You might be a little surprised at which animal Robert realized he wanted to be. He wanted to be a skunk. Sure, they stank a lot, but surely a skunk could put up with its own scent easily enough, couldn't it? Besides, that's the whole point: no one (human or animal!) wants to mess with a skunk, and if anyone wants to try, they find out quickly enough why no else does. He could live his whole life basically undisturbed. And he wouldn't have to put up with other people pestering him and judging his grades and his clothes. Just a simple, well-defended animal living free in the wild.
So he typed in the settings and clicked Transform. The world went dark for a moment, and then he found himself out in the middle of a forest. He whipped his head around and trembled a little bit. He was only half expecting the machine to work! But when he realized he had actually been teleported to an animal's proper habitat, he started to feel more expectant. Suspense coursed through him as he waited to see what was next.
What was next turned out to be his fingernails, or rather, his claws. They'd already stretched out into points, and now they were growing long and tubular before his eyes. He bounced from one foot to another, prancing for joy that he was getting his first animal parts! When the finished growing, Robert realized he had the perfect tools for a creature to dig with, having grown them right from his very own fingers. He twiddled them around in front of him, impressed by how long and sharp and thick they were!
And then he felt a tickle on his face: a big group of very sensitive things was twitching around up there. He brought a clawed hand up around his mouth and nose, and that was the first time he got to feel his whiskers. He just couldn't get over how long these massive hairs were, or how easy they were to move around, or how much he could feel through them. The sense of his hand brushing across them was really blowing his mind!
"I'll be a skunk in no time!" he exclaimed with a laugh, playing with his whiskers like a toddler who'd been given a new toy. As if in response to his encouragement, his whole face jolted and started to jut forward. Then it pushed out a little more, and a little more, and then even more, until his lips, nostrils and whiskers were far away out in front of him, and he could run his hands down the full length of the sharply slanted muzzle of a skunk.
"I just don't know how I can ever thank the makers of that program," thought Robert, silently because he couldn't talk. He looked down at his arms, legs, and chest and was overjoyed by the sight of rich black fur growing in. It felt so warm and cozy around him the more it grew. He new part of it was almost certainly white, if he could see it, but that would mainly be on his back where many skunks have their stripes. After he had managed to pass a minute or more by simply enjoying his fur, he felt a very pleasant feeling pass over his spine. It was like a warm massage somewhere inside his back, traveling down in waves from his neck to the end of his back. And then he began to feel it continuing further and further behind the end of his back. At first it was just in a straight line, and then he felt the angle change. And then he felt it change again. And then he chose the angle for himself. And he even felt the warmness of his fur around this new extension that was bending to his will.
Robert turned and gazed in awe at the luscious expanse of black and white behind him, just in time to watch it gain last few inches while he waved it back and forth. He felt a strange sort of pride upon seeing it. His tail completed him in a way he didn't think another human would understand.
By the time he was on all fours, he could tell from the height of the trees and grasses that he was shrinking, but he didn't care about his loss of size. He felt large as a mountain, knowing the sight of his stripes could cast terror into the hearts of things that towered over him. He could feel something warm and moist building up inside him underneath his tail, and he knew he'd never felt anything quite like that before. He realized he now had deep inside him what no one wants their pets to get sprayed with. Curious, he lifted his tail and tried it. It wasn't like spitting or going to the bathroom. He couldn't just will it to come out.
"It must only work when something's after me," he thought, half-disappointed. "It's probably for the best anyway. I'd probably use it all up just for fun!" Robert waddled off on his four little legs into the bushes, waiting to find out what sort of adventures he could get into as a skunk!