"You're not old enough..." Rachael asked.
"Technically we're old enough to come into most places like..." Roland answered, "as we turned eighteen during our Senior Year at WSA in Lyre/Animalia, and we just got through our sophomore year at SMU in Texas. So... we're only twenty now."
"Old enough to get drafted and not old enough to drink," Rachael chuckled, "at least not anything alcoholic."
"That's about it," Sophie nodded and gave a bit of a laugh, "Do you know on how many locals are here? Like from Mesozoic Enclave's sister city?"
Rachael chuckled heartily, "most of the Humans that are here are from the local area... it always surprises me. Most of these people would sanctimoniously protest about Animalians being more open with their sexuality and built to attract those they'd want to mate with... because Animalians aren't Human or aren't "religious" enough... and all sorts of other things, and then when exposed to it or getting the option to visit... they're suddenly interested."
"What's good for me is not for thee," Roland commented and chomped his beak down, letting it close with an audible "click."
Rachael nodded.
"So... can I ask what kind of raptor you became?" Sophie wondered.
"Oh, that one is easy," Rachael gave a toothy grin, "After Dominion came out... I got a bit interested in Pyroraptor, a relatively small raptor from southern France and northern Spain... I can tell you about it... if you like?"
Sophie and Roland both nodded.
"Well..." Rachael began her tale...
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
"I can't believe you're funding all this," Rachael said to Miss Fabina as they came into Dino City's Horizon office, "not that I can't say "no" to it."
"It is the least I can do... and with Mesozoic Enclave getting to a point where people will be able to move in soon... I would think it would work out well," Miss Fabina answered.
"For who, you?" Rachael laughed as the air conditioning inside the lobby felt good as a way to escape the Texas heat.
Rachael looked over to see the back of Miss Fabina's lips pulled back. Fabina wasn't baring her teeth, but her lips were pulled back with her ears alert and with her eyes wide and focused on looking at Rachael. It showed a measure of concern on Miss Fabina's face, and that was enough to get Rachael to look down. She and Miss Fabina were old friends and had worked in similar fields in the past, and the Animalian was one of the few people that knew that Rachael picked up AIDs in the past as a result of a liaison with someone who apparently had had the disease and didn't know it. Rachael eventually found out after a standard checkup ended up including bloodwork that detected the viral infection, thankfully it'd been early enough for Rachael to get some of the medicines needed to help her at least slow the disease's progression, but it was expensive, and now a lot of that was starting to wear down on her.
"Rachael, you know that this is good for both of us," Miss Fabina said, "I get to keep my friend... and you don't die, and since the conversion will cure you... you won't need to pay for all the other drugs anymore."
Rachael slowly nodded as Miss Fabina continued.
"And the job offer would let you get back to work and in a way that would allow you to avoid the present issues you have now and work with the things you would want to do," Miss Fabina spoke, "I mean... dealing with some of the bimbos at the Meat Market can stressful at times... but the work can still be rewarding and my mate and I don't need to travel anywhere."
"And no puppies?" Rachael asked teasingly.
"He is a Dire Wolf Animalian... which isn't an ancestor of the Gray Wolf," Miss Fabina answered with a sigh, "and besides you know I've never truly been the mothering type."
"Yeah," Rachael nodded again, "but it would still seem like you're doing a lot for me that you wouldn't have to... I mean... I was probably going to convert at some point, anyway."
"To Pyroraptor and taking over the new club in Mesozoic Enclave when it's able to open?" Miss Fabina raised an eyebrow.
"Well... maybe not, though it does sound intriguing... the "fire thief" as it's called," Rachael smirked.
"I know..." Miss Fabina nodded, "and at the same time... this is all for a friend."
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
"You make it sound like a lot of your whole conversion was as a favor for a friend," Roland commented, "you and Miss Fabina must have been pretty close friends back in the day."
"We were and still are," Rachael gave a clicking chuckle, which pulled her lips back a bit and showed the tips of her sharper teeth, "and I wouldn't have it any other way. She was there for me and helpful... would you not do the same for your friends?"
"I suppose... if we were in a similar situation... yeah, we would," Sophie admitted, "though our closest friends all became Animalians before we did, and Abby, Samson, Sarah, Travis, Simon, and Malice are all double dosed. Even JC and Pauline are double dosed."
"Hopefully, you never have to face the strains that Miss Fabina probably went through to help me," Rachael answered, "now where was I... oh, yes, we'd arrived at Dino City's Horizon office and I filled out and handed in the last of the paperwork and Miss Fabina paid for the procedure and I went with Doctor Green to get my doses of Pyroraptor and take this form."
