GENIE'D! Interlude 3

Sorry for the continued delay. Minor family emergency happened, everything is fine it just demanded attention. And then a transformer in town blew and knocked out power so that was an interesting new experience.

As always, additional story details are included in the comic transcript! There's a significant amount in this one just to set up some future stuff.

TEXT

Panel 1

*While all this is happening with Zara, Faye and the unfortunate victims of Zara's granted wishes, a beautiful, mature older woman receives a phone call in her mansion. Her face, while older, is strikingly familiar. It is a much older Dave, having lived through the past 25 years as a woman. She moves with a practiced feminine grace as she answers the phone's video call, expecting to see her son, but instead a unfamiliar young woman in a green jogging suit. She's surprised for just a moment, but a practiced calm takes over as she listens to the younger woman's panicked rambling*

Jogger: "Mom, I'm telling you it's me! I got turned into a girl!"

*Dave? stares at the woman's features. It is a unfamiliar face, but not totally alien. She can see the remnants of her son's face within the girl's features and something, perhaps motherly intuition and perhaps experience in seeing her own former male features in her own face convince her that this stranger is indeed her son, Eric*

"Eric, please calm down. I believe y-"

Jogger/Eric: "I swear there was a genie and everything! Wait, what now!?"

*A bright green flash fills the screen, and suddenly Eric's female body is put on display as her jogging clothes vanish from her body*

Jogger/Eric: "WAH! My clothes! Come back clothes!"

*A distant giggle is heard*

Panel 2

*Dave? takes a breath, feeling her still massive chest rise and fall within her silk robe. As familiar as they've become over the last quart century, sometimes their weight and motion still feel just as alien as the day she first acquired them. Twenty-five years ago today. A lifetime ago, one that was so hard and grueling and filled with it's own kind of struggles and experiences that her former life sometimes feels as if it happened to someone else*

Dave?: "Eric...Erica, honey, just come home. Mom will fix...everything"

*Erica's flustered, teary-eyed face looks just as equally confused by how...unconcerned her mother is about all of this. And what did she mean by 'Erica'?*

Erica: "Erica? WAIT MOM DON'T HANG U-"

Panel 3

*Dave? ends the phone call and turns her phone off. She sets the phone down and turns from the balcony back to the darkened bedroom. In the corner, catching the last rays of the setting sun, is a large, blood red crystal. It stands on it's edge without any support, defying physics, and as a glint of sunlight catches it, the interior almost looks as if it is on fire. She reaches out and touches the crystal with a slender finger, feeling a tingle of energy*

Dave?: "Looks like it's finally time. Are you ready?"

*The crystal pulses, and for a brief moment it almost appears as if two glowing eyes peer out from the interior. And then it's gone*

Dave?: "Good. Let's get going"