The Big Day

If ever there were a day where everything needed to go off without a hitch, today was that day. Applied Bioscience Technologies Labs South Africa Division was receiving a very important shipment today from a sister company in Europe. No one told the scientists there what they would be receiving. All they knew was that the shipment was top secret, and could be the beginning of a bright future for their company, and a big change for the rest of the world if they were lucky. All hands were called in for testing on this day; everyone needed to be present and accounted for, ready to give 110%. The air felt tense around the laboratory all day, as they waited hour by hour for the fated package to arrive by airplane.

But that airplane was fated never to arrive. Instead, it crashed some hundreds of miles off course, in the deep, dense jungles of Africa. It was in this part of the world that a single meerkat would get into some extra large shenanigans.

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Timon wound through the foliage as fast as he could manage. On the ground in front of him scurried a small bug, a blue-backed beetle. The meerkat couldn't help himself as he began to space out slightly, losing focus and going into his thoughts. This beetle had been avoiding the his grasps and dives for going on an hour now, and Timon felt like giving up soon. No meal was worth this much work, especially if there were some other, easier way to get the same meal elsewhere. It was just a single bug after all! Why waste this much effort? When he had woken up this morning, he felt that today was going to be a big day for his bug catching. But so far this was the only one he had found, and even this one was proving hard to catch. Maybe Pumbaa was having better luck at finding some food...

Still not paying attention, Timon didn't notice the crate in front of him until it was too late. He smashed face first into it, shaking the box wildly from the impact. Dizzy from the crash, he wobbled backward and shook his head, trying to get his bearings. Unfortunately for him, the crate wasn't able to handle such force, and all four sides of the box fell off and outward. The wooden siding flopped on the disoriented meerkat with enough power to flatten him against the ground.

"Heeey, what's the big idea?" Timon grumbled, pulling himself out from under the wood. He half expected it to be someone trying to steal the bug, but what he got instead was something entirely different. As he turned and stood, a large contraption loomed over him. It was about five feet tall and looked like an arcade cabinet, with some sort of laser attached to the top of it. A glowing, green console displayed all sorts of information to the world, and a multitude of buttons and levers and dials could be found all over the machine's surface.

But Timon didn't care about any of that right now. All he knew was that this machine had hurt him... and that was irritating.

He approached the machine, motioning on his arms as though to roll up some non-existent sleeves. With a mighty windup, the meerkat kicked at the machine, but didn't manage to do any damage except for the pain in his paw. As he yelped in pain and hopped around on one foot, he didn't paying attention to the hum of the machine coming to life. Electricity arced around the tip of the laser, and a long stream of numbers and figures scrolled across the machine's screen. The humming slowly got higher and higher in pitch as the machine warmed up to do whatever it was built for.

Suddenly, a familiar blue beetle scurried across Timon's paw. "Oh no you don't, get back here," Timon said, immediately giving chase. Unfortunately for them both, the beetle ran directly in front of the machine. With a bright, red flash of light, the laser discharged and hit the bug and meerkat.

But Timon barely noticed; he was still angry about the box problem and wanted to take it out on this stupid bug! Slowly, the prey and the predator were shrinking. Timon wasn't even that tall in the first place, just slightly over one foot tall. That was rapidly getting to be tall in comparison though.  At half his height, it should've been totally obvious how small he was getting, but the beetle was shrinking at the same rate, and the meerkat's anger blinded him to his changing surroundings. Staring down at the bug as he ran, he couldn't see the stones in the ground as they expanded, or the grass and shrubs as they began to come up higher and higher on his torso. But still, he continued his pursuit of that evil beetle. The shrinking progressed, six inches became four inches... then two... then one... until it finally slowed down and came to a stop at a half an inch tall. By now, all the grass around him could've posed for a forest. Pebbles had become boulders and shrubs that reached to his lower torso before were like massive trees stretching up into the sky.

