“And that’s been your KellyKoKat for today. Don't forget to like, comment and subscribe and c’nya soon!” With a sigh Kelly Katze, known on the internet as KellyKoKat, turned off her webcam and leaned back in her seat.
She did enjoy her hobby as an internet influencer to the point the college student hoped she could turn it into a full-time job like many other more popular examples, but recently she got more and more diminishing returns. And she was certain who was to blame, VTubers. Her own content was perfectly fine, of course. This new trend that suddenly popped out of Japan, of course, where people would just program an image of a random anime girl to copy their movement and to pretend to be that character. She really couldn't see the appeal of some fake images with big boobs wobbling their cute heads left and right. Okay, maybe she did understand it a bit.
Ever since the VTuber boom KellyKoKat’s views had been on a downward spiral and nothing she did seemed to help. Maybe she really should put all her focus on her education again. What would her internet colleagues say? Another sigh as she moved a hand through her shoulder-length brown hair. She needed something to clear her mind, like a short walk across campus. So that's what she decided to do.
Unfortunately it didn't help much. Halfway through her walk she came to the conclusion that it was a waste of time and decided to take a shortcut back to her dorm for plan B, drowning her sorrows in ice cream. Said shortcut led her through a slightly forested area at the edge of campus. Usually she didn't have much trouble climbing across the tree roots, but this time she tripped and barely saved herself from faceplanting in a bush. That's when she discovered a strange metallic case.
If anything Kelly was a quick thinker and could smell a chance. Whatever was in this mysterious case abandoned in the woods could be her ticket to stardom. Even if it would cause a major controversy around her, it would cause her views to skyrocket. There's no such thing as bad publicity, is what she told her slightly desperate mind.
She quickly took out her phone and started streaming. “Hello, everyone! I know this isn't my usual streaming time, especially because I just finished one, but I was taking a short walk across the area and see what I found!” She pointed her phone from her face to the metallic case. As she took great care to show the mysterious item from all sites, it also gave her a good chance to look at the reactions of her viewers.
“Wow”
“That looks fake as hell”
“Prolly a pr stunt”
“Is she really trying to copy that guy”
“She has been losing viwers recently“
Pretty much what she expected. How many people would buy such a story anyways? KellyKoKat needed to put in some effort. “I promise you people, this is not fake. I have no idea what could be in there or who it belongs to. But I’m dying to find out. Just imagine, it could be a valuable heirloom, a hint towards a long lost treasure or maybe even a serial killer’s forgotten trophy. The only way to find out is to open it.”
It took some fumbling, but finally Kelly managed to open the case, only to reveal what looked like a chrome wand in between some unnaturally glowing rocks. “A-a toy?”
“Hahaha!”
“Lol”
“That was anticlimactic”
“Some cosplayers likely searching for it”
“Hey, anyone seen Sakura’s last stream?”
“Wow, that’s cringe”
“Oh yeah, I did, Sakura’s my favorite vtuber”
“Man, I love her”
“She's so relatable”
Kelly watched in utter disbelief, as her own chat devolved into more mindless VTuber praising. Desperately she waved the wand around, pointed it at stuff and even hit it against a tree trunk a few times, but nothing helped. Kelly slumped to the ground, her still filming phone forgotten.
“What am I doing wrong?” Kelly whispered out loud, the wand still in her hand. “I just want to make it big. I wish I could be just as good and famous as these VTubers.”
[COMMAND DETECTED…]
[ANALYZING VARIABLES…]
[EXECUTE]
A bright light suddenly shot out of the wand that entirely engulfed Kelly before she could even raise her hand to shield her eyes. Kelly didn't know what was happening, but wasn't able to cry out in distress. She could feel parts of her body, thankfully painlessly, move, shift and morph against her control. Whatever was happening to Kelly stopped again and the lights died down, leaving her sitting down in the woods dazed.
“What… just happened?”
Kelly noticed her propped up, still streaming phone and chanced a look at the chat in hopes of an answer. The comments there surprised her.
“Whoa”
“That's a light show”
“Obviously fake”
“Looks…interesting”
“Hawt #NotAFurry”
“How did she do these effects?”
“Weirdest. VTuber Debut. Ever”
“If you cant beat them hjoin them”
And many more comments of this kind were added every second. Kelly had no idea what was going on. Only then did she notice that the hand she used to look through the chat looked completely different and as it turned out, it wasn't just her hand either.
She took a few steps back to get a good look of herself through her stream and gasped loudly at what she saw. Gone was the good-looking college student, in her place was what seemed to be a giant furry. A human-sized, anthropomorphic cat with bright pink and white striped fur. Even her hands were just giant paws with exaggerated paw pads, which somehow still had perfectly fine motor-control. The weirdest part was that her body didn't even feel like fur, more like some weird stretchy rubber or something. She didn't look normal or human at all anymore, more like she jumped out of an anime or video game, like… like a… like one of those…
“Like a VTuber…”
She looked like a VTuber had jumped straight out of the screen into the real world. Kelly looked down at the wand still gripped in one of her pa– hands. Did it do this? Did it listen to her crazy wish and turned her into this? And could it turn her back?
But then her eyes fell back onto the chat. Most of them were intrigued and fascinated by her form and it was beginning to gain attention. Maybe she could make use of this to become popular? Maybe she had finally been granted a chance.