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
"So, you run all the science in Dino City?" Rachael asked to Jeremy as she followed the male Syntixisaurus Dinotopian through the hallways of the building.
"Along with supervising the conversions here," Jeremy nodded, "yours was a new one and took a bit of work to coordinate for... Pyroraptor is not exactly super well known in the US and I'm not exactly sure on the number of fossil specimens are there. You may get some calls from scientists from Europe after your conversion."
"Happy to help, if they can be smart on when they call or arrange for a telephone chat with them," Rachael answered and flipped her black mohawk hair away from her eyes, "though... what will you do when this place in Colorado is up and running?"
"My wife and our family... along with her grandmother, her husband, and their new family will probably stay here in Dino City," Jeremy answered, "we are settled in and there are certain benefits to living in Texas for a theropod Dinotopian... and that would be hog hunting, so long as one gets the hunting permit and permission to use the land..."
"Pyroraptor's pretty small, though," Rachael answered as Jeremy opened the door to a conversion room, "so... I won't be chasing after pigs... though who would handle the science stuff in Colorado?"
"Some coworkers of my grandfather in law... a Gerry and Sal," Jeremy answered, "though, they may end up just doing the injections and a lot of the main genetics work will still be done here... Though, with the work they did on Project Niwrad, there are various elements of the genetics side of things that wouldn't be too far beyond them."
Rachael nodded as that sated her curiosity as she followed Jeremy into the room and found the set stepstool that lead up the bed that was in the room, noting a bed that would have been able to hold some of the larger Dinotopians, which would make sense, as while dinosaurs came in all sizes, the larger dinosaurs were bound to be the most popular with only the raptors being the most popular among the smaller dinosaurs that would be decided. She eventually sat down on the bed and began settling into getting ready for the transformation that was sure to come. She started with undoing her shoes and socks while Jeremy focused on readying the syringe that would deliver the double dose. She then moved to lift up her shirt.
"You don't necessarily need to undress," Jeremy spoke, "I don't think Pyroraptor is that big... in fact, I think you're bigger than the actual animal is now."
"Yeah... but Pyroraptor is supposed to be fully feathered," Rachael commented in reply as she tossed her shirt on the bed, "and some of the artist reconstruction show it having wing feathers on its arms, which the other raptor Dinotopians living in Lyre/Animalia have..."
"They might have converted their boyfriends by now... I really don't know," Jeremy admitted, "but still you shouldn't have a problem."
"I know," Rachael answered, "I'm just making sure nothing itches or is too uncomfortable. I'll keep my underwear on... if that offends you."
Jeremy only shrugged, and Rachael figured he didn't want to get into a fight. Though, she was mostly teasing. She knew he was a Dinotopian, married, with two hatchlings... and as a Dinotopian, it was probable that he and his wife would find ways to have sex whenever they could. It was all something that she expected and was hoping to get him to admit to something like that... but Jeremy didn't and quietly set about rubbing her shoulder with an alcohol swap while holding the syringe in the other hand. She did note that the plunger and reservoir were oversized to fit his hands, but the needle itself was relatively small. There was a slight pinch as the needle went in, but it didn't hurt...
"Welcome to Dinotopia," Jeremy spoke as he fully pressed down on the plunger and then left with the syringe and the equipment he'd needed for the shot.
Rachael paid little attention to that and merely focused on the changes that were already starting to happen. It started with the gray in her hair starting to go back to its normal black color and she could feel the tightness of youth in her skin return to her. It all felt good and seemed to be joined by a rush of energy that got her to jump off the bed. She landed on her feet and then noted how things felt different. She looked down to see that her big toe was shrinking in size as her nails became pointed. There was no pain, and she watched with some fascination as her big toe shrank down and seemed to reposition to be a sort of dew claw near her ankle as her feet began to lengthen slightly.
The next toe began to grow a lot more and with the toenail growing even more. As Rachael settled onto digitigrade feet, her now larger second toe began to rise up as the growing claw on them grew even larger than the others. Her next toe grew out a bit too, but not as much, while there was a bit of a tugging and squeezing sensation as her next toe and little toe merged. As those toes merged, Rachael soon heard the clicking of her foot claws on the tiled floor and she also soon felt that she had full control of her new big toe, and she tapped that up and down on the floor as the skin on her feet also changed. On the arch of her foot, a series of pebbled scales seem to form while thicker scales also formed on the dorsal side of her toes, and they weren't too unlike the scales on the feet of birds. The one thing that Rachael was a bit depressed by was the color of her feet darked from the chocolate brown they'd always ben into a blackish gray.
