Why did I feel so elated? After stating my new name, I shivered. Not because I was cold or anything, no. I actually felt comfortable. It shouldn’t have, though. I grew up for 25 years, as a boy, as a man. But now, it appeared, I had a new chance to experience life differently. Well, very differently to be honest. Not only was I a girl now, but I was also a foxgirl. Although… this might prove a little bit problematic seeing as being a girl with fox ears and tail wasn’t exactly a normal occurrence.

“I will go see if Melody has returned yet, okay? Lina, stay with Skyla, keep her company” Natalie said a newfound touch of caring in her voice. “No funny business, Lina!” she reminded the girl as she left the bathroom. 

“Now it’s just us two…”  Lina purred dangerously. Uh oh…

“Uhm… Lina?” Gods, my voice was raspy. I sounded like a tomboy.

“Yeeeeees?” she drew out that word as she approached me… and poked me in the side.

“Gya! Don’t!” Holy mother of Thor that tickled so much. Apparently my skin was super sensitive now. 

“Ehehehe, is somebody ticklish now, hmm?” she whispered into my ear.

Gods… what was she doing… my ear twitched wildly and I tried to wriggle away.

“Lina… please…” I whimpered. But she seemed a merciless mistress and her hand went to my ear proceeding to stroke it softly.

And I melted. No, really. I became like puddy in her hands, a strange rumbling starting in my chest. “Mhhhh…”

I couldn’t speak anymore, especially when she rubbed the base of my ear.

I just couldn’t. No word was able to be formed, not by my mind or by my throat. 

I fell over. I think. I didn’t really know anymore what was happening to me, I was feeling too ecstatic . It was pure bliss. Nothing I had ever felt in my life compared to this.

“LINA!” A shout tore me out of my bliss-trance and I noticed that I was indeed purring. I didn’t stop, even when I realized, I was lying on Lina’s lap curled up to her stomach. It was just too comfortable here, no way I could leave this heavenly place. However, I looked at who was the shouty person.

Melody stood in the door, her arms on her hips with a bag slung over her shoulder. And she looked pissed.

“Out. Now! Go turn on the fucking TV instead.” Holy shit. 

Lina scrambled away, almost dropping my head on the tiled bathroom floor. 

She hustled to the door, which Melody still occupied.

“For your sake, I really hope you didn’t do anything to her.” 

What happened to her…?

Tears started welling up in my eyes. This is not the Melody I knew for most of my life. We had always been next door neighbours playing together most of the day before we went to school. Almost everything we did, we did together. Even in school, we went to the same class, did our homework together, studied for exams together, did pranks together, until I grew out of it at one point and she didn’t. She was like family, and I knew her well. 

For a time, our parents thought we were one hundred percent going to marry at some point, until she came out as gay.

Sometime when we were in university, she asked me why I never came out. I had been highly confused by that, because I was very sure I wasn’t gay. She clarified that she thought I was trans. Apparently I was… or, well, am now. Maybe I was before and I just hadn’t properly realized it? Maybe that was why I felt so comfortable at the moment? Who knows. I’d need to dive into this more later, because right now, I probably felt too comforted by Lina’s scritches to be objective on that front....

Suddenly Melody was beside me, her hand on my back.

“Hey, uh, Skyla, right? That’s what you chose, right? Are you okay? You wouldn’t believe what is happening outside.”

I perked up, my ears at attention. “Huh? What’s happening outside?”

“I’ll show you in a bit. Just so you know, you’re not the only one who has changed. Here. I got you some clothing. I am not sure how you’ll do with…” She pointed at my backside. “Your tail and such.”

“Ah.” I stared blankly at my tail and the bag of clothes Melody had deposited next to me.

Opening the bag, I found about five pairs of panties, a similar amount of small bras, sporty icey blue polyester tights, a blue pleated skirt, a pair of really comfy looking light blue sweatpants, a pair of blue jeans, a sky blue t-shirt, a sweat jacket of the same colour and a simple white hoodie.

“What the hell is this colour combination… Want me to play hide and seek in the snow?”

I giggled a bit as Melody sheepishly rubbed the back of her head. “To be honest, I just saw your white fur and thought, these things would fit with the scheme a bit…”

I sighed and tried to put on a pair of panties… however, I quickly noticed, the band of the underwear would be above where my tail started. “We gotta cut a hole in these. And these sweatpants, too.” I stated the obvious.

Melody nodded, took the pair of panties and the sweatpants and turned for the door. “I think Natalie can do something with this quickly. I mean, she can do anything, really. We have to seek out a real tailor at some point, though.”

