Miko Monaka slowly made her way up to the Horizon building with some quiet dignity, though between her advanced age and dealing with various cancers, a lot of that was a minor miracle in and of itself. Japan had had good doctors, but many of them had told her that with the different types of cancer combined with her age, most of the standard treatments could make survival difficult, but she wasn't ready to die yet. She had seen much in her life and she did want to go on living, if only to see what might come next. That had then left her with one option, Horizon and Animalia.
Her doctors had made the suggestion for the Animalia Virus to be used, as it had so far proved to be an almost universal "cure all" that actually worked. It was Doctor Yamamoto and his Animalian aid, Chel, who had met with her regarding some of Horizon's tests regarding Project Mesozoic and the various Dinotopian strains of the Animalia Virus. Miko had to admit that she was fascinated by a lot of that information, though a lot of that might have had more to do with her sons and then her grandsons playing with toy dinosaurs over the years. It had meant multiple trips to various Natural History museums. Some of the more recent trips had including seeing the revealed Gigantoraptor erlianensis, and with the happy approval of her sons and grandsons, Miko accepted and made her way to Nevada for the conversion.
As she approached the steps to Horizon, Miko found herself greeted by two Velociraptor Dinotopians and one Red-Crowned Crane Animalian. They stood politely and with a lot of respect.
"Hello," the Red-Crowned Crane Animalian spoke in Japanese, "I am Yurikazi, Maho and these are my daughters, Yuki and Sora. Welcome to Lyre, Nevada and Horizon's labs. They asked me to present for translating for you in case you do not know English... as many of the staff members do not know Japanese at all."
Maho and her daughters then bowed respectfully, which Miko managed to return with a small smile.
"Thank you," Miko answered in Japanese, "I am Monaka, Miko, and I am grateful for your assistance."
She was grateful for the respect and the considerations made for her. Her English WASN'T very strong. She gained a little bit of knowledge on the language during the American occupation of Japan after World War II, but not enough to be fluent in the language. Now, it wasn't that she couldn't learn, but English was a very difficult language for a non-native English speaker to learn, and even if she wanted to learn English, that would take time.
"We wanted to come because Horizon said you wanted to be a Gigantoraptor," Yuki spoke in Japanese, "which as us curious... I don't think there was a Dromaeosaur called Gigantoraptor."
"There isn't, young one," Miko gave a warm smile as she spoke her native language, "Gigantoraptor is an Oviraptorosaur. Like your species, Gigantoraptor is a Theropod, but from a slightly different Theropod branch."
"We are still curious," Sora spoke respectfully, "and we can help if you need new clothes."
That actually made Miko giggle. It was like talking with her grandsons, which made her smile as she looked to the their mother. It was interesting that Maho didn't become a Velociraptor like her daughters, but then she did become an animal that was well respected in Japanese culture.
"Then I suppose we'll all learn something together," Miko then replied, "Let us go in."
The three then nodded and lead the way. Sora held the door open and let Miko and Maho walk in together before she and Yuki brought up the rear. Miko noted the décor of the facility was far more friendly than what she would have expected. Given all the reporting on Horizon being a scientific research company and all that, she'd expected a rather bland and Spartan look to it, and while the hallways and rooms were kept very clean, they weren't devoid of decoration. In fact as they began to make their way into the wing where Project Phoenix was being handled, Miko began to notice more and more photographs of Animalians on the walls. Many of them were people that had converted and a few were noted as even Horizon staff members.
Eventually they were greeted by Doctor Stein. He gave a polite smile and offered Miko his hand.
"Hello, Mrs. Moe-nah-kah, I believe...?" Doctor Stein spoke a bit slowly and with a bit of unfamiliarity on how Miko's last name was pronounced.
"Monaka," Miko corrected, not needing a translation for her own name.
"Monaka," Doctor Stein repeated and after Miko nodded then continued with the introduction, "Welcome to Horizon Labs. You will be pleased to hear that all your forms are in order and we are ready to go. We had some hoops to jump through with regard to the Japanese government with regard to the Gigantoraptor bones... but things were successful."
"You are ready?" Miko asked after Maho translated what Doctor Stein had said into Japanese.
"Yes," Doctor Stein nodded, "we have everything we need and I have the two shots for your conversion in a special plastic container."
Miko then watched the doctor pat one of the pockets on his lab coat while Maho translated. She gave a slow nod at that, though Doctor Stein had more to say.