"Come back here, I'm not finished with you yet!" Timon yelled to his prey. Winding around pebbles and plant life, he was just about to grab the tasty morsel. He made a heroic leap forward, paws outstretched and reaching for his prize. But it was not meant to be. Instead of a beetle, Timon ran face first into a long, furred pole of some kind. For the second time that day, he felt his face get smashed against an immovable object, as he ungracefully flopped on the ground.

Rubbing the top of his head, Timon stood up and brushed the dirt out of his fur. "Ya know, that's getting really old, really fast. Now what's going on this time?" he said, grimacing in pain as he looked toward whatever was in his path. It looked like a reddish brown, thick tree. But it wasn't like any tree he had ever seen before. The shape was all wrong, the base of the tree was smooth and wide, and the trunk was covered in strange, thin and long leaves. In fact... this tree didn't look like a tree at all. Trees didn't have fur or hooves.

Trees also weren't supposed to move, but whatever this pole was decided to break that rule as well. The long shaft suddenly rose into the air, and took with it Timon's gaze. His mouth dropped in horror as he recognized just who that was casting a giant, warthog-shaped shadow over him.

"Pumbaa?" he said, watching as his friend's legs began trotting forward. Timon's eyes widened, and he dove out of the way to avoid being stepped on by one of the warthog's legs. This was insane, how could this have happened? Sure, Pumbaa was normally bigger comparatively, but never this big. The shrunken meerkat looked around at his surroundings, and the gravity of his situation started sinking in. He shrank even smaller than the grass! Way smaller! This was bad; Pumbaa might mistake him for a bug. He needed to hide somewhere, gather his wits, and figure out how to fix this mess.

Far above the tiny meerkat, Pumbaa searched for bestest best buddy. "Timooooooon, where are you?" he called out as he walked around. The warthog furrowed his brow slightly. This was definitely the direction he remembered Timon running in, he couldn't have gotten far from here. Then again, it was pretty hard to keep up with Timon sometimes; he could get lots of places Pumbaa couldn't thanks to the size difference.

"Down here you mook! Watch where you're stepping!" Timon yelled, though to Pumbaa it may as well have just been squeaks. The warthog didn't hear or notice Timon, and continued walking as though nothing out of the ordinary were going on.

That is, until he noticed the metallic box. Strange, this definitely wasn't here yesterday. Where did this thing come from? If Pumbaa were more observant, he would've seen smoke billowing up in the distance from where a plane had crashed. But that wasn't his concern right now. He carefully examined the contraption, circling it several times. It didn't look dangerous, that much was clear. Other than the laser on top, the multitude of buttons and large screen made it look like something out of an arcade. In fact, the more Pumbaa looked at it, the more this strange machine looked like a video game.

"Oh boy oh boy, I'm gonna get the high score!" the warthog said, approaching the machine's console. "Awww, but I don't have any money..." Luckily for him, it didn't seem to need any money, and there was no slot to put in quarters. The screen seemed simple enough, and he was pretty sure he could figure out the controls with practice.

Hopping up onto his back legs, Pumbaa brought his hooves up to the control panel and began experimenting. Pulling levers, pushing buttons, and twisting knobs, he tried to figure out just how to get a higher score on this confusing machine. It seemed that one of the levers had 2 settings, and changing that caused his score to change from decreasing to increasing. Well, increasing was definitely what he wanted!

Switching that lever so that his score increased, Pumbaa got to work increasing his points. Most of the buttons didn't do much for his various score counters on the screen, but one in particular was definitely worthwhile. It was labeled "Feet," and the warthog found that his score increased by one point every time he hit a button. Perfect! Pumbaa began mashing down on the button as fast as he could.

50 points... 100 points... 150 points. The warthog's hooves weren't stopping there though. Maybe there was a way to combo in this game? With an experimental press of another button, he noticed that now the changes in points were greater. With 10 points per press now, this game would be a cinch.