She darted away and let me be alone for the first time since the change. Melody had said I wasn’t the only one who had been hit tonight. Of course, she didn’t go into any detail whatsoever, but that was pretty much like her anyway.

I took a bra into my hands and felt it. It was pretty small, not that I really needed much. My new breasts were sticking out not even two inches from my chest. I really looked like a girl in the middle of puberty, cursed by smallness genes. From my height to everything else. At least my body seemed very fit. I probably could keep up with Melody, if I weren’t as small.

I fit the bra around my chest snugly. The straps were a bit annoying, but what needs to be done needs to be done, right? 

With a bit of a smile, I slipped the white hoodie over my torso. I squeed a bit at how comfortable it felt and then looked in the mirror again in surprise. Why was this feeling so good? Why is this euphoria here? Did the change inject me with some kind of serotonin? I probably should seek a doctor about this.

A few minutes later, Natalie came in and threw the panties and the sweatpants in front of me.

“Get those on, quick. You really need to watch the TV now. Like, really.”

Huh, when Natalie gets excited she loses her nerdy girl personality? That was a new discovery. I should keep it in mind for future use!

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

I shimmied into the panties, taking care to slip my tail through the hole that Nat made and did the same with the sweatpants. Quickly I followed Natalie into the living room, where the TV was running.

“... currently nobody knows how or why this is happening. The only thing we can say for certain is, with the thunderstorm, a lot of people changed. Some are even showing signs of,  superpowers. 

We urge every citizen to stay at home if possible. Don’t go outside unless it is for an emergency. We know you are scared, especially those of you who have changed. Over the next hour, the military and the police will go through every neighbourhood and we ask everyone who has changed to register with the police. We will provide you with temporary IDs until such a time that we are able to set up a permanent solution. 

They will come to your home, don’t be scared. This is a trying time for our country and the world. But we will make it.”

A black screen appeared for a second before the face of a rattled news anchor reappeared.

“That was the speech of the governor of Nova Scotia. We sincerely hope all our viewers are alright and stay safe. The RCMP representative stated earlier, they will have a provisional casualty report up by the early morning hours. Current estimates are at least ten thousand. Those are expected to rise…”

Melody muted the TV.

“Holy shit…” I muttered and I could see my expression of shock reflected in my friends’ faces. 

Melody recovered first, as usual. “Okay, we five are all healthy. Well, one of us changed.” Her eyes darted to me for a second. “I called all of your families, they are fine as well, none of them changed either.”

A very audible orchestra of sighs moved through the room, then Melody fixed me with her eyes. 

“That reminds me. They said the changed people got some sort of powers. Have you noticed anything yet?”

I scratched my ear. “Well, apart from being very foxy and having a new weak spot of pure bliss, nothing yet. I haven’t lost control yet either, so… maybe I don’t have any powers?”

As I said that, Damian suddenly jumped at me, his arm stretched out roaring aggressively.

In panic, something snapped. Suddenly a massive wall of ice appeared right in front of me, encasing Damian’s hand.

“Holy fuck! Sky!”  Melody cursed. 

I stared at the wall of ice, a hand reaching through it, but perfectly unable to move. 

“Ahh… uhh… that…? That was me…? What the fuck Damian?! Why would you charge at me like that! I don’t know how to fix this…”

“Shh, shh, Skyla. Calm down.” A gentle hand stroked my back. I looked up to see Natalie standing behind me. “You can do it, Skyla. Just take a deep breath and think of making the wall disappear.”

Taking her words to heart, I took a deep breath, noticing how the air flowed through my new body into my new lungs. I breathed out and concentrated on the wall. And surely enough, it actually started to melt. Concentrating more sped up the melting process. I focused more “power” onto the wall and it splashed down into a puddle on the ground in front of my feet. His hand finally free, Damian shook it wildly. 

“Fucking cold man…” He grumbled angrily.

“Your own fault. Why try punching me… Idiot?” I snarled. 

“I just guessed, if you had an ability, maybe you’ll activate it when you are in danger. Just a hunch.”

“Great. We know, I can create ice walls… what now?” I plopped down on one of the pillows careful not to sit on my tail. It was as if that tail of mine had its own desires, though, and curled around my stomach.

“Now we wait. The police should be here soon to take your ID. Before that, we can’t do anything anyway.” Natalie said.

Barely two minutes later I groaned and let myself fall onto my back and rolled back and forth a bit.

My friends were all mustering or staring at me. I was sure, but at this point, I didn’t care. I really abruptly grew incredibly bored, my mind racing at several dozen miles an hour. If I had to guess, this was because of me being part fox and from what I had seen of foxes online before this, they were really active. I was really restless, so I tried something.

