Kenya yawned as she woke up, awakened by the sound of metal banging. Still tired, she got up from her bed, still wearing only her undergarment, so that her body can breathe and allows it to recover. Her mother had been putting antibiotic cream on her scars from time to time, as well as using that strange veil technique, and it actually seems to be working. She headed outward from her room and noticed that the house has been sun-proofed, probably thanked to her mother. She headed toward the noise, feeling a bit bolder compared to what she had felt yesterday, and found out what was making that nose.
Her mother was in the kitchen, apparently cooking breakfast in her original form. Kenya can still see the sadness in her eyes, but it doesn't show as much as it had been. She figured her mother's mind was too much focused on cooking to truly let it bother her, or perhaps maybe that she was doing it to distracted herself from her inner pain. Not wanting to bring up any bad memory for her mother, she simply and politely asked, "Mom, what are you cooking?"
Mrs. Crawford turned her head in surprise, but she did figure that the time was getting closer for her daughter to wake up. She smiled and replied, "Eggs, sausages, and grits." Looking that the meals for a moment and sighing with a weak laugh, she added, "Sorry if it might not taste the same as I would normally made it, being a living shadow also mean that my sense of smell and taste get thrown out of the window."
Kenya couldn't help but laughed slightly, seeing her mother making a slight silly gesture at the end of her explanation. "That's okay, Mom! I'm pretty sure it will still be good!"
Mrs. Crawford smiled as she put out the plates and appropriated silver wares. She got a puzzled glance from her daughter, but it wasn't hard to figure why. "Heh, I might not be able to taste anything, but it doesn't mean that I can't eat anything as well. True, I can't enjoy foods and drinks like I used to, but I don't mind. Now, make sure to eat everything up, I want that thin belly to get nice and plump again...well, within reason."
She heard another laugh from her daughter and it filled her with so much happiness, grad that she was finally happy enough again to laugh. But, as much as she wanted her to stay happy, she knew what she was going to say next would halt it, and yet it was very important. "Pumpkin, after you get done eating, I would like you to lie down and rest while I'm head to work. You can lie down on the couch if you want, so that you can watch TV or play some movies."
Kenya stopped digging into her meal and glanced at her mother with a stare of depressed confusion. "M-mom, you are not s-staying h-here with m-me?"
Mrs. Crawford smiled sincerely and replied, "As much as I would really love to, Pumpkin, I made several promises that I would be at the school today, and I have to keep them. But, don't worry, I'll leave one of my Shadow Puppet to keep you company and protect you." She closed her eyes for a moment and a dark shadow crawled from her feet. The shadow began to reformed beside her and take shape, until a shadow version of her original human form finally was standing beside her. This took Kenya by surprise and an old fear began to resurfaced, but nothing on the same scale as yesterday.
Sensing it, her mother put her left hand on her shadow clone's side and kindly noted, "Pumpkin, you don't have anything to worry. This Shadow Puppet has all of my personality and abilities, so it would feel as if I have never left the house at all. My shadow abilities might be unusually and a bit scary, but you got to admit that they are very useful. And, don't worry; she will take good care of you and even play with you if you want, like I would."
Kenya calmed down and even lightening up, then stared at the clone. She must admit, she could actually see the benefit of having her mother's abilities, and the clones didn't really seems evil or even creepy, it was smiling at her with motherly love like her real mother would. She decided to go back to eating, and her mother decided to dig in her own meal as well, looking up at Kenya from time to time and smiled.
At Toby and Terri's Resident
The sun was up now, Toby already just left to go to work and Terri was cleaning the dishes. Neither of them noticed that the two kids have woken up early and left their room. They was waiting at the front door, both of them was still nervous about doing this, having second-thoughts about doing what they had plan. Even Charlie, who had originally started this whole planning, didn't feel comfortable.
Anna saw Charlie's reluctance to follow through with his plan, but she couldn't blame him at all and kept any sly remark to herself. Ever since their parents got suck into that strange hole in the sky, Charlie's viewpoint about the sun changed greatly and developed a hatred for it. However, he also felt that this was something they need to do, in order to help their parents if they get into trouble again. Anna understood how he felt and knew he was right, as odd that sound to her. She gave a quiet chuckled at that note, before putting her right hand on her little brother's shoulder.
"Are you sure that you want to do this? I mean, who know what we will turn into?"
"I really want to say no, but we got to do it. Beside, the sun will eventually get us anyway, so might as well get it over with. I am tired of this whole things, and I missed being with Mom and Dad, we don't get to spend as much time with each other as we used to."
Anna stared downward, feeling a bit depressed herself. He made another fine point about the stupid sun and what it did to their family. They didn't get to see their parents as often as they used to, either one sided would be asleep while the other would be awake, or their 'Dad' would be working while their 'Mom' become busy with house chores. She mentally feel overwhelmed at the fact that their parents had changed gender, but she wanted to keep calling them the same thing, mostly out of familiarity.
Not only that, but there was something odd going on with their parents, something only Anna managed to catch. Anna was about old enough to know a few things about romance (not to the finest detail, but enough), but she knew that it went beyond that. She noticed something was off when they returned from school, and while Charlie wasn't old enough to notice it as easily as she did, he did felt a hint of it. Their parents were acting, if subtly, a bit different than normal, but it was hard to tell the differences since Anna and Charlie barely see their parent as much as they used to.