Meanwhile, Timon was trying to get closer to the machine and Pumbaa. The meerkat wasn't sure how, but this strange machine had shrunken him; maybe it would also be able to get him back to normal. The big problem was getting closer to it, since getting around was much more difficult at this size. Instead of walking easily on top of grassy areas, he had to push the blades out of his way. If nothing else, this was definitely giving him a sense of appreciation for the bugs he always chased. But that didn't mean he wanted to be one forever.

"There must be a way to fix this somewhere up there. I just need to get Pumbaa's attention..." Timon thought aloud to himself. As he made his way forward, he looked up in the sky, realizing just how tall Pumbaa and the machine seemed now. And even though you'd think Timon would've learned his lesson by now, the meerkat didn't pay attention to where he was going, and ran into something else again.

Today was not going well for Timon. Shrunk, nearly stepped on, and hungry, he had just about had enough. "Alright, now this is getting ridiculous. You better get out of my way right now, or I'm gonna get really mad!" Timon yelled at whatever was ahead of him. But as he noticed what it was, he paused. It was a beetle, similar to the one he was chasing before... but this one wasn't shrunken. The beetle was about the same height as him now, and much more threatening looking at this size.

But Timon wasn't about to get scared off by a bug, especially not the same kind as the one he was chasing earlier. "What are you looking at, huh? Scram! I've got bigger problems to worry about than you. Err... smaller problems... whatever. Beat it!" he yelled again, clearly not in the mood.

Suddenly, that bug started to grow. Timon blinked and looked around, confused by the change. He noticed everything else growing around him, and the red glow surrounding him, just like earlier when he was shot; he was shrinking again! This time the shrinking wasn't nearly as fast, but the change was no less worrisome. He started backing away, each of his steps not covering quite as much distance as the last. The beetle approached him, growing bolder in its advance as the meerkat diminished further. After a few more seconds of shrinking, the now very tiny Timon was only an eighth of an inch tall. Everything looked massive at this height, especially the beetle in front of him.

"Uhh... hi there," Timon whispered as he gulped. Today just was not his day. With a scream, the miniscule meerkat ran as fast as his small legs could take him, and the beetle followed, ready to exact revenge on its would-be predator. Long, seemingly endless minutes passed as Timon ran, not stopping for an instant. But back at the machine, Pumbaa was having issues of his own.

As Pumbaa kept pressing the button to increase his "score," he couldn't help but think this game was far too easy... where was the player? Who was the character being played? And where were any of the enemies? This game was terrible so far.

Just as he was about to give up, he saw two figures come onto screen. "Aha, here we go," he said as he grabbed a joystick and sped up his button mashing. The warthog grinned as he watched the Feet counter increase; his score was going through the roof! The second figure was chasing after the first, so maybe that was him? Maybe he was supposed to be the second figure, trying to kill that first one. That made sense, considering the fire button on the console.

Pumbaa grinned and began to aim a set of crosshairs on the first shape, not recognizing the outline of a very small meerkat. With one hoof on the joystick, and the other paw still rapidly tapping away at the buttons, Pumbaa waited for the perfect moment to attack. Wait... wait... now fire!

The gun didn't fire right away; it still needed to warm up. As the strange device whirred to life, Pumbaa watched as all sorts of information popped up on screen. None of this information made sense though... maybe this was for comboing? Or maybe it was a bonus stage or something? With a shrug, the warthog hit the combo button once again, so that the points would increase by 50 with each press, and resumed mashing. Charge gathered around the laser on top, but he was too busy staring at the screen to notice. And finally, with a zap, the laser fired.

"Unbelievable, I'm shrinking again?" Timon panted as he ran. He couldn't believe his bad luck; he was being chased by a giant beetle with revenge on its mind, and an eighth of an inch tall wasn't short enough? Just how long was this shrinking process anyway? Running was becoming futile as he hit a 16th of an inch and didn't stop there. But in the background, the shrinking meerkat heard a familiar hum, and the release of energy that came from the machine. Timon saw everything as it happened this time, instead of being unaware of the laser blast. Afraid of being shrunk yet again before even finishing his current size change, he tried to dodge, but ended up just running right into the beam of blue energy.

