosh said, "But that reminded me. Gwen, can't you just fly up and try and find Jack from above?"
Gwen blinked her oversized eyes at her. "Oh, I guess I can, can't I?"
She disappeared into the sky with a flutter. Ianto shook off a blue feather that landed on his nose.
"Think she'll find him?" he asked.
"He's a grey-blue unicorn with a brightly glowing horn being dragged through the streets by an invisible force," Owen said. "How hard can it be to find that?"
They all stood in awkward silence. A reindeer with bells and lights on its antlers trotted by, raising its top hat and nodding politely to them. They stared at the sky, waiting for Gwen to reappear from the clouds.
It was a few minutes before she finally dropped down and landed clumsily just behind them, panting heavily.
"Did you see him?" Toshiko asked.
Gwen waved her off with a hoof, still breathing heavily and fanning herself with her wings.
"Hang on," she said, "Let me catch my breath for a moment, 's hard work, flying." She flinched suddenly and looked up at Owen. "I'm really sorry, Owen, I didn't mean to say that, earlier, I mean, I was just frustrated - "
"'S all right," Owen said. "All in the past. No use beating a dead horse, right?" He smirked at her.
Ianto snorted. "How long have you been waiting to say that?"
"Just thought of it while we were sitting here waiting. Why, did I steal your opening? How long have you been waiting to say it?"
"Quite a while now," Ianto said with a shrug. "Thought it was a little insensitive though."
"Did you find him though?" Tosh asked again.
Gwen shook her head. "Not exactly. Did get a view of some of those robots Rhys was calling me about, they really do look like Transformers. Anyway, I didn't see Jack, but I think I can tell where he was heading."
She nodded off to her right. "There's something big going on over that way - monsters, fantastic creatures, you name it. And what looks like a big tornado or something, all in the middle of it. Definitely looks important, could be our source."
"A magical tornado?" Ianto said skeptically.
Toshiko shrugged. "Best idea we've got. And we know Jack can't help running towards whatever looks most dangerous, so it's our best bet."
Gwen got back her feet with only a small clatter of hooves, and set off at a brisk trot towards the tornado, Toshiko, Ianto, and Owen following close behind.
~~
Oh no, Sparkle said. No no no no no no no.
"Sparkle!" Elizabeth sobbed. "Do something!"
Sparkle dimmed and flickered wildly about the girl's head. I I I I I I I, she said, I don't know what I I I.
The creature before them snarled, it's needle like teeth grown to enormous proportions, its rancid breath making Elizabeth cough and whimper.
Malfunction, Sparkle whispered. Malfunction!
"Mal what?" Elizabeth squeaked.
The creature snarled again. Elizabeth huddled in the corner. "Sparkle I don't like this game!" she cried. "Make it go away!"
I can't I I I I I am damaged I don't know
"Change it to something else! A talking duck, I want a talking duck!"
A duck fell unceremoniously from the sky. It shook its head. The monster's head swung around and stared at it.
"Holy shit!" said the duck, and floundered backwards before taking to the air and flying away.
The monster turned back to stare heavily at Elizabeth. She clenched her eyes shut. "Mummy, Daddy," she whimpered. "Sparkle I want my Mummy!"
Sparkle said nothing, still just sparking helplessly in the air.
The creature lunged.
~~
Part Two