Norrie enjoyed herself rather well at the party at the "Slaughterhouse Party." It was certainly different from what she'd been used to in Alabama in recent years, but in some ways it wasn't quite too different from things she remembered growing up. While she wasn't as old as Andrew or even Effie, she HAD grown up in the sixties with her parents being certified hippies believing in free love and everything that went along with it. At times as she grew up, she found some of those things odd, but when Animalia came about and the reports seemed to indicate that Animalians were biologically easily aroused and far more open and accepting about certain things, it did remind her scenes growing up and the supposed story from her parents that she was conceived at "Woodstock."
But in time the sixties ended and her folks ended up settling down as Norrie's needs as Sherry got bigger. They may have been hippies, but that didn't mean they were "against" education the way her grandparents claimed. They ended up running a small shop that sold herbal remedies, ranging from tea to scented candles and the things like that, often playing to what they'd been in the sixties. And they'd done rather well and it became a good business, which Sherry had helped out with and inherited when her parents were too old to carry on. But by that point, going through the seventies and eighties, Sherry had found herself approaching things from a more business attitude rather than the carefree manner that her parents had run the store. She did reasonably well, and actually did better than her parents did, but there were some differences that older customers noticed. Sherry had been polite and courteous, but simply in a different way from the way her parents had been.
As these differences came, Sherry had felt some friction with her parents who never really gave up on being hippies. Sure they didn't ride around in a van and party all the time, but they did love each other and they both enjoyed music. Sherry had found herself being drawn into points that were more conservative than her parents, and while they'd remained close and friendly, there was the sense that they disagreed with her. Unfortunately, Sherry had never realized how much until after they died and many of the costumers who came in to see her parents stopped coming in. She did well enough to retire on, but she'd found herself largely alone. Effie and Andrew were decent friends and neighbors, but never anything more than that, and Sherry had retained a great urge to remain in her home.
"And now here I am," Norrie thought to herself as she danced along with Tyra and Andrew as an Ornithocheirus Simus Animalian with hips and a bust that were easily bigger than she'd had before, "Totally reinvented... new name... new body... new species even... Mom and dad might actually be proud of me..."
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
"Wow... Effie... you..." Sherry said slowly in the spot in Horizon Labs that she'd been brought to finding Tyra there and enjoying being a Dinotopian very much. "You look different."
She was presently in a modest office with Tyra standing to one side of the main desk and a calm Doctor Stein seated behind it. For the moment the scientist remained quiet while she and Tyra talked.
"Yes, yes, I do," Tyra gave a toothy grin, "big, buff, buxom, beautiful."
Sherry watched as Tyra ran her hands along her curves and slowly spun around giving a show of the stylized clothes that were specially made to cover her. Sherry noted that they seemed to fit well, but were also in a sort of style that she'd never known Effie Wilcox to wear.
"But I'm Tyra, now, Tyra Wrex," Tyra said happily.
Sherry raised an eyebrow in some confusion, "Tyra?"
"It's a new beginning for me... being a Dinotopian, and sure I got to get Heather back on the straight and narrow, but it's still a new beginning," Tyra answered, "It's actually been kinda fun. Not to mention that I got to be young again. All thanks to something in my blood that shows some connection to ancient reptiles that allowed for the transformation."
"I see..." Sherry said slowly and looked down to her lap for a moment.
She looked down to see the same old tan pants she'd almost always wore. They were soft and comfortable and didn't pinch anywhere. Wresting in her lap were her own wrinkled hands. Time hadn't been bad to her, but she knew she was getting on in years now, and being younger than Effie was didn't mean much. In many ways, Sherry had felt content with many of the things she'd done in life, but at the same time she remembered how things had ended with her parents. They hadn't been bad, but as the shop fell off in terms of the costumers that came in after her parents died, Sherry got the sense that she'd missed something somewhere. It was something that required a new start, and thus why she agreed to come to Nevada after getting a message from Tyra talking about the project Horizon was working on. And given all that went around with Animalia and Horizon, Sherry had some idea on what it was.
"I was expecting something that related to Animalia," Sherry commented, "though... dinosaurs was never quite what I'd imagined..."
"It is something different, isn't it?" Tyra chuckled, "but there's nothing wrong with different, right?"
"No, no I suppose not," Sherry gave a shrug and looked over to Doctor Stein, "and I take it your offer and request is part of this dinosaur project?"