"Now, I've been talking with our presently resident paleontologist along with a couple of Chinese and Japanese paleontologists over the phone," Doctor Stein spoke, "and I've actually gotten conflicting reports on what Gigantoraptor might have eaten. There are certain aspects of Gigantoraptor that would be indicative of being a herbivore while many of those same features could be just as beneficial to being a carnivore... and would be reinforced by the fact that Gigantoraptor has long legs and sharp claws, which usually wouldn't be considered part of a herbivore's anatomy."
"Therizinosaurus has large claws on its hands but is felt to be a herbivore," Miko pointed out after she got the translation.
"Therizinosaurus also left us with teeth that would be indicative of eating plants and better suited to eating plants," Doctor Stein countered, "Gigantoraptor is toothless and its beaked mouth could easily do either. The scientists I talked to aren't one hundred percent sure... and as such they did ask me to ask you to say on your instincts, once you've transformed, will draw you to... herbivore, carnivore, or omnivore."
Miko eventually nodded. It was then that they began to make their way to one of the changing rooms. When they arrived there, Sora and Yuki were asked to wait outside the room while Maho only went in with Doctor Stein to continue to play her role as interpreter. After the instructions were relayed to her, Miko watched as Doctor Stein produced a small plastic box and opened it. Inside were the two syringes that were prepared with the two doses needed for Miko's conversion. From there, Doctor Stein provided the injections, gave a polite smile to Miko and made his way out to give her privacy.
"Welcome to Animalia," Maho said to Miko in Japanese before she too left the room.
Miko nodded. When the door clicked, she finally allowed herself to "relax" a bit more. She had spent a lot of her life maintaining some degree of respectability. Dealing with cancer had made that difficult and it had cost her natural hair, which had resorted to her having to wear a wig to conceal that. However, it had been noticed that while most non-mammal Animalians that had once been human kept their hair, no Dinotopian had kept their human hair. They either had the same sort of scales that were noticed in the few soft tissue fossils that had preserved or in the case of Sora and Yuki gained feathers entirely. In that, as her body began to feel warm, Miko slipped off her wig with the knowledge that as a Dinotopian, she'd never get her hair back and thus would HAVE to have her hair.
She set the wig down on the bed and began removing her clothing. Gigantoraptor wasn't the largest dinosaur by any means, as it's maximum length in the fossil record was around 26 feet long, which wasn't even close to the largest among Theropods. That size honor went to Spinosaurus. However, with the knowledge that Animalians were all quite strong and robust, Miko knew she would get bigger than she was now and didn't wish to destroy her clothing. As she slid off her shoes and socks, she'd found that her feet were already changing. Her middle two toes were merging together to form the three toed feet that was typical among Theropods with lengthening claws on her feet. They were also covered in rather bird like scales, and most similar to ground dwelling birds.
"Interesting," Miko thought to herself as she continued to remove the clothing she had come in with and placing them neatly on the bed.
As she did so, Miko also had the sensation that she was growing taller. Some of it might be in the lengthening of her feet into a more digitigrade stance, but that wasn't entirely it. Her neck was also getting longer and to a degree more flexible. It didn't hurt in the sense of being painful, though there was an ache that was there as new neck vertebra seemed to form. She rubbed the back of her neck with one hand as she made her way toward a mirror that was in the room. As she did so, she could also feel her pinkie finger shriveling down as the material that made up that finger was absorbed and moved to the enlargement of her other fingers and the claws that were slowly pushing out of each of them.
When she got to the front of the mirror, Miko looked to it and saw how much she had changed and was still changing. Her neck was definitely longer and between it and her now digitigrade feet, she stood at least eight feet tall, perhaps more. Not the largest among Dinotopians, but definitely taller than what she had been as a human and the average height of humans in Japan. A small bony crest was also forming on the top her head and her lips were starting harden, which Miko assumed would become part of the beak-like mouth that Gigantoraptor had. At the same time, her muscles were also growing and regaining their youthful vigor. In this arm and leg muscles that had been sagging as she had grown older grew tight and as she flexed them, she could see those muscles bulge and twitch.
"Most imp..." Miko began to say when her teeth actually fell out and jostled around in her mouth.
Knowing that Gigantoraptor was actually toothless, Miko raised her hands and bent her neck downward to drop the teeth she no longer needed into her hands. Once she was sure that all were out, she again traversed the room, this time to drop the teeth into a small garbage can that was next to the bed. She heard a small clicking sound as the hard bones that made up her boney mouth hit as she opened and closed her mouth. It was like a bird opening and closing its beak quickly, which in an odd way her own mouth now sort of resembled. Her head in profile was now rather rounded, as Gigantoraptor didn't have the long muzzle the way other Theropods did, but her mouth was decidedly more bird-like than other Theropods also.
"Most impressive," Miko then managed, though her being impressed with her new muscles was soon interrupted by a few new feelings.