With just a tad bit of concentrating, I managed to create an icicle in the air above my hand, make it fall down into my hand again and rise up as an icicle again, before dropping the icicle in an empty cup on the table and did the same again. But even that grew boring after just a couple of tries, so, I jumped up and scrambled to Melody and plopped myself down in her lap.

“I’m boooooooored, Mel!” 

I looked at her with puppy eyes, almost literally, since I did have these foxy, slitted, bright yellow eyes. I blinked twice and Melody gave in and gave me super nice head pettings, even going over my ears. This was great, like, really great. I could do this all day, yes. Happily I buried my head in her chest. 

This caused some “D’aww” sounds to waft over to my ears from both Natalie and Lina, who had been silent thus far after being reprimanded by Melody before.

However, even though I had started to purr, I noticed the air change a bit around where I was guessing Melody’s face was. 

Neat, I can sense air humidity… wait, increased air humidity around a person’s face? That could only mean two things and since it was almost December in Canada, it couldn’t be sweat.

Still purring, I lifted my head and tried to look at her face, which she hid well from me and our friends. 

“Why are you crying, Mel?” My voice was laced with worry.

This seemed to have been the spark, since after that, I felt tears drip onto my head and some heaving sounds. Those heavings I could feel rocking through her body. “Mel?”

I sat up as much as I could, my purring having subsided, to try to look her in the eyes.

A stream of tears flowed down her cheeks. 

“Mel?” , I tried again.

“It’s… you… why…”

With a sniff, she tried to answer me, but when she looked at me, she broke into another sobbing fit. I took a finger and tried to whisk away some of the tears from her cheek. My eyes didn’t stay dry either and tears started to build up. No. I can’t cry now. She needs me.

“My… my best friend is gone!” Melody managed to cry out in between pauses of her sob attacks.

“No, I am not gone. I am still here for you. Different, but still here.”

She hiccuped. 

“No. You’re not…. You’re… you’re not the same… anymore… You… you look like a fox girl… you… you act… like an animal… my best friend… is gone… dead… no more…”

I listened to all she had to say with the occasional “Mhh” as a sound of acknowledgement.

“Melody. Just because I behave like this doesn’t mean the old me is gone. I am still myself. I am still, mostly, in control of this body. I just have new instincts. Yes, my personality might change, but look at it that way… you always found me super boring anyway, right? Can’t get any worse. I am still your best friend. Your family.”

I grabbed her head and locked her view with me. 

“Look at me. I am happy now. I feel like something that has been missing in my life suddenly clicked. Look, I was wrong, you were right all along. I was… I am trans. I just got an easy out of many problems transwomen have to face.”

“And some problems added that transwomen usually don’t have to face.” Lina added snidely from the side. I motioned her to stay silent.

Meanwhile, Melody had stopped sobbing and was now only sniffling a bit. 

“Melody, silly girl. I would never leave you.”

“But… you’re so different now… like… you purr, you curl up like a pet… I am scared. I don’t want to lose you.”

I brought her head onto my tiny shoulder and caressed the back of her head as I felt my hoodie become slightly wet on my shoulder. 

“I promise, I won’t fade away, okay?” I said softly, almost whispering. “I am still your dorky childhood friend, now in a fun sized packet, okay?”

She nodded and sniffed loudly, her arms wandering around me to embrace me in a massive hug.

I smiled and enjoyed her embrace now knowing how much I meant to her. I almost cried again there and now.

However, our moment was rudely interrupted by a loud rapping on the door and a ring of the doorbell.

I sighed. “That must be the police. Let’s get this over with, so we can sleep.”

With an even heavier sigh, I peeled myself from Melody’s arm and scampered to the door.

Opening it, a male officer, probably in his early thirties and a female officer, in her late twenties, stood in front of me.

“Ah, another one here. Hello, sweetie. Would you be so kind as to give us your name?”

I snorted a bit. They honestly thought I was even younger than the seventeen years I was now.

“Josh Blair. Now Skyla Blair.”

“Ah… your gender changed as well… are you okay?”

I nodded. 

“Don’t worry, I am trans.” The female officer let out an “Ah.” while her colleague was tapping away on a tablet. 

“It says here, you are 25. Is that right?”

“I was. I look like I am 18 now. Does that need to change on my ID as well?”

The man nodded. “Sadly, yes. You don't appear to be the age you were before.” He tapped some more. “Have you noticed any powers apart from your new additions?”

“Actually, yes.” , I shared. “I can make ice out of thin air, it seems.”

Both officers looked at each other, then the woman sighed.

“You have to come with us.”