Chapter Text
John was eating lunch alone when he heard his doorbell ring. It was May 13th, a whole month after his birthday. He put down his food and walked to the door, still in his PJs. He quickly thought of changing before opening the door. Obviously he doesn't care if the mailman (which is probably a lone salamander in a cute outfit) sees him in his Slimer patterned pajamas. But there was no one there.
"What?" He looks around outside. No mailmen or anything. Just a rectangular box at his feet. John is dazzled by this but he picks up the box anyway. He hasn't ordered anything, but Dirk has been late with John's birthday present so this must be it. John notices though that the box is not labelled at all. Then what could it be? A gift from one of his neighbors?
He closes the door and takes it inside. He grabs a scissors and hassles the box open. Inside was a board game. It wasn't even in one of those boxes with pictures of kids playing the game on it or something. There was a bland looking board with a deck of cards kept together with 2 rubber bands, a die, and a piece of paper with rules and instructions on it. The board had a road consisting of 30 squares, a start space, and a stop space. In the middle was the name for this game: TRANSFORMATIONSTUCK. John gets an idea.
***
"Wait, so run that by me again." Dave says to John through his phone.
"I want you to come over so we can play a board game." John says back.
"You know I can catch onto your tricks from a mile away, right? Seriously Egbert, you're not even trying to hide it. What's gonna happen when I arrive? Will i be pied again?"
"No no no! I'd only ever pie you on special occasions. You just have to trust me."
"Really? What's the game called?" Dave asks.
John re-read the title. "Transformationstuck"
"Ok now I know you're planning to prank me. There's no game called Transformationstuck."
"I'm serious! I'll send you a picture!"
"Okay. It better not be photoshopped." Dave then hung up.
John quickly snapped a picture of the board and texted it to dave. He then got a call from Dave.
"Dang, I can't argue with that then. I'll be over in a bit. I really don't have anything else to do, y'know."
"Yeah. Thanks Dave." The phone call was then terminated again.
Dave didn't actually believe John. He had to give credit to him though. This fake board game he made did look pretty convincing. It even looked all beaten and aged from years of use. He was aware of John's tricks, so he planned to sneak in through a window or something. John always had them opened up all the way because "wind and shit" as Karkat once hypothesized.
What Dave was unaware of was the fact that there was no ill intent in John's proposal. What he also didn't know is that John invited both Jade and Rose for this little game.
***
Dave got there quickly and found a window to crawl in through. He entered the kitchen where he was surprised to find John, Jade, and Rose sitting by a coffee table, about to play the game. John looks over to Dave.
"Did you crawl through my window again?"
"No."
"...Well then join in. I'm gonna explain how this game works." John says, putting his attention back to the board.
Dave just awkwardly sits in a chair. Jade and Rose smile at him. It's been a month since they last met up.
"Okay so this game works pretty much how you would expect. Everyone roles the die and moves their piece and then take a card. I shuffled it already so we don't have to worry about that. Every red space which occurs every 5 spaces means everyone draws a card. You have to roll the perfect number if you get close to the end space so if your 2 spaces away, then you have to roll a 1 or a 2. Got it?" John says.
Everyone else says "Yes."
"Y'know. It'd pretty funny how we got pieces that match our pesterchum colors. Heh" John reveals the pieces which were blue, green, red, and purple. He puts them on the starting space and said "Even though I'm the host, I'll roll first." He tosses the die to only get a 1. Jade giggles a bit as John moves his die with a disappointed look on his face. He picks up a card and narrates what it said. "To start the game, you shall become taller and lighter. Although I cannot say, that your clothes won't get tighter...What?" John looked up from his card to his friends who were also confused. Suddenly John felt his clothes tighten around him. He had since changed into his Slimer t-shirt along with khakis. Usually they fit comfortably, but now that he had started to grow, he could feel his clothes become undersized. "Um! What the fuck is happening!?"
"The game appears to be magic." Rose says.
"What the fuck!" Dave yells.
The transformation was over quickly and John noted that he grew around 2 ft. He now towered over his friends who stared at him in confusion. "Uhhhhhhh."
"Is this thing cursed or something?" Dave asks.
"Welp. It does appear to be so. Unless someone is tricking us." Rose gets up to look out the windows but no one was there.
"I'm...going to change into something else." John got up and awkwardly walked across the room in his insanely tight clothes. But he seemingly walks into an invisible wall that prevented him from going upstairs. "What the hell!?" He prodded at the invisible wall. It looks like they'll be stuck in this room for a while. "Are you kidding me!?"
"No way. You better not be doing any mime acts on me Egbert." Dave got up to test the wall only to see that it is actually there. "What?"
"Okay this is starting to freak me out!" Jade says. She's been silent in her chair this whole time.
"This is definitely the work of the game. Or at least that's what I'm thinking." Rose says.
Dave kicked the wall. "Goddammit. Are we seriously stuck here because of this game." Dave stubbornly walks back to his chair and sits down.
"Aw common. I really want to change out of this." John says.
Jade grabs the instructions. "Are you sure you read all of this?"
John looks at the piece of paper over Jades shoulder. "I swear I did!" Suddenly, an extra piece of text fades in on the paper. "You are not allowed to leave the room the game is being played in until it is finished. Once it is, all transformations will be undone and you will be allowed to leave." John read out.
Dave facepalms. "So great. We're stuck because John can't read."
"Hey! Be nice! He just made a mistake." Jade said.
"Just calm down. All we need to do is just finish the game and hope nothing gets damaged." Rose says.
John uncomfortably sits down. "Rose has a point."
"So who's going next then." Dave asks. He very rarely shows emotions but everyone could tell he was annoyed.
"Um. I think you do." John says.
"Oh. Then I'll go." Dave takes the die and rolls it.