Lars was quite pleased for the reunion with his old college fraternity friends, primarily as they were friends that he got along well with. He knew he'd have to return to Salt Lake City eventually as the job he had wouldn't let him "work from home" forever. Things with Nicole were moving fairly well and he figured he was getting closer to figuring out just what her game was. He wouldn't hate her for it and he had the sense that she was coming around to him in a way that went beyond the game she had started. Of course some of it was a bit embarrassing, but Lars considered the fact that Nicole remained interested a victory. All that was left was to get his old friends back together, and these five were the ones to come along with it.
"Man, you're looking good... for a fox," Mark said as he lead the way, "though... why?"
"Why a Fennec Fox?" Lars finished, "to match my son and impress a female Fennec that came to let me know what Philip was up to... which was apparently dating the female's double dosed mother."
There was a collection of whistles from the four of them, Mark leading the way with Kenneth, Richard, and Greg following. Timothy wasn't there, so far as Lars knew he was still on his way. The meeting at Horizon was largely just to be part of Lars sponsoring his friend's conversions, which Lars was also happy that they'd accepted.
"Must make for some interesting dates," Richard quipped.
"In a way... and the young lady has a whole teenage rebellion thing going on, despite the fact that she's at least in her mid twenties," Lars answered, "and Philip's behaved as I've raised him to be. Respectful... so I don't think there will be any real trouble. Besides, from what asking around I've done... it seems that there have been a fair number of double dosed parents and children out there. The parent and child now being the same age in terms of physical form and to a certain degree picking up some intelligence in the process. From what they described, the relationship became more like siblings than parents."
"Makes sense," Greg nodded, "with all the reporting on what the Animalia Virus does regarding age... those sorts of things happen as parent and child then find themselves being the same physical age."
"And in some ways I feel that way too!" Lars bragged, "Philip looks great... and I feel great now too!"
"You certainly look good, too," Richard chuckled, "I'd hope that such a conversion would help me shed a few of my excess pounds."
With that, Richard then patted his rather round middle. He wasn't grossly overweight and had worked out a fair bit in college, but he did like to eat and most of his work outs were more to build muscle than burn fat. The result was that while he was fairly strong, he had put on a fair amount of weight in college. He'd lost some of it, but not all of it, and the extra large blue Boise State tee-shirt was stretched to its limits to contain his presently human form.
"It will," Lars promised, "I assure you of that."
From there, they went in and went through the fairly standard practice. Mark, Kenneth, Richard, and Greg finished out their paperwork for what they wished to convert to. Mark chose a Jaguar, Kenneth a Gray Wolf, Richard a Grizzly Bear, and Greg a Siberian Tiger. Lars went with them from the lobby to the waiting area and waited as each of his friends went through their conversions and then came back to join him in that waiting area. It let them all catch up on other things as they waited.
"So other than this Fennec Vixen you've been courting... what's the dating scene like here?" Kenneth inquired as they sat in a chair while the opening rounds of March Madness were being played on a television in the room, "I mean... with how well built Animalians seem to be..."
"It's active... or can be," Lars answered, "though it isn't non-stop sex at random if that's what you're asking. And since I've been working to win over one Fennec Vixen, I really can't say on what the whole dating scene is like."
"The Hunter hasn't lost his touch, I see," Greg laughed.
"It'd be a bit more serious this time around," Kenneth huffed, "I flirted too much in college, and while, yeah, I won some dates and had fun... nothing lasted for long. And by the time I got past that stage, I'd built up enough of a reputation that most women looking out for their careers and futures wouldn't touch me with a ten foot pole."
"You may still have to be careful there," Lars commented, "most of the Wolves and Dogs that are in Lyre or Animalia work with either the Lyre PD or the Animalia PD. Pretty career driven... and a few might already have mates."
Kenneth nodded, "Yeah... be smart... say that I'm looking for love and not just a one night stand. Shouldn't be too hard."
The others nodded as they sat there waiting, though it wasn't too long before Lars' huge ears picked up footsteps on the tile in the hallway. They were rather soft and didn't have the hard click of a shoe or a pointed click of a canine Animalian's claws. He then turned as Mark came into view in his new Animalian form, and the group could only grin at that as Mark gave a confident smile, showing his new fangs and flexed showing an impressive amount of muscle that the slightly larger shirt and shorts that Horizon had likely given him post transformation struggled to contain. While the Jaguar in terms of its height and length was about the same as the Leopard, it had a noted difference in being far more muscular. Its head was also broader than the Leopard's and it made for a far more powerful build and helped set the Jaguar as the third largest member of the cat family.