One was the same sort of ache that she felt when her neck got longer. This time it was at the base of her spine. She looked over her shoulder, which was now easier with her longer neck to see a tail beginning to push out behind her. There was also an itching sensation that went along her arms, the back of her head and neck and running all the way down to her growing tail. Miko watched that not only was her tail getting longer, but she was also starting to grow feathers. They sort of resembled the sort of feathers on an Emu, but not quite as long or as thick. They were also a faded tan brown in color. Miko then shifted her glance to her arms, which actually had flight feathers of the same color growing there. It wasn't long before her arms almost looked like wings, just as Sora and Yuki's arms looked like. Though because Gigantoraptor didn't use its "wings" to fly, Miko knew that that was entirely for show... They might help with a controlled jump, for Sora and Yuki, or for keeping eggs warm for Miko, but not for flight.
However, her feathers didn't cover everything. Miko made her way back to the mirror and found outside of her arms, her tail, and a lone line of feathers that ran from the back of her head, down her back, and to her tail. The rest of her body was covered in scale pattern that mirrored the faded tan feathers she had now, which was to her eye more in line with the scale patterns on birds rather than most other reptiles. It looked like the underside of an Ostrich's foot. It left her with a rather naked view of her vagina, which looked and felt a bit aroused at the moment, her abs, which looked well sculpted, and then to her now large and firm breasts.
"This... this is new," Miko managed with some surprise and tentatively poked one of her newly grown mountains, making it bounce slightly and her eyes were captivated as the scales that formed her nipples went up and down.
Miko did manage to contain herself and turned to the door. She looked younger than she had before, like she was in her 20s again, but that didn't mean she could devote that newly gained energy into other pursuits. There were other responsibilities to tend to, and as such she made her way to the door. She opened carefully, though she kept her body behind the door as best she good before sticking her head out into the hallway. She looked to find that both Doctor Stein, Maho, Sora, and Yuki were all waiting.
"I am finished," Miko announced, "and am quite pleased with the new me... but I am afraid that my old clothing is too small. I would happily donate it to those in need, but I will need attire that will fit."
Maho nodded and translated that for Doctor Stein who nodded as well. Yuki and Sora also looked somewhat excited to a degree, and Miko thought she saw Yuki produce a tape measure that a professional tailor would use to take measurements for a suit. Though, Miko couldn't keep her attention on them for too long.
"We will have some larger spares we can share," Doctor Stein spoke, "They may not be perfect, but they'll do well enough until you can cat clothing that would be specifically made for you."
With that, Doctor Stein moved off without even attempting to try and catch a peep at Miko behind the door. A part of her was pleased with his professionalism and another part was actually disappointed. It was at this point that Maho and her daughters came in. It soon made the height that Miko had gained. Before she had entered Horizon, she was actually an inch shorter than the two Velociraptor Dinotopians, now she practically towered over them.
"Sora and Yuki can help with getting you ready for a visit to the various tailors that are here in Lyre and Animalia," Maho spoke as Yuki hopped onto the bed with the tape measure, "They've actually been apprenticing with a couple of them... particularly in the fact that there many differences that Animalians have that mean that the machine made clothing that is so common today wouldn't work."
Maho stepped back and extended her wings out from her back, showing a rather impressive wingspan.
"We bird Animalians have our wings that will need to be accounted for," Maho spoke, "the bat Animalians and likely the Pterosaur Animalians will have the same issue."
Maho then folded her wings back to a resting position on her back before continuing.
"Various megafauna Animalians... the Elephants, Rhinoceroses, Hippopotamuses, and Whale Animalians have size issues," Maho continued, "and many of the Dinotopians have that problem to an extreme... and at the same time some of their adaptations are difficult."
"There are two Stegosaurs that need to have clothing arranged so that they don't interfere with their back plates," Yuki commented.
"And there are two Ceratopsians that can't wear a shirt that isn't a button down shirt because of their frills," Sora added.
"But these special needs have created a sort of special market for tailors," Maho then picked up the explanation, "which Sora and Yuki have earned apprenticeships with."
"Among other things," Sora admitted.
"Like design!" Yuki added with some flair in her voice, "putting clothes together is only half the fun. We come up with something trendy for Animalians... and Dinotopians in particular... it'll be great!"
Miko found herself chuckling at the display. Sora was clearly the shyer of the two siblings, but there was something about Yuki's excitement that reminded her of her own grandsons, who she was sure would be excited to see the new her. But for the moment, she would need her measurements to be taken, get her clothing, and obviously the vaccination, since the alterations that were made to allow for Dinotopian conversions had essentially restored the infectiousness of the Animalia Virus in them.