The Special Edition Funko Pop (Patreon)

Based on a six-word idea by my good buddy Bizz! Unfortunately my writing brain didn't want to cooperate as well as I would have liked on this one. Still, I hope you all get some enjoyment out of it. Many more stories to follow over the next few days and weeks!

Cody Bellinger was delighted to learn that he would be one of the MLB stars receiving a Funko Pop figure in their likeness as part of the next wave of releases. It was still crazy to him just how much success he had garnered in his baseball career and never in his wildest dreams could he have thought that companies would want to make merchandise based on him, or that hundreds of thousands of people around the world might have mini plastic recreations of him on display. Isn’t life a rollercoaster sometimes, eh?

Hearing a knock upon his door just a little after three in the afternoon, Cody took a swig from his water bottle before heading over to see who was there. It was a rare day off from team practice and he was quite content to spend it catching up on his Netflix list and playing some video games. He was a simple guy with simple pleasures and being a professional baseball player meant that lazy days weren’t exactly commonplace. His agency usually had him signed up for some appearance or other but not today! He was totally free to do whatever the hell he liked - once he’d seen to whomever was knocking on the door to his condo, that was.

Cody had barely opened the door by the time his visitor started speaking: “Hey there, Mr Bellinger. I’m Bryce from Funko Pop and they sent me out to personally deliver you a special edition figure just for you!” The baseball player took a moment to inspect the new arrival. Bryce was either blessed with an eternal babyface, was both tall and slender and had a head full of curly brown hair. He possessed such a disarming smile that Cody didn’t even think twice about stepping aside and allowing the other man entry into his home. He hadn’t been expecting a personal delivery from the company, but he wasn’t exactly complaining. It would make for a fun display piece!

Leading the Funko Pop employee to the living room, Cody notioned for Bryce to deposit the box onto the coffee table. “We all really hope it’s to your liking,” the enthusiastic young man exclaimed, “In the name of transparency, because I’m a fan, my bosses wanted to try and subtly encourage you to post about it on social media. The sales pitch sounded like too much work though, so it’s totally up to you, man.” There was a persistent humility to everything Bryce said; why would Cody have any reason to ever doubt his intentions?

“I’m excited to see it,” the Dodgers player remarked, smiling politely at the other before opening the cardboard folds of the delivery box to fish out the still-sealed Funko Pop container. Strangely though, it was completely empty. Cody let out an awkward chuckle. “Although, uh, I think I’ll be waiting a little longer.” He turned the empty product around to show Bryce, whose smile suddenly dropped. Moments later he began attempting to splutter out excuses, but Cody gave him another reassuring smile. “It’s all good, man. Nobody’s fault! Just have them send it through to me at another point. You don’t need to make the journey twice.”

Still obviously exasperated, Bryce let out a loud huff. “Are you sure it’s not in there?” he asked, even though anybody with eyes could see that there was nothing within the packaging. “I saw it with my own eyes just before I left the office…”

Looking to humour the other, Cody grabbed at the top of the box and pulled it open with the intention of turning it upside down and proving its emptiness. Instead he was greeted by a sudden cloud of baby blue fog that launched itself at his face and temporarily blinded him!

The sheer surprise prompted Cody to fumble and drop the empty box to the ground. The blue mist dissipated after a moment but the athlete was left with a strange cottony taste in his mouth and a ringing in his ears. Through watery eyes he was finally able to make out Bryce, but the expression on the other man’s face had changed. No longer did he look earnest and awed at being in the presence of a baseball star, instead there was a shameless smirk upon his lips. He was pranking me all along, Cody realised, although he still had no idea just how deep the consequences of Bryce’s little ‘prank’ would run.

A strange sensation quickly spread through the baseball player, from the top of his skull right down to the tips of his toes. Cody had stood a comfortable few inches taller than Bryce but all of a sudden he found that distance disappearing - and then he was shrinking even further, the other man becoming an increasingly intimidating statue as the baseball player dropped below five feet, four feet, three feet…

Cody tried to cry out in alarm but simply couldn’t produce the sound. His attempts were brought to an immediate halt when an invisible force pinned his lips shut and then wiped away his mouth altogether. His eyes grew rounder and darker until they were black discs that dominated a large part of his rectangular head, while his nose became little more than a petite ridge. The athlete used every bit of willpower he had to try and turn his head or even blink but it was as if he had been frozen solid!

The inexplicable shrinking mercifully stopped once Cody had reached the miniscule height of four inches tall. His hands were fixed on his waist and he was locked in position, although the casual clothes he had been wearing had been replaced by a recreation of his Dodgers uniform, right down to a cap on his head. 

When Bryce chuckled Cody felt like he was experiencing an earthquake. The other was an absolute skyscraper next to him in his diminished form! Even when the other crouched down and picked Cody up off the floor, Bryce was a terrifying presence thanks to his dominating size.

“You’re gonna make me a very rich man, Mr Sports Star!” Bryce’s voice was booming thunder to Cody’s plastic ears. If he hadn’t been paralysed by his new inanimate form, the baseball player would have let out a raging tirade against the other, but instead he was forcibly kept silent as Bryce guided him into the plastic casing of the Funko Pop box, then sealed it up above him. Cody was forced to look through a plastic sheet at the man who had tricked him into becoming his own toy! “I think we can both agree that some Dodgers fan is about to get very lucky, can’t we?”

The victorious smirk on the other man’s face was the last thing Cody saw before he was placed back into the cardboard parcel that Bryce had arrived with, and he was left in the darkness to contemplate what would become of him. At the very least, it seemed as if he wouldn’t be winning back-to-back World Series!