"This does feel good!" Mark commented with a smile and with a flick of his tail. It wasn't as long as the tails of Leopard Animalians and the spots were different with a larger rosette and with small spots inside the "circle" of the rosette that the main part of a Jaguar or Leopard's spots were. "It's like little tax filing accountant to body builder in one treatment! And I actually feel more athletic now... almost graceful."
As he came onto the carpet in the waiting room, however, Mark extended one claw without knowing it and tripped a little as he moved to a seat next to Lars and while Kenneth was lead for his conversion with Doctor Stein and Judy leading away Greg. The trip earned a small bit of laughter from Lars and Richard.
"Almost graceful sounds about right," Richard laughed.
"I will wrestle you when you've converted and we'll see who wins, Bear of Jaguar," Mark vowed with a point.
Richard only smirked and said, "Bear."
The rotation through the conversions followed a similar pattern. Both Kenneth and Greg came back confident and pleased with their transformations. Richard's was even more impressive and when Mark saw the brown furred tower of muscle that Richard grew into the prospect of a wrestling match between rapidly went away. From there, they went about paying for the conversions and going about the business of acquiring clothing that would fit them all.
"Did you contact Tim?" Greg wondered as they made their way out of Horizon.
"Yeah... I did and he seemed up to it," Lars answered, "but he had some things he had to work out with his employer first. He should be on his way here, now..."
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
It was about a week later that Timothy arrived in Lyre and went through the same process that his college friends had gone through. The meeting was fairly good, though there were some more remainders of when he and the others were in college. It wasn't too bad, though he thought all of them had grown out of that sort of thing. But he wasn't going to turn down his friends, particularly when at the same time he'd actually been interested in Animalia for quite awhile. Limited funds, however, had also meant that he'd had little opportunity for it, but the sponsorship that Lars had offered was enough to get him to come.
"Glad to see you could make it man," Lars said to Timothy as he lead his friend into Horizon.
"Well the sponsorship helped..." Timothy answered, "and I would have been here sooner, but I had to discuss some things with my boss in Colorado."
Lars nodded, remembering that Timothy worked as a sort of ranch hand for a group that ran a sort of "mountain trail tour" in Colorado. It gave people a view of the Rockies on horseback and thus got away from a lot of the mechanical sounds of cars, four wheelers, or anything else. From what Timothy had told Lars, it was like a sort of retreat for people to see the mountains and ride horses.
"I take it they had some restrictions?" Lars asked.
"Yeah, namely that I stay up to date on the vaccination for the Animalia Virus and that I do not turn any of their horses into Animalians," Timothy answered, "so... that'd make being the stud to tourists that come in difficult."
"Nah," Lars assured him, "from the way they tell me... is that the vaccine can be activated and deactivated at will. So you'd meet your future mare, you'd get one shot to deactivate the vaccine. You give her a bit of you, becomes a Mare Animalian, and then both of you take the vaccine and everything is normal. Or you could see if one of the local mares here would like to follow you to Colorado. There's supposedly this group of six that has been rather active in finding stallions and seeing which one they like."
"That sounds tricky," Timothy commented.
"All I'm saying is that it's an option," Lars answered, "and again, you'd be a handsome stallion and whoever you win over would surely want to come to Colorado and help out with you. You could then set up a new business that'd be even better. I mean... how many places do you go to ride horses and actually get to talk with the horse? You'd make money as a Horse Animalian."
"I'm not exactly looking to be a male prostitute," Timothy pointed out as they arrived and the counter and he got the last of the paperwork needed to file.
"And you wouldn't be," Lars answered, "maybe I had the poor choice of words. You'd still lead people on hikes and show them the mountains and people could talk to you. Learn about a real working Horse Animalian... that sort of thing."
Timothy nodded and carefully checked the paperwork over to make sure everything was spelled correctly.
"So... have you picked a breed?" Lars asked.
"Yeah... the Tennessee Walking Horse," Timothy answered, "I'd found on line that the breed's been used a fair amount on television and movies... and even as a college mascot."
"Boise State's mustang?" Lars wondered.
"No, USC's Traveler," Timothy answered, "they've used a Tennessee Walking Horse from time to time in the past. And since I'll still end up leading people up trails at a walking pace... might as well be a walking horse."
"Interesting," Lars answered.
"So where are the others?" Timothy wondered, "I'd thought they'd be with you..."
"Nah," Lars answered, "they have some acclimation classes, and Kenneth has picked up where he left off... though I think he's actually serious about finding Ms. Right than in the past... biggest hurdle will be that most of the wolves on the Animalia PD are already married."
"And the Hunter strikes again..." Timothy finished.