Anna, at first, just chalked up these small changes to their change in gender, shape, and/or maybe even age (not entirely sure if they did get younger or if they just look younger). But, a feeling in the back of her head dismissed it, because none of those could really changed someone like this. Then, another possibility came up, this time something far worse: what if their transformation wasn't done yet? They were physically anime characters now, but what if they mentally become the anime characters they transformed into. True, the characters they became wasn't from any anime series or anything like that, but would the sun truly stopped at the physical changes because of that, or would it actually change their parents into complete strangers regardless?
"Maybe we should tell Mom and Dad about our plan," Anna finally said, trying to moved on and stopped thinking about the strangeness with their parents' behavior.
"We can't! If we tell them, they would just stop us from doing it."
"Come on, Charlie, I am sure if we explain to them why, they would let us. I am pretty sure they had missed us as much as we miss them, and probably secretly wanted us to enter into the sun so that they can be with us."
Charlie raised his right eyebrow at her and teasingly noted, "And, here I thought that you was against going into the sun in the first place. But, it sound like you might actually want this more than I do!"
She just crossed her arms and glanced away, upsettingly making an hmph sound, though there was a hint of blushing in her cheek. Charlie let out a quiet chuckle before he continued onward.
"They may let us go into the sun, but I am not sure if I would like them watching. And, we might change into anime character as well if they were around. I want to make sure we become something different, so if that hole in the sky appears again, we won't be suck in with them."
"Okay...but, maybe we should wait after we get something to eat. I don't know about doing this on an empty stomach."
He paused and sighed, noticing that his stomach was growling as if it was agreeing with her. "Sure, I guess we can wait."
Back to Mrs. Crawford, a Few Minutes Later
Feeling like walking in her original form, a form she seems to favor more now that there was no more evil in her heart, she headed off toward the school. She remembered her evil persona hate this form, how it was so plain compared to her shadow form, but now this form was more comfortable than the other form. And, her original form didn't bring back the horrible memories of her evil actions to boot.
As she was walking, Mrs. Crawford noticed something was flying above her and realized it was Sarah. She knew about her from her time with Biff, and even though she was a harpy now, it wasn't hard to tell that she was Sarah. Then, she noticed that she was naked and remembered something about that problem, but she had never got the chance to voice her own opinion on the matter.
"SARAH, SWEETHEART, CAN YOU HEAR ME?! WOULD IT BE A PROBLEM IF I COULD HAVE A WORD WITH YOU?!"
Sarah, trying to stay focus on flying, noticed someone calling her from the ground. Confused to who would be calling her, she glanced downward and saw a familiar face. She remembered this woman before the incident happen, and found it odd that she wasn't changed by the sun. She carefully maneuvered her wings so that she softly guided downward on the ground, her landing was better than her previous ones.
"Hello, Mrs. Crawford," Sarah started out politely, "What do you want me for?" While Sarah preferred to be alone right now, she didn't mind Mrs. Crawford's company, especially since she had been so sweet to her in the past.
"Well, Sweetheart, I would like to talk with you on how you handling yourself since this whole sun thing, but I want to talk to you about your 'clothing habit' first. I'm sorry if I might have brought up a sensible topic, but it is something that I need to talk to you about."
Sarah's mood dropped a bit, but Mrs. Crawford's sincere tone was enough to stop her from being angry and brushed the question off. "Why should I wear anymore clothing, I am not even human any more?!"
Pausing for a moment as they continued to walk, Mrs. Crawford replied in a monotone voice, trying to hide her sadness, "It isn't really a matter of being human; it is more about being who you are. You could easily lose who you are by letting yourself drown in your new instincts. If you don't be careful, you may end up either a mindless beast...or a heartless monster...!"
Sarah, feeling her anger rise at Mrs. Crawford's remarked, turn her head and was about to let loosed on her with a barraged of rage, when she suddenly noticed that something was off. She looked closer at Mrs. Crawford, who was just staring at her own hands, and realized the statement might actually been more focus on her and not Sarah. She could see that Mrs. Crawford was doing everything in her power to hold back her tears, even though her sad expression could easily spoke volume that something bad had happen to her.
"M-mrs. Crawford, are you o-okay," Sarah asked in concern, all her anger disappeared like a puff of smoke. She knew that this was not like the angelic woman she met before, she never acted like this before.
Mrs. Crawford didn't responded back at first; she just clinched her eyes and mouth, and just hung her head in shame. Finally, she finally decided to answered her question, "I-I lost m-myself for a while and became a v-vile s-s-sadistic monster, and almost did something I would have regretted for the rest of my life."
"W-what do you mean," Sarah questioned, out of curiosity and confusion.
Instead of directly answer her question; she decided to shift into her Shadoe Fae form. Sarah watched in horror as the sweet woman she knew transformed into a shadow creature, with a figured that would rival a nymph or a succubus, maybe even barely surpassing Tiffany's own figure. Her eyes were filled with so much sadness, but she tried her best to answer the question without losing her grip on her emotion.
"It is kinda complicated and I don't really want anyone to know about it. I'm planning on telling the Principal about this, since he deserved to know the whole story, but I don't want anyone to be afraid of me, especially now that my evil side is gone now. I'll explain the whole situation with you later onward in private if you really want to know."
"T-that fine, Mrs. Crawford," Sarah simply said, not sure how to handled this new development. Seeing this woman about to cry, she putted her right wing on Mrs. Crawford's back to comfort her and moved the conversation to other topics. It seemed to work as the two of them begin to talk with a happier tone, Mrs. Crawford shifted back to her original form.
