Potential

<snipt>
Gerbil screamed as the burning, greasy missiles peppered him, the cables, and the wall. The crowd roared with laughter and encouragement - - for Sandy Claws! The maniacal mechanoid "ho ho ho'd" again and began another spray of fiery hot dough over the hapless hologram, who hung on despite the burning blobs and sticky, greasy mess.
"Do something! He's actually hitting me, a hologram! And it bloody-well hurts like smeg!"
Jack giggled inanely at the chaos when suddenly the Santa let out a large foul-smelling fart and several lumps of flaming coal began to rain down on the partiers.
</snip>
The crowd began to panic.

“Whoa” Cass yelped in alarm, desperately trying to keep her delicate wings from being buffeted by the surging mass of partygoers around them “What the fuck?”

“Ho, ho” Sandy Claws boomed again and, taking aim, it peppered the now screeching Gerbil's arse with more hot cookie dough “Ho, ho, h-Ooh”

Wobbling slightly on it's feet, the gun-toting mechanoid burped and rubbed its belly, a look of concern wrinkling it's plastic face.

“Oh, good gracious” Jack trilled with excitement “He's going to blow”

“Ho?” Sandy Claws took a wobbly step forward on the platform above them.

“Down” Jay yelled. Diving forward, he dragged Cass and others to the floor as the mechanoid fell to its knees and a great gout of flame billowed from it's arse.

The flames arced overhead and licked off the back wall, scorching the paintwork and setting fire to several unlucky mechanoids, who flailed around madly, dripping melting plastic all over the floor.

"That's an appalling health and safety risk" Joribel helpfully yelled down from above

"No shit?" Jay snarled as he clambered back to his feet.

Straightening, he offered a hand to Cass while the panicking crowd surged and parted around them to reveal one of the burning mechanoids, scant metres from their position. Wreathed in flame and emitting a weird, high pitched keening sound, the thing lurched towards them, it's melting arms outstretched.

“Nope” Jamie grunted and hefting the club, or more accurately, the huge lump of tree he was carrying, he smashed it down through the burning mechanoid, concertinaing it into the ground in an eruption of component parts and flames.

Still crouched down on the floor, Cass screeched an expletive and instinctively raised her arms to shield herself from the hail of scorched mechanoid. The wand, still held in her hand, sending forth a shower of silver sparkles as she did so, which quickly coalesced into a shimmering sphere around her, harmlessly deflected the burning debris.

“What the...” her eyes widening in surprise, she slowly clambered to her feet, the shield flickering around her and fading from existence.

“Uh, Cass…?” Jade began

“Yeah?” Cass turned to look up at her “Whoa, what!?”

Normally standing at just a shade under Jay's height, Cass usually towered above her diminutive friend, but at that moment, the situation was very much reversed.

“You can't be more than thirty centimetres tall”

“What the fuck?” Cass spat, her voice high and shrill “How?”

“Guys?” Jamie rumbled, lisping slightly around the tusks protruding from his mouth. He held up an arm which was visibly thickening and becoming more and more troll-like with each passing second “What's happening?”

“Yes” Jack leered behind him “There's your key – The door will only let you through once the transformation's complete. Quickly now: Take down Sandy Claws and realise your true potentials!”

“Screw this” Cass buzzed her wings angrily and surprised herself by darting up into the air and inexpertly careening around Jade before colliding with Bruno behind her “Fuck”

Sandy Claws, in the meantime, had recovered sufficiently enough to rise from the floor, it's trousers hanging from it in scorched tatters, and was now taking aim at Joribel, who was desperately trying to scramble up the rope he was hanging from.

“Help me!” he gibbered “That cookie dough stings like hell!”


<tag>
A last post for the year after a long and boozy Christmas
Let's take down Sandy Claws, complete our transformations and get through that door.
We still haven't heard what Jay and Bruno changed into, so if there's an entertaining transformation that you can think of that'll hinder or help us, then go for it – it's all (hopefully) reversible in any case.

Oh – and happy new year everyone :)
</tag>