I yelped as I fell out of the medpod my virtual body had ‘formed’ in. I lay still, breathing heavily on the slick plastic tile as I tried to process it all. That had been a very feminine tone in the yelp I’d let out, and there was no denying the… Weight on my normally flat chest. Or the feeling of my tail being crushed underneath me.

Wait… Tail?! I sat upright suddenly, once again needing to brush my long hair out of my face. Looking behind me I found a long, fluffy white wolf tail trailing out from the slit in the back of my hospital gown. It flicked from side to side as I watched for a second. My brain was taking its sweet time to process that I could feel the floor underneath it and that it was most definitely part of my body.

I closed my eyes, and forced myself to take a deep breath. Focus, Myles. One thing at a time. I needed to find out what I looked like now and confirm my… Suspicions about my new body. So, step one was to find a mirror. Once I’d dealt with that, I could figure out what the system message meant by ‘randomly generated stats’.

Pulling myself unsteadily to my feet (thanks height difference), I glanced around the room. It was a standard futuristic hospital room, and I’d respawned enough times with previous characters to know that there was a bathroom with a mirror. Spotting the door, I made my way over. Thankfully, it only took a few shaky steps like usual for my balance to readjust with my new height.

My breath was taken away as I opened the door and turned to look in the mirror. Looking back at me was a beautiful young woman, somewhere in her early twenties with pale skin. Her hair was snow white, matching both the long white tail and the two wolf-like ears on top of her… No, my head. My eyes were highlighted as a result of the stark appearance, the two aqua blue eyes standing out like shimmering diamonds that reflected the light of the terrible LEDs above.

I took another deep breath, turning my attention lower. Okay. You can do this Myles… Mm, that name did not fit this new character. I looked down at the rest of my body, which was currently covered by the shitty pale teal paper hospital gown I was wearing. I let out a soft laugh, which turned out to be a lot softer and breathier than I was expecting. Still, it was funny to see such an ordinary bit of clothing on something so alien like a wolfgirl. Even if that wolfgirl I could see in the mirror was me. Steeling my resolve and needing to know what I looked like now completely, I undid the small metal clasp that held the two sides together at the top of the gown.

Pulling it off, and throwing it onto the toilet, I couldn’t help but stare at the girl in the mirror.

Her- My body, I needed to keep reminding myself, was slim with gentle curves. Just under the skin rippled with the faintest hints of muscle every time I moved. Taking in my full body was… A lot more than I was expecting. My skin was so much softer now, free of the body hair that made me feel so gross out in the real world. I still had some pubic hair, but it was neatly groomed and felt more like the soft fuzz of fur. I had wider hips that I had felt with each step to the bathroom, the comforting weight on my chest of my new breasts. Even confirming with one exploratory hand to ensure that my previous male hardware was indeed completely gone, it was still difficult to believe that I could ever look like this. My body was undeniably female, and that was causing havoc in my head as I tried to sort out the gordian knot of emotions that it brought out.

I let out a hiss of surprise as the coffin interface sent me a text pop-up without warning, sending the floating box into the top right of the mirror with a flick of my wrist. It was a text from my phone, which had my account set up to be able to see messages when I got them in VR.

Crap. How was I going to explain all this to him? Logically, I knew I could just log out and make another character quickly - appearance usually took the longest, but I was planning on hand waving that part anyways. But as I looked into my crystal blue eyes, I realised that I didn’t want to. It was like I was seeing a part of my soul that had been hidden under layers and layers of denial, depression and anxiety finally stripped bare.

I stored those thoughts away for the moment, I would have time to unpack all this later. But I was definitely not giving up this body. It’s totally normal for guys to play as girls and vice-versa, right?

Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

Eugh. Why did that feel so wrong all of a sudden? Seeing that male name attached to how I looked now just made it feel… Gross.

I knew that last part would get him riled up as I dismissed the window. I wanted more time to adjust to my new body, but there was a whole laundry list of errands I needed to run here on Union Station before I met up with them. There were basic equipment packages for new players I needed to grab, I needed to check my account bank to see if I’d left anything useful behind from the last character, and I needed to spend time learning about my new stats and planning how they could help my build.