"In a sense," Doctor Stein nodded, "but a bit different from what we've done with Andrew Thomas. As part of the experiments for Project Dinotopia relates to a different group of reptiles and some questions that we have scientifically..."
"A different group?" Sherry wondered.
"With pterosaurs," Doctor Stein nodded, "one of our lab volunteers is our first official volunteer for Project Dinotopia/Mesozoic and does wish to be a pterosaur... However, she is a minor, and while we've been informed that parental consent for conversion has been given... THAT won't happen until next summer when Project Mesozoic goes public..."
"What is in this Project?" Sherry asked.
"For the moment, it will mean that Dinotopian strains of the Animalia Virus will be openly available at that point for anyone that wishes to join and we hope that all aspects of the project will be ready... including all the available DNA that can be collected," Doctor Stein answered, "There is also some talk of establishing an Animalian Colony, like Mieni or the Amazon, for Dinotopians... though to my knowledge there has actually been a sort of debate on where it should be. There has been talk of a island in the Caribbean, but with all the hurricane damage there... some have voiced a preference for a more inland location. Supposedly a group running Dinosaur Valley State Park near Glen Rose, Texas has offered a deal if Animalia would consider locating the colony there and will even compensate local land owners to build next to the park and the city... But that's not really Horizon's part in the project."
"But you wish me to be a pterosaur," Sherry said slowly.
"Yes, specifically a Ornithocheirus Simus," Doctor Stein nodded, "It'll serve to answer for sure where your wings would be... would they grow on your back the way other flying Animalians have, or would the natural wing structure of pterosaurs with multiple fingers mean that your arms will be your wings. You likely wouldn't lose the use of your arms if it is the latter, though admittedly that could require some adjustment... though tests on blood samples seem to mirror the way the transformation of humans to bird or bat Animalians has gone, so we think it would be the former... but we don't know for sure. Thus... the main test... However, because of that nature, we need your willing consent to the project and we'll need it in writing."
"And if I say no?" Sherry asked, "Or ask to be a different kind of Animalian?"
"Then you'd be given the conversion of your choice free of charge, payment, since it was through Tyra that we invited you here," Doctor Stein spoke, "and if you'd prefer to remain human... we'll compensate you for both the flight here and the flight home."
Sherry glanced to Tyra who stood by quietly for a moment. The thoughts of what Tyra had said in it being a "new start" and how she'd wished to have a new start in her own life after her parent's death. It might be different and certainly wasn't what she expected, but then that WOULD be a new start. She eventually looked back to Doctor Stein and gave her answer.
"Well... It's different, but I'll go with it," Sherry spoke, "For the sake of a new start."
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Sherry was eventually moved to a different room, which was oddly set up like a bedroom, though she imagined that was due to the fact that many people that were double dosed as Animalians needed some place quiet and comfortable for that. Some might even be romantic couples and were being transformed together. She was presently in a sort of dressing gown as she figured her old clothes might not work anymore. After all, becoming an Animalian had the potential for a lot of growth. Even smaller animals, mice, squirrels, rabbits, and song birds when they were uplifted grew to a point where they were comparable to a human in weight, which is a tremendous amount of growth for the animal given its original body size.
And conversion to larger animals would mean a great deal of growth for humans. Though, there seemed to be a set size range for Animalians, and larger animals that were above that size range shrank down a bit to fit in that size range. They'd still be bigger than humans, but not by the same degree that they were in their "normal" forms. And guessing that she would go through a sizeable amount of growth, Sherry accepted a medical gown, as while she might not be able to where her old clothes again, she didn't want to destroy them either.
"Are you ready?" said a young man spoke as Sherry looked over to him and noticed the syringes he held.
"As ready as I'll ever be," Sherry spoke, "Go ahead."
The man then approached lifted up the sleeve on her gown and then dabbed her shoulder with an alcohol swab and then readied the syringes. Sherry watched as the injected her twice, running each dosage of the specific Dinotopian strain of the Animalia Virus in. He nodded to her has he finished and then he left the room. As he left, though, Sherry could already feel her body growing warm as the transformation into something... more began.