"Of course... a lot of me is going to be different," Rachael thought to herself and held up her hands and found that they'd gone under similar changes to her feet.
Her pinkie finger was gone, but she still had her thumb and her remaining fingers, which was something that seemed to happen with those becoming any Theropod Dinotopian. They would have the number of fingers the animal had plus the thumb, and since raptors had three fingers, that meant that Rachael as a Pyroraptor Dinotopian would have four digits when counting the thumb. The underside of the fingers had scaling similar to her feet, though hear the color seemed to be a more blackish brown. Fairly long hooked claws had also grown out from his fingers. They weren't super long when compared to some others, but they did look reasonably sharp and strong enough to deal with what was needed to hunt with.
Rachael also began to feel fairly warm and with the beginning of a coat of feathers began to grow in. They itched a little, and on her arms, they grew in like a bird's wing feathers that helped serve to then shield her hands, but because they wouldn't be able to let her fly, they didn't grow out on her back the way Bird, Bat, and Pterosaur Animalians grew their wings. Along her shoulders, the feathers were shorter and largely a dark brown, not too far off her skin color as a Human. However, as they moved into more of the wing feathers, they came in as a more brownish orange. That same brownish-orange colored feathers also grew out on her legs and went from her feet and came up to where her panties were, which were beginning to become a bit tight.
"Almost... done," Rachael said slowly, as she could feel both her bra and panties begin to grow tight on her.
Rachael had never been a "little" girl, by any means, but she had to privately admit that compared to the Animalians, she couldn't match them. And now as she turned into a Pyroraptor Dinotopian, her curves were beginning to fill out and match other Animalians, which meant that her C cup bra was now starting to struggle to hold her selling breasts while her widening hips and swelling butt pressed against the soft fabric of her underwear. Though, the biggest point of pressure on her panties was coming more from her growing tail, and she carefully had to move her hands back and pulled down on the back of them a bit, and that did let her tail grow out unimpeded. The dorsal side of the tail largely had gray feathers while the longer feathers that served out the sides of the tail were brown feathers while there was a white band between the brown feathers and the grey feathers.
"Emmm..." Rachael managed and ran her tongue forward, feeling her teeth shifting and moving in her mouth... while at the same time her black hair was falling out in clumps. All of this was signaling the final changes, the transition of her teeth from the multi-shaped Human teeth and into the largely mono-shaped teeth of a raptor. It would then be accompanied by her face pushing forward into a moderately long muzzle with much of it covered in blackish grey leathery skin with any and all scales there hard to see stretching out from just below her eyes. The one thing she was a bit saddened by was the loss of her hair, as she'd liked her mohawk haircut, but then all Dinotopians tended to lose their Human hair when they converted, so it wasn't unexpected.
"Maybe I can grow my feathers out..." Rachael though as she padded over to look into a wall mirror in the room and really feeling the strain her bra was putting on her now larger chest, but she wasn't big enough to snap the bra and she had the sense that her shirt's sleaves wouldn't be able to handle her wing feathers.
As she reached the mirror, she found that her face was differently colored from what she expected. Around her eyes and going down her cheeks and onto the underside of her neck, the feathers were actually a blackish-brown. Above that that ran on the dorsal side of her muzzle just before her eyes and then going over them before running as a band down her sides and two her breasts was a band of white feathers. The rest of her head actually had orange feathers, and as she turned to look at her back, she found that around where her neck met her shoulders, they transitioned from orange to a brownish-orange and then to a dark brown in a narrow band that ran across he shoulders. The rest of her back was covered in the same shade of gray as the feathers on her tail. Of these... Rachael was most enamored with the orange feathers on her head.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
"We can see on where clothing alterations would come in," Sophie nodded, "Roland and I didn't need to worry about sleaves... but with our wings."
"I can see that," Rachael chuckled noting that both Sophie and Roland wore shirts that had a high wrap-around neckband that also left things open for the back, allowing their wings to function... though they were presently caped and with their three wing fingers actually gripping their shoulders, "but it was ultimately no trouble as Miss Fabina had found a store in Dino City that would cater to what I needed for shirts... and bras... and many of them seemed to have been designed by Yuki and Sora Yurikazi."
"And being Velociraptor Dinotopians they likely had to figure out the same things with regard to shirt sleeves and the like," Roland commented.
"And for which I'm grateful," Rachael smiled, "it's all part of a new start for me..."