Uniform ― Steven Padnick and Amanda Watkins
Morning, outside a high school. Medium shot of three high school girls (MARIA, ALMA, LOUISE) are walking to class. They are wearing contemporary, non-uniform clothes. Each has their own style, but it’s all very casual. They are talking to each other, smiling and laughing.
Same shot, but now there's a loud BOOM coming from the top of the panel, and the three girls are surprised.
Wide shot, the three girls are now in the lower left corner, looking over their shoulder at giant armored man, floating in the sky, stepping out of magical wormhole thing.
The giant's armor is silver and shiny and has a crazy Kirby-esque helmet. He's holding a silver trident. He's wide-eyed and ranting.
GRANDEUR: Tremble humans! I, GRANDEUR, your new lord and master, have come to grind your champions into dust!
Back to the three girls, but now in identical heroic right fist up stance. MARIA stands in the center, flanked by ALMA and LOUISE.
MARIA: Don’t bet on it, big guy!
MARIA now stands with her arms akimbo. A glowing diamond has appeared on her chest. The background has become a psychedelic pattern. ALMA and LOUISE have disappeared.
MARIA: DIAMOND POWER, ACTIVATE!
Panel is divided horizontally in three. In the first part is a close up of MARIA's right arm, sleeve and ungloved hand. In the middle is the word SHOOM! covering the arm, and in the last part is the same arm, but now wearing the white sleeve of a jacket and purple glove with glowing bright purple ring. A new psychedelic background.
Panel is divided in three again. Close up of MARIA's left leg, wearing worn jeans. In the middle the sound effect SHOOM! Covers her leg. And in the third panel, she's now wearing a pleated, knee length blue skirt and purple calf high boots, leaving just a little skin showing. New background.
Panel divided in three again. First part, MARIA's face, serious, determined, her hair pulled back in a pony tail. Middle panel, SHOOM!. Third panel, MARIA is now wearing a golden tiara with a diamond logo in the middle, her hair now big and curly in a bouffant hairdo. Her smile has a sparkle.
Wide shot, MARIA standing in front of ALMA and LOUISE. MARIA is now in full magical girl gear, big hair, tiara, white jacket, diamond on chest, purple gloves and matching boots, blue pleated skirt. ALMA and LOUISE have Not Changed At All. ALMA is face palming, and LOUISE has her hands on her hips, glaring at MARIA, muttering.
MARIA: Grandeur! Prepare to face the wrath of the GEM SQUAD!
LOUISE: (quietly) Seriously?
Medium shot. MARIA is quickly looking over her shoulder at ALMA and LOUISE. ALMA's hand has slid down from her forehead to her mouth. LOUISE has raised her right hand, palm up, in anger.
MARIA: Alma? Louise? You didn't change. Why didn't you change?
LOUISE: (quietly) Maria. We talked about this. We weren't gonna change any more.
Same shot. MARIA is now looking just at LOUISE. LOUISE puts her hand on MARIA's shoulder.
MARIA: We were just talking about not changing. We didn’t agree we wouldn’t. How else are people gonna know we're superheroes?
ALMA: I dunno. Maybe they'll figure it out when we start flying and punching aliens through buildings and stuff.
LOUISE: We can talk about this later, we've got a bad guy to beat up.
MARIA now has pouty face.
MARIA: No! We need settle this first. We have to look the same or we'll look ridiculous.
ALMA: (aside) Or else you'll look ridiculous.
LOUISE: It's like we said. The transformation takes time, and we're just as strong in our street clothes, and we want to be heroes while looking like ourselves.
Shot of GRANDEUR standing awkwardly off to one side. The girls are in panel, off to the left.
GRANDEUR: Uh, is this going to take awhile? Because I've got things to do.
THE GIRLS: (as one) SHUT UP AND WAIT!
GRANDEUR: (quietly) Okay.
Close up of just ALMA and MARIA. Maria looks hopeful, Alma is angry and snarky
MARIA: We still look like ourselves. It’s just dressed like this we look like our best selves!
ALMA: Girl, I always look like my best self. If I thought that was my best self, I'd dress in a silly skirt all the time!
Shift over to shot of MARIA and LOUISE
MARIA: THE SKIRT IS NOT SILLY!
LOUISE: What Alma means is that she, I, we feel silly in the skirt. It's just not us.
Medium shot of the three girls again. MARIA looks heartbroken, like the rug's been pulled out from under her.
MARIA: Have you felt this way the whole time?
LOUISE: Not the whole time. At first I was really excited to dress up like a superhero!
Closer in on LOUISE. She looks a little sad and embarrassed.
LOUISE: But as I grew up I realized that it was somebody else's idea of what a superhero should look like, and I started to feel like I was pretending to be someone else. And I just want to be me.
Medium shot. MARIA is now near tears.
MARIA: Alma? Do you feel like this too?
ALMA: Yeah. All the time. You don't?
Similar shot of the girls.
MARIA: No, I don’t! I feel powerful dressed like this. This is who I am, who I'm supposed to be.
LOUISE: And that's great! But it's not who we are.
Back to GRANDEUR, who's now tapping his wrist like he's wearing a watch.
GRANDEUR: Look, if this is a bad time, I can come back.
GRANDEUR: (quietly) It's really no problem.
ALMA's expression is softening as she sees how important this is to MARIA. She now has her hand on MARIA's shoulder to comfort her.
LOUISE: Look, what's important is that we each dress the way we want to dress, no matter what that is. Even if we don't match, we'll still be friends.
Close up of GRANDEUR, a single crystal emo tear running down his face.
Back to the girls, now standing back in battle stance, one fist up, ready to fight.
MARIA: Now let's kick this guy’s ass!
Small panel, close up of Grandeur, wide eyed in fear.
The aftermath of the fight, GRANDEUR is on the ground, his armor bent and broken, tweety birds flying around his head, eyes x-ed out. The girls are walking away, MARIA brushing her gloved hands together to get the dirt off. ALMA and LOUISE are looking at each other, shrugging their shoulders.
MARIA is heading into the high school. Alma runs after her.
ALMA: Hey, aren't you going to change back now?
MARIA turns around to look at ALMA and LOUISE. She's smiling.
MARIA: No, I... I've been thinking about what you said and you're right. We should dress the way that makes us feel powerful all the time.
Tighter shot of the three.
MARIA: So if you two can wear jeans into a fight, I can wear this skirt to class.
Close up of ALMA and LOUISE. LOUISE has rushed over to cover ALMA's mouth
LOUISE: You look great! Now let's get going. We've wasted enough time as is.
Wide shot of the three girls running to class, laughing and smiling in the sunlight, leaving the crumpled and defeated Grandeur on the campus grounds.
