Chasing Amy
Willow and Tara sat cross-legged in the middle of their dorm room, surrounded by a giant pentagram traced on the floor in salt. The smell of burning incense permeated the room, and dozens of lit candles provided the only illumination.
"Willow, are you *sure* you want to try this?" asked Tara, head bowed and her brow slightly furrowed. "Transmogrification spells are very d-dangerous! There isn't any room for error...if the herb mix is wrong, or if you m-mispronounce any of the words in the incantation, you could end up turning yourself into a ferret! Or a moose! Or a part moose, part ferret..."
"Sweetie, I'll be fine! We've researched and prepared this spell for weeks. We even did diagrams and flowcharts for the whole procedure, from start to finish. I'm ready! I know I can do it this time! No moose, I promise." Willow patted Tara on the cheek.
"I can't help but be nervous, Will. Experimenting with powerful magicks when you're not...um, advanced enough...can have profound consequences. J-just ask your friend, Amy." The blonde Wiccan gestured to the brown rat sitting in the wire cage between them.
"I will ask her - once we've completed the spell that turns her human again!" Willow tapped the wire cage. "Do you hear me, Amy? I promise, this won't be failure number 18. I AM going to get you back this time."
"Nineteen," corrected Tara.
Willow wrinkled her nose and frowned. "Oh, yeah. I always forget about The Amazing Mesmer Man."
"Even though it didn't work, it was a great idea. Maybe if he wasn't such a bad hypnotist, he really could have made Amy remember she was human so she could dispel her own magic!"
"God, he was so lame. Sure, he hypnotized her, but not to make her think she was a person. All Mesmer managed to do is make Amy's rat squeaks sound like chicken clucks for three weeks!" Willow sighed. "What a waste of fifty bucks!"
Willow shrugged her shoulders and put on her "resolve" face, ready to ignore her past failures and concentrate on the new plan. She took Tara's hand. "Do you trust me?"
Tara leaned forward and kissed her girlfriend. "I do trust you. We will help Amy...I just want you to understand how big a risk you're taking. Your goal is just, but you must respect the p-power of this spell and not take it lightly. This kind of magic is on a whole different level than floating roses."
Willow kissed Tara again and stroked the hair out of her face. "I'll be careful. So...are you ready?"
"Yes. Let's do it." The Wiccans resumed their positions in the pentagram.
Willow placed the small bowls filled with exotic herbs and powders into a pyramid shape, and recited a short prayer to the Goddess. With a small silver spoon, she carefully measured each ingredient, and crushed the mixed contents in a small stone mortar with a pestle.
Willow heated the mortar over a candle, and the powder inside started to smoke, releasing a spicy aroma. She inhaled some of the smoke, raised the contents high in the air, and sprinkled it carefully over the rat cage. Amy squealed as she was coated with the strange substance.
Tara took a vial of red, watery paste Willow had prepared earlier and spilled three drops on the rat. She applied some of the paste to her fingertips, and gently rubbed it on Willow's face in a complex, striped pattern. When Tara was finished, Willow took both of her hands and began the chant.
"Regnol on tar a eb lliw nosidam yma, etelpmoc si lleps eht nehw!"
While Willow recited the incantation, the whites of her eyes went completely black, and Amy the rat shimmered with a red, glowing aura. As soon as the final word of the spell was spoken, the wire cage exploded as the rodent suddenly transformed into a lovely young woman.
Willow and Tara, knocked back several feet by the mystical forces that manifested during Amy's metamorphosis, gaped at Amy in disbelief. For several moments, all three women sat in stunned silence.
"I...I'm...I'm back!" Amy ran her hands all over her body, shocked and incredulous at her return to normalcy. "Ohmigod! I can talk! I'm really BACK!" she cried joyously.
Amy ran to Willow and hugged her tightly. "Thankyouthankyouthankyouthankyou! Oh, Willow, thank you so much!" She then grabbed Tara in an equally enthusiastic embrace. "Thank you, too, person whose name I don't know! Oh, I just love you guys!!!"
The two Wiccans smiled and watched in amused silence as the excited former rat jumped around the room, chattering a mile a minute. "This is so wonderful! Do you have any IDEA how much it sucked being a rat? I can't believe I'm *me* again! No more stupid Habitrail, no more food pellets, no more hamster wheel! I'm finally free! I'm FREE!"
Amy flung open the dorm room door and raced outside, yelling happily at the top of her lungs. "WHOO HOO!!!! FREEDOM! DO YOU HEAR ME, WORLD? I'M NOT A RAT ANYMORE! I'M NOT A RAT!!! YIPPEE!!!" Confused co-eds peeked out from their rooms as the young woman passed by in the hallway.
"Did you see that?" Willow hugged Tara excitedly. "Oh, honey, we did it! It worked! Oh, I am so psyched! Just think what we can accomplish if we get really good at this spell! Whoa, we could so totally help Buffy by turning demons into rats, and moose, and ferrets..."
"Sweetie, I'm really proud of you," Tara interrupted. "B-but aren't you losing sight of something important?"
Remembering Tara's concern about her deepening involvement with magic, Willow took a step back. "You're right. I was really lucky it worked. Magic is serious business. I need to be very wary of casting high level spells, because abusing their power can have dire and unforeseen consequences."
"Well, no, actually I was thinking more along the lines of your friend is running naked through our dormitory screaming "I'm not a rat" at the top of her lungs, and I think I just saw the flashing blue lights of the campus security van pull up outside..."
Willow's eyes widened. "Oh."
Pause.
The Wiccans grabbed Tara's fluffy yellow bathrobe and ran down the hallway in the direction Amy had headed.
"Amy, wait up! Hey, come back here! AMY!!!"
The End
P.S. My apologies to Kevin Smith for swiping the name of his movie for my story.
P.P.S I'd also like to apologize to any true Wiccans who object to my Zatanna-fication of Willow's ritual. It obviously was not very authentic, and I promise to do more extensive magical research for my next story.
P.P.P.S. Apologies also go out to anyone associated with PETA who object to my line that being a rat sucks. Rats are God's creatures, too, and deserve our love, respect, and admiration, and no defamation of rodent kind was intended.
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