It was a chilly fall day – just how Zeelo liked it.
Today was a wonderful day for a walk, it turned out! Beautiful blue sunny skies, the first hints of trees turning their fall colors, temperatures in the mid-50s – really, he’d been waiting all year for this sort of weather. Why not take advantage of his day off, see the sights?
So, here he was, walking downtown – peering into Halloween displays, shops already starting to decorate here and there for the two biggest upcoming holidays of the season. Not quite Christmas music, not yet, but he did spot a few reindeer decorations waiting in the wings for November 1st. Came earlier every year, it seemed.
Maybe that’s why Zeelo wasn’t surprised when, out of the blue, a stack of papers on a nearby sidewalk cart were caught by the wind, scattering them across the street. The snow leopard barely had a moment to react before one of the papers smacked into his face, blinding him for a moment in gaudy orange and black print – but, as he tugged it away, the text became easier to read.
Monster Mash! Halloween Party and Parade, it read in little golden letters. Bring your friends, have a ball!
“…Huh!” Zeelo chuckled, turning the little paper over to see where exactly this party might be. It… didn’t seem to have an address. Or a phone number?
Seemed like a little bit of an oversight on their part.
Shrugging, the snow leopard balled up the flyer and went to toss it into a nearby trash can – when, suddenly, his arm holding the wadded up invitation went numb as if it had fallen asleep.
Glancing over at it, Zeelo started in surprise as his arm exploded outwards, knocking the stall full of papers to the sidewalk as it began to grow, and grow, and grow!
His fingers, soft, fluffy, began to swell and extend into enormous golden plastic claws before his very eyes, snow leopard fur giving way to gray and black patterned vinyl – even as people on the sidewalk stopped to stare at the swelling snow leopard, his tummy starting to swell to match! Up, and up, and up it swelled – tearing right through his shirt and badly stretching his shorts, dropping both to the pavement and drawing attention from the confused bystanders currently taking a few steps back.
“H-Hey! Stop that!” Zeelo called in alarm, his remaining unchanged paw pressing down to try and halt the inflation, but all it really managed to do was ineffectually squeak against the plastic that was replacing his midsection, and force air out of his tummy into his–
PFFFSSSHHWOOMP! The sound was so loud he wasn’t even quite sure where it came from, until the feeling of his center of balance changing drew his gaze backwards in worry.
Zeelo’s tail exploded outwards with such force and size that a nearby car was knocked over, his lower half beginning to double, triple, quadruple in size and pressure with each passing moment! Gone was the soft lower half of a snow leopard, in was a pooltoy monster, a valve squeezing out of his tummy the size of a manhole cover!
It seemed to pause for just a moment – before with a deep hiss like a great gust of wind, he began to grow larger all over, all at once. It was as if Zeelo was being scaled up, big tail and increasingly round midsection brushing against the nearby buildings as he passed two stories, three stories, four stories tall…!
Shouts of alarm and surprise came up from below as Zeelo began to tower into the sky, black and white alternating stripes and golden spikes spreading down his spreading, swelling, creaking tail – and, gently, he tried to move out of the way as his footpaws exploded outwards into huge toy kaiju claws, but… carefully, as if hitting it with a pillow, he knocked a bus over.
“S-Sorry!” He called, his voice deep, toyishly monstery. It was hard to even form words – as if his snout didn’t quite feel like moving the same way?
His chest changed next – hollowing out as his proportions began to shift upwards in size and downwards in realism, softening and spreading out as the hiss of inflation filled his ears and arms – fur gave way to soft vinyl, a few tiny warning labels dotted here and there as golden rounded spikes and white striped gray vinyl replaced the soft grays and rosettes of a snow leopard.
His ears, twisting, tugging, inflating outwards, became an enormous pair of horns even as his snout began to tug itself into a big, toony menacing grin – cheek fluff hardening and reshaping into yet more spikes. His height passed six stories as he waddled backwards, pressing against a building with enough weight from his sheer volume of air that he heard the bricks strain – until, finally, the toy finished his changes, peering over the skyline in only the way an inflatable kaiju can.
“RAWR?” Zeelo asked, helpfully.
All that answered was a car alarm.
Carefully, he took a step forward – and something soft flailed against the stretched vinyl of the bottom of his enormous paw. Oops.