Muscle fibers began to tighten and grow, and Sherry raised hands to watch a series of short claws seemed to grow out. At the same time, she noticed a series of gold colored scales on her skin. As she lifted her arm up to look to her hand, she noticed that the muscles in her arms growing larger and more toned, and while it didn't match Tyra's in size Sherry couldn't help but marvel at it. She staggered forward a few steps as she began to feel herself rising slightly taller. She knew she was transforming and she moved in the hopes of finding a mirror so she could more of what she was becoming.
Sherry looked down to see that her feet were changing, with the ankle and foot bones growing slightly longer. Her big toe had actually gotten smaller and was sliding up toward her ankle, becoming something of a dew claw while her pinkie toe and the toe next to it seemed to merge together. They were forming into feet that were similar to the splayed three toed feet that Tyra had, though her scales were more of a golden color. Sherry could also see that her leg muscles had also grown larger and better toned. Her feet hurt a little bit, but that seemed to be subsiding already.
She made it to a small sort of bathroom mirror and could soon notice several other changes. Her hair had largely fallen out, leaving her with a largely bald head other than the gold colored scales, but at the same time her age lines and wrinkles were gone. In fact for the moment her skin looked as young as it did when she was in her twenties, just as it did when she'd first started to find herself and studied into business management. She brought up her hands to feel her face for a moment to feel her cheeks. It felt smooth and youthful, but almost as soon as she touched her checks, the next part of her transformation kicked.
It came with a shot of pain that forced her to close her eyes tightly, as her skull began to push forward at the nose and jaw. A small nub tail grew out behind her, but on her it was like a bobcat's tail and wasn't very long, and for the moment, Sherry was more focused on the pain in her face as her skull altered to be closer to that of Ornithocheirus Simus and with a throbbing pain on her back, but the cracking sounds as he jaw pushed forward was what held her attention. The growing beak was long and pointed, and while her face had pushed forward, Sherry's nostrils were half way down her beak.
Opening her eyes, she soon saw the full set of changes. Her beak was fairly long with a vertical crest at its very tip. It was a half circle at the front of both her upper and lower jaws, and it was thinner than the rest of her jaws that made her beak. She also noted that her teeth and hall become pointed and went straight, all the better to eat fish with, though they were smaller than Tyra's.
"Of course... it isn't a competition," Sherry mused to herself as she recovered the growth of her beak, though this only lasted a few moments as her wings soon burst up and out from her and grew to an impressive wingspan. One wing actually pushed her away from the wall as they grew out behind her. It hurt for a moment and Sherry gave something a squawk as they grew, but she did recover. She then tentatively moved her wings with their 8.2 feet wingspan. She found that as she moved them she could feel the movement of the air in the room as her wing's membranes moved and that she could determine the nature of the movement and how strong the movement was.
"Amazing," Sherry mused slowly again as another rush came on, as she began to grow slightly taller and slightly more muscular. She was still much smaller than Tyra, and likely weighed close to that of a human, but she knew that she was bigger than she was before and definitely stronger. At the same time she figured she would also get to fly, but at the moment the greatest amount of growth soon began as her breasts began to swell in size and perk up. They regained the firmness of her younger days but had greatly grown in size, and Sherry felt herself moan heavily as her transformation finished.
There was a knock at the door that caught her attention and she turned to it. She was thankful that the medical gown wasn't destroyed, but then the gown didn't have a back and Sherry had initially felt it did fit a bit big on her before. Now, it was a bit tighter on her and did just enough to protect her modesty.
"Come in," Sherry said slowly.
It was a female bat Animalian that entered. She seemed well dressed and had her wings cloaked with only the wing thumb gripping the top of her shoulders.
"Greetings, I am Ms. Vivian," I will be taking your measurements so that we may get clothing that will properly fit you, Miss..."
"Simus, Norrie Simus," Sherry spoke. She couldn't pronounce Ornithocheirus Simus, and since she had done this to get a new start, she figured to include that with a new name, and truly a new start.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
"And it is a new start," Norrie mused to herself as she enjoyed herself at the Slaughterhouse's Halloween Party, "I can fly now... and I joined a society that mom and dad would have liked... Maybe I can start the shop up again here... and do it right... the way mom and dad did."
As she glanced to both Tyra and Andrew, Norrie figured that in a way this new life might be even better than it was in the past. As they had been decent friends back in the "old days," and at times she'd felt like she'd learned a lot from Tyra's experience as Effie. Now, maybe they'd all find new lives together with new friends, love, new adventures, and get the best shot at a the closest thing to a do-over that life had.