"Not again!" he cried, putting his arms up to his face. This time though, something felt... different.

A peculiar sensation washed over Timon, causing him to stop running away as he tried to pinpoint the cause. It felt like the rising sensation in an elevator going up, and the ground underneath his paws was shifting slightly even though he wasn't moving anywhere now. He pulled his arms away from his face to look around, expecting to look up toward an even larger beetle.

This time, he saw nothing. Blinking once, Timon looked down to see the beetle and grinned. "Back to normal, too bad for you, now you can be my meal," he snickered. The feeling of vertigo hadn't gone away yet though. He noticed the beetle continuing to get further away, as though he were moving up higher into the air. With a turn of his head, he looked around to find the treetops equal to his own height. But that was only for a precious moment, as the trees soon lowered themselves as well, becoming smaller than the giant meerkat.

Foot after foot piled onto his body, so that by the time he hit 100 feet tall, Timon felt a surge of confidence. His growing paw pushed slowly up against a tree, easily knocking it over as they expanded further. With a smirk and a kick, Timon knocked over yet another tree. He could definitely get used to this. But 100 feet was a memory in just a few seconds, becoming 150 feet, then 200.

"Woah, now this is more like it," Timon said, bringing up a foot slowly and then letting it fall, just to feel the tremor of his own weight and the cracking of the earth. "I'd like to see those hyenas try anything with me now. They couldn't stop me, I'm the biggest meerkat ever!" he bragged. The lightheaded feeling of vertigo didn't let up as he reached 300 feet tall, even after he stopped growing; being this tall wasn't a feeling Timon was used to, having spent his whole like looking up at others.

Experimentally, Timon took at step forward. He almost stumbled and fell though, thanks to the extra weight added after his growth. This would take some getting used to, but that was just fine by him! He would gladly stay this large as long as he could.

Down at ground level, Pumbaa's focus broke from the machine as the meerkat paw created its own mini-earthquake. He turned to face his now giant sized friend, and with bugged out eyes he said, "Wow, what happened? You're huge!"

"Thank you for that stunning observation. It was that thing, it shrunk me first, and then you grew me to this size. Finally, something goes right for once! Thanks little buddy," Timon said, getting down on one knee to more easily see his friend.

As Timon got down, the movement of his leg pushed tons of dirt and trees out of the way, but he didn't even notice it; the movement was just as normal and easy as at his regular size. "I dunno if you should stay like this Timon, this seems kinda dangerous," Pumbaa said, watching the destruction with a worried look.

"Oh come on, this is great!" Timon laughed. "I've always wanted to see the world from a different perspective, and this is just about as different as you can get. Besides, now we can do whatever we want, right buddy?"

"What about bugs though? How will you eat?" the warthog asked.

Furrowing his brow for a moment, Timon had a sudden idea. "Oh that's easy. Just grow a bug large enough for me to eat. We can even share. Imagine, having a mountain of bug to feast on, with no limits. Sounds tempting doesn't it?"

"Hmmmm... I dunno Timon... that sounds just as dangerous as you staying big..."

"What? Don't be ridiculous. We're just playing in God's domain with a bit of size changing fun on a machine that we barely know how to work, what could possibly go wrong?" Timon said with a grin, gently pushing his friend toward the size changing machine.

Despite his reservations, Pumbaa's stomach growled and made the decision for him. It was too tempting not to try. He aimed the joystick at a vaguely bug-shaped figure on the screen, and hit the fire button again.

The effect was immediate, much faster than even Timon had expected. The chosen bug quickly shot up in size to 50 feet, and Timon gave a giddy laugh. Perfect, it worked! But perhaps it worked a little too well; even though the bug was 50 feet tall, the growth hadn't stopped. Instead, it seemed to speed up. When Timon realized that his chosen meal had gotten up to his size and wasn't stopping, his glee turned to horror.