I popped open my inventory quickly, and equipped the default grey jumpsuit and underwear that the game gave you for free on a respawn. I was honestly quite grateful for the system being able to materialise the clothes onto me. I didn’t want to spend the precious little time I had to get things done on learning how to do up a bra properly. I was even more thankful when I realised that it also helpfully threaded my tail through a special hole at the base of my spine in the jumpsuit, which knowing how uncoordinated I usually was, would’ve taken me far too long.

With one last look in the mirror, and an affirming ‘you got this’ nod to myself, I stepped out of the hospital room. It’d been a while, but the devs never changed the layout here, and I quickly found my way down to the lobby with no interaction with anyone else. Honestly I wasn’t sure I was ready to deal with other players yet, and with it being the middle of a working day IRL, the lobby was mercifully empty.

I brought up my station map quickly, and planned out my route. I needed to hit the pharmacy for healing supplies, the Combat Surplus shop for the introductory personal weapons, Delighla’s Shield for a spacesuit, and finally the General Store for the various other miscellaneous items that any player may need, like food. Planning, however, was interrupted by a hand tapping me on the shoulder.

“Uh, excuse me, Miss…?”

I turned, coming face to breast with another new player. She was a giant of a woman, easily a couple feet taller than me as I looked up at her. She had a tangle of short ginger hair, and was built like a semi-truck.

“Uhhhhh… Hi?” I said dumbly, too caught off guard for my brain to process any words beyond that. Damn, my voice was pretty!

“Uh… Hi. I’m Avalyn. I was just curious, you had this look on your face like you knew what you were doing, and I was kinda hoping you’d be able to help me out?” She said, her voice far more gentle than her size would have led one to expect, “I’m new to this game and I have no clue what I’m doing.”

“Oh, shit, sorry,” I laughed out softly, putting up the confident mask once again as I tried to slip into what I needed to be at the moment. “Yeah, I was about to do the circuit to pick up all the equipment you get for free at the start of the game.”

“Oh awesome! Thanks… Uh… I don’t think I got your name, sorry.” She said, as if she was trying to remember if I had said it or not. I put up a hand to stop her.

“I’m… Kaela.” I replied, using the name the system message had called me earlier. It felt right in the moment, at least.

She nodded slowly, a smile blooming on her face, “Kaela… That’s a really pretty name.”

“Thanks, uh… The game picked it out for me.” I laughed softly. “C’mon, I’m in a bit of a time crunch. I was going to meet up with some friends from real life, so let's go get this done.”

The both of us set off into the massive atrium that spanned a large section of the station’s center. The massive domed glass roof let in the view of the beautiful stars above, which Avalyn took a moment to admire. I had to admit, even as a veteran of this game it was still a stunning sight: a nebula filling the backdrop of stars with a wash of reds and blues.

Eventually I had to grab Avalyn’s wrist and pull her along. The walk to the pharmacy wasn’t far with it being strategically placed just outside the hospital, we were in and out quickly with our healing supplies and off to the next destination. The Combat Surplus was next, but that was a longer journey to almost the opposite side of the market. Most of the stores we passed on our way through the commerce zone were player owned shops, often left to be run by hired NPCs.

The walk with Avalyn was generally quiet, the both of us clearly being socially awkward nerds who didn’t know how to properly start up a conversation. It was starting to get unbearable however, so I began to ask about what skills she took and what she was planning on doing. Apparently, her friends were part of a small mercenary team who’d recently lost their main heavy to a rival company. She’d been invited to join and had picked a solid ground combat build based around the heaviest weapons you could carry onto the battlefield. The image of her wielding a minigun and mowing down waves of aliens was a very attractive one to my emotional quagmire of a brain, even if it clashed heavily with the overly polite person I was talking to.

We spent the rest of the shopping like this, chatting about what kind of equipment she needed and what starter gear would best suit her playstyle. I decided to wait on checking what my account bank looked like for the moment. It was something I could deal with once I was finished meeting up with Soren and Lea, and that gave Avalyn and I more time to work out what she needed.

As we finished up at the general store, she told me that her friends were finally online and coming to get her. We parted at that point, though I taught her how to do the contact sharing fist bump as we added each other to our friends list.

Then, I was alone again. With a sigh, I turned towards Amy’s Coffee Shop to meet up with Soren and Lea. This was going to be a fun conversation.