The scientists were panicked and confused when their virus didn't create the uplifted animals they'd hoped for. In fact, the newly (re)discovered type of energy the virus' drew upon intending to make the uplifted animals intelligent, reasonable, and have all the morality and acceptable world views that the majority of the population prescribed to... acted as though it had a life of its own, like it had given them the results they wanted only long enough to have the virus be engineered, and then escape... Some incredibly unscientific individuals who had been quickly dismissed from the project had jokingly called the new type of energy 'magic'...
One man who had been smart enough to keep his opinions to himself or lose his job whispered, "Magic... it used us?"
000
Abram and Nora were your average young couple, neither was the first's love, nor had they known each other since they were in diapers. But they had known each other since middle school, and had stayed closed all the way into their collage years.
Now Abram was thinking how to pop the question to her. And Nora was wondering if he was ever going to get the guts too. She liked him, she really did, but she wished he'd show some initiative, instead of just doing what others told him. And thinking how she was going to explain to her parents that she was failing languages.
The virus didn't care about such things. It mindlessly sensed the nearby presence of humans, and the collective force of countless microbes that were but a medium for the power they channeled...
The two enjoyed the quasi outdoors in their quant cabin in the woods, totally obvious to the science lab hidden underneath the distant lake that had been intended as the vector for the 'up-liftment virus' that in this timeline would never be.
The virus easily made its way past the cabin's mundane water filters, having been created by the scientists with this in mind...
They had barely drank their contaminated evening tea as a shockwave of power went through them.
They barely had time to look at each other as the fur spread over their bodies. Silver colored fur covered Abram's bodies in seconds, while golden fur grew just as fast on Nora.
Both felt their shoes and socks grow uncomfortable as they took them off to find their feet becoming digigrated, while their toe and finger nails became stubby little claws.
Both grew muzzles, but Abram's was longer and narrower than Nora's.
Both felt their ears grow larger and move to the top of their heads, but Abram's became pointed and triangular.
A black mask of fur formed around Nora's eyes, and a creamy belly. Meanwhile, Abram's from below his nose all the way down his belly turned snowy white.
Abram's body grew taller, slender, lithe, while Nora's became shorter, broader, and increasingly chubby by the moment!
Tails pushed out of their pants and skirt that they could feel like they were part of their bodies, but Nora's was stripped, while Abram's ended with a white tip.
Abram's eyes turned narrow and golden while Nora's became large deep and black. Both felt their teeth turn sharp and carnivorous.
Then... Abram grew two more tails, and two more... ending up with five tails.
Abram frantically tore his shirt off as his chest began to ache, and all too quickly a pair of impossibly full breasts emerged, and he, now she, felt what had been her manhood invert.
Nora felt her chest flatten as her belly rounded.. she had to take her skirt and under things off, getting impossibly tight.
Neither... felt scared, or worried... even what confusion there could be was fading fast.
Nora just watched as the pouch between her, his legs formed growing bigger and bigger along with the shaft it sported. It was impossible to hide and no underwear would have hidden it.
Neither felt the least bit modest, embarrassed, or ashamed, they knew they'd felt these things before, but now it all felt so gratuitous. The two tore off what clothing remained, feeling restricted.
The tanuki grinned ear to ear at the kitsune vixen, looking at her insanely desirable form. She looked down at him with a smile that would turn men to putty (not literally).
Knowledge that could be described as 'instinctive' for lack of a better work emerged within, without a second thought, seamlessly filling into the spaces. Both remembered they had been humans not a minute before... but it didn't really feel all that important.
"Dang, you look HOT sexy! Wanna have some fun?" Ask the tanuki in a brazen manner.
"Maybe later handsome," the kitsune laughed. "But the name's Asumi now, not 'Sexy.'"
"Well Asumi, as long as we're reintroducing each other, the name's Norio now!" Chuckled the tanuki, making his blubber wiggle like jelly.
"Well Norio, we should get going."
"Ahhhhhhh! Can't we stay and celebrate!? Those silly humans are gonna be panicking for a while."
"And that means they're going to be all the more eager to 'get rid of' proof of their failures. We are leaving right now."
Both knew that if they stayed, there was a chance they could be caught before things had a chance to pick up their momentum. They had to leave. Neither needed to ask if the other knew it too, they knew it like they knew how to breath.
"Well, let me just grab a few things-"
"Nothing that can be traced, not until the momentum had been built up. They have to have no idea what they're even looking for!"
"... I gotta say babe, I'm liking this new 'take charge attitude' of yours, you deserve a reward." Norio wiggled his hips.
Asumi rolled her eyes. "I promise handsome, later."
The two left the cabin and the lives of the humans they'd been in it, without even bothering to look back.
--
The staff at the state border, certainly didn't give a fox statue and an oversized tanuki figurine a second look, well, they did give one to the tanuki and the oversized feature between its legs, wondering what weirdo ordered this.
Using the US postage, the kitsune and tanuki left their state behind without a hitch. But they were hardly the only former humans that now existed, but if they were going to increase more of their kind, then they needed not to have a confrontation with the national guard or some fearful lunatic who'd drop an atomic bomb on them. Thankfully for now, the lab that had created the virus were desperately trying to cover their own rear, their own real failed purpose one they were desperately trying to keep hidden while at the same time having to warn about the virus' existence in some manner that wouldn't cause a panic.
After the two statues were delivered to the old building as a drop off with no signature required, the kitsune and tanuki examined what was to be their new home.
"Geeze, this shrine looks like it hasn't seen a feather duster in decades," said Norio.
"It's a fixer upper to be sure... " Asumi took on the former of a beautiful woman in a traditional Japanese dress, then shape changed into something more modern. "But nothing we can't handle."
Stand in front of a cracked mirror, Norio turned into an old Chinese man, a handsome young frenchman, a bango drum, a boogie board, before shifting back to his true form. "Nothing that a little magic can't fix."
"And we won't be alone... we'll have more of our kind around here in no time."
There was no way to know for sure what creatures those infected would become, though those related tended to become similar creatures. Or that was what the two understood with what they just knew since their transformation.
Asumi didn't give her life as Abram a second thought, nor did Norio his life as Nora, it was like those memories belonged to a previous incarnation.
Asumi grabbed some leaves, that turned into wads of cold hard cash that an FBI agent wouldn't be able to tell from the real deal.
"Let's hit the town and spread the gift and see what we get!"
"Hey babe, one promise."
"I don't give promises lightly handsome."
"After we've got our own little community going, let's get married."
Asumi laughed. At herself, and at her former self's old cowardice. Norio's sulked. Asumi said quickly. "Yes. I promise."
"Do you think our kits will be hybrids or just a mix of each?"
"I don't know either, but it'll be fun to find out!"