The beetle looked like something out of a B-grade horror movie. The meerkat gulped as he noticed which bug his friend had grown: the same blue-backed beetle from before, the one that chased him when shrunk. Dang it, of course it grew this much more; the bug had already been several times larger than Timon at the shrunken size. 1000 feet up in the sky, the beetle sneered down at the meerkat and warthog, once again large and in charge.

Timon looked down at Pumbaa and carefully reached down to grab both the machine and his friend. "Run for it! Aaaaaahhhhhhhhh!" Timon screamed as he went tearing off into the distance as fast as his feet could take him. A bug that big was no match for anything he could do, even at this giant size.

With a mighty roar that one wouldn't expect out of a simple bug, Beetlezilla gave chase to the meerkat for the second time that day. Timon was less concerned about the damage he caused by his movements, and more focused on not getting caught. Each stomp created a huge paw shaped hole in the ground, and trees were flattened for miles in his wake. Animals all across the savannah paused from their daily routine to watch the impossibly large meerkat run, the elephants and giraffes astonished to finally be looking up at someone. The hyenas of the elephant graveyard fared the worst of all those in the Pride Lands, as Timon made a bee-line straight through the area. Even if the hyenas had tried to run away, they wouldn't have escaped fast enough to avoid the massive wall of approaching meerkat. The tail dragging behind him upturned skeletons and boulders alike, and a set of huge paw prints zigzagged right through the center like a moving earthquake.

Timon's eyes darted left and right, hoping to find somewhere to hide. Wait, Pride Rock, of course! It was the perfect place to hide behind and get a plan ready, that mountain of stone would be plenty big enough. As Timon made his way toward the massive lion's den though, he realized exactly how big he was by this point.

Pride Rock only came up to his waist. "Geez, how big am I?" Timon whispered, as a faint blue aura enveloped him. The familiar light headed feeling brought Timon's attention to his body, as it began expanding outward yet again. While Pride Rock used to come up to his waist that was suddenly no longer true. As if he hadn't been big enough before, Timon's body doubled in height, putting Pride Rock to shame as his knees crested the top of the stone mountain.

Maybe this was big enough to stop the beetle monster? Timon put his hands on his hips and his best threatening look on his face as he turned around to face his chaser. But it looked like the beetle was getting its own upgrades, because a blue aura was also surrounding it. With a yelp of surprise, any thoughts of fighting his aggressor left Timon's head as he ran again.

Desperate to stop the madness, Timon opened his paw and panted, "Pumbaa, get the machine working again, you need to grow me! I need to be big enough to stop this beetle."

Still hiding in Timon's paw, Pumbaa yelled up to his growing friend, "Timon, I don't think this is such a good idea... you're not even finished with the growth you're still doing..."

"There's no choice, that beetle is still growing. I can stop it," the meerkat said, turning his head to see how far behind the beetle was. It was getting closer, too close for comfort.

"Just give me a few seconds; it's not ready yet," Pumbaa said, as he put his hooves on the controls and started messing with knobs and buttons. The chase continued, finally making its way into a large city. Cars, streets, buildings, parks, everything was laid to waste by the simple act of Timon's thundering footpaw movements, the quakes of his stomping, and the swinging of his tail. The city wasn't going to last very long at this rate, especially as the two behemoths continued their growth. Even though Timon was easily taller than the biggest skyscrapers, the beetle still loomed large over him, casting a shadow across the entire city.

Timon had just about had enough of this chasing. He needed to be bigger, and he needed it now! He wanted to enjoy being bigger than everyone around, rather than running for his life, but the only way to get that to happen was growth. Looking into his paw again with a scowl, he said, "Hurry up, there's no time, fire already!"

"No! You need to wait!" Pumbaa said, fiddling with the Feet counter to figure out the perfect change.

"No, I need it now! If you won't do it, then I will!" Timon yelled. With a quick snatch, the greedy meerkat took the tiny machine for himself and poked at the console. His thick fingers ended up hitting all the buttons at once, simultaneously increasing the height change and starting up the firing sequence.

"Come on come on, make me bigger already you stupid machine!" he said, watching as the beetle stalked him from behind. It seemed to be enjoying this role reversal, and slowly approached him, getting ready for the final attack. In a frenzy, Timon frantically mashed against the machine, hoping that something would happen. Anything was better than right now.

As though it understood the meerkat's desire, the hum of the machine reached a fever pitch, each press against the console rushing more energy to the laser. Sparks began flying from the underside of the laser as it was overloaded with commands for larger and larger sizes, and dials were falling off from the console after the onslaught of meerkat finger. With one final press from Timon, the machine could take no more and it let loose a blinding flash of blue light.

Timon had to shield his eyes and was knocked backward as he lost his balance, so he missed the first few seconds of change. The growth was exponential and sudden, happening in quick spurts of sudden movement as though the colossal meerkat's body was having trouble keeping up with the influx of sudden growth power. Though he couldn't see it right now, Timon's weight increase was causing great cracks across the entire landscape. Doubling in height every few seconds, even while sitting down, the savannah was beginning to look less like grassy plains and trees, and more like the form of a growing, tan-furred meerkat. Pride Rock was completely destroyed as a wall of meerkat fur approached; Timon grew right over it without even feeling the mountain.

The entire continent was reeling from the effects of the titanic meerkat, and soon the rest of the world would follow as Timon's head peeked over the horizon at more and more parts of the Earth. Wiping his eyes to try and see exactly what had happened, Timon blinked once as he tried to find any recognizable landmarks. But instead, as he slowly grew out further, his tail dipped into the Atlantic Ocean.

"Yikes, that's cold," he cried, scooting himself away from the water only to realize that his tail wasn't actually moving out of the ocean as he grew. This was definitely much, much, much bigger than he had ever wanted to get to.

When Timon finally stopped growing, at what he hoped would be his final size, he looked around to assess the damage. Well, the damage that he could see at least. At this point, he was covering half of Africa. It was so strange being able to see the curve of the Earth easily like this, and Timon couldn't even begin to put a number on just how large he had become. All he knew was that, for better or worse, he was definitely bigger than the beetle. And bigger than anything else on the planet for that matter, but oh well, details.

He searched through his paw, still holding onto hope that maybe the size changing machine and Pumbaa would be there... but at this size, it was futile. Each hair on his paw was larger than a skyscraper, there was no way he could ever see anything Pumbaa's size.

But just as he thought it, something bit Timon's butt. After a yell and a rub against the tender area, Timon put aside the stinging pain to think about what that actually meant. Who was big enough to do anything to him now? Looking over his shoulder, Timon giggled. It was the beetle again, caught inside the forest of his fur! It still wanted to try to put up a fight? Somehow it was just barely big enough for Timon to notice, not even really enough to make a meal out of.

Using his fingers like tweezers, he plucked the beetle out and brought it up to his face. The blue growth aura was still around it, but it wouldn't be enough. This beetle would never be able to catch up to a continent sized meerkat; the size difference was simply too much.

"Looks like I finally caught my bug after all," Timon chuckled, tossing his head back and letting the well earned catch fall into his mouth. "Now... how the heck do I get down from here?"

Unfortunately for Timon, the answer didn't come to him. What did happen was a pulse of blue energy that covered his whole body yet again. It seemed the growth hadn't quite finished yet... he hoped that Pumbaa was still looking for the machine.

Maybe being a planetary sized meerkat for a while wouldn't be too bad. There was plenty of peace and quiet to think about things at least. Hakuna matata, right? Timon sighed, flipped onto his stomach, and stretched out. Maybe if he was lucky, Pumbaa would shrink him before he hit solar system size. For now though, there wasn't much he could do except rest and wait to see how big he was when he woke up. Just as he felt sleep coming on and his eyelids shut, Timon felt his arms and legs drooping off the planet as his body as it slowly began to cover half the Earth. What a big day for bug catching, he thought with a smile.
