Anthro Park Epilogue-- Chris
It wasn't just Krystal's new appearance that made her unrecognizable by many, that was a given, what -really- made her unrecognizable was her new attitude towards herself and others! Anyone who had known Krystal in the park knew she wasn't an awful person, but there was just a, lethargic aura about her, and the way she carried herself was someone who deep down thought they should be treated like royalty.
Krystal now, with zeal and focus on something besides what had been her hobby, and a whole new demeanor about her, would have left -everyone- thinking this had to be someone else who had just happened to chose a similar template.
"Is that really Chris?" Had become the running gag among her friends and family, and had been spouted out by the martial artist Chris himself when he first beheld the school teacher vixen.
Just as the blue vixen Krystal had been learning to dedicate herself to something other than her hobbies, Chris had been learning to slow down and smell the flowers.
Chris' mother, his new mother, made been making extreme points to make sure to spend actual time with him besides teaching him hand to hand combat. As per the rules of the park, (which the Management refused to budge so much as one inch on even five years later on the particular subject), those wishing to keep their body alterations were expected to keep their new species too. Of course, they hadn't exactly been allowing predators to leave the park. Still feeling people felt less threatened by herbivores.
Thus that was how Chris' mother of all people found herself park of the husky pack in relations to teaching them various unarmed combat. All things said and done, Chris' mother was a good teacher, always had been. Yes, Chris also spend a year on as park of the husky's pack. But he stayed only as long as his mother did, seeing the world as too big to be confined to just the park or it's employment. The sense of unity among the pack was nice, but Chris still had his desire to always improve himself.
When the park -finally- allowed predators to be able to leave the park, Chris the human being left with his mother who had chosen to adopt her husky form long term opposed to her she-bear one.
Pressure from law enforcement agencies had prevented the gene splicer technology from ever becoming over the counter or a 'walk in, walk out' service. It would be far too easily for a male tiger to rob a bank and for a female wolf to walk across the border. Of course, with anthros becoming more common place, there was some growing concern about Transformation Park USA having a monopoly on their TF Teach. There was some talks creeping up about the company needing to be divided up: since non-medical DNA revising was, in the end, NOT a public service.
As new parks around the world slowly began to open up, so did Chris and his mother. Chris never once returned to being female, excusing himself by saying that it was just too distracting. He did however, begin to change species based on the animal of the zodiac year, planning to visit one of the more exotic parks for a kimono dragon morph during the appropriate year. Chris admittedly found something exciting and new about fine tuning self defense styles for species who weren't designed to use their arms for swinging and hands that hadn't evolved from the purpose of grasping. Naturally, Chris was breaking new ground before any other self defense discipline realized the idea.
Chris still hadn't, and had no intention of ever trying out the fox species in spite of Krystal's request. He liked her, he really did, in particular since their friendship seemed to have taught each other something, but he had no plans whatsoever of going into a relationship. He knew Krystal wasn't just cosplaying (after about two years of being told so), and given the status of his mother it felt weird, but deep down he still saw Krystal as one of the guys.
Secretly, Krystal was just as amazed by Chris' change in personality. He no longer complained about boredom during his times in the parks, and now made efforts to -socialize-. He went to see a movie not related to face punching for the first time in decades. And had begun to read books not related to the vulnerable spots on the human body. True, this took away time from hand to hand combat training. But Chris somehow felt more alive than he had in years.
Chris' mother made the transition a lot easier than anyone would have seen coming, and didn't object more than once to Chris 'slacking off.' Of course, she still challenged her son to spars, and was very insulted if he ever dared hold back on account of her gender. 'And so the world came one step close to ending.' Chris thought.
Chris still preferred being a human being when outside the parks, it was the body he had spent the most years training in after all. There was no 'segregation' in New Eden, no species barrier, like people just joined up with like people, it was herd nature and human nature. So while visiting, Chris got some stares (nothing negative, just surprise), in particular from the cubs who wondered about these 'monkey morphs' who they had only rarely seen, not realizing yet they were on a whole planet full of them.
Checking up on Keith, Jackie, and their kittens had become part of his breather between training journeys, (where before it was just one training journey to the next). It was because of Chris' visits that the kittens had not seen humans as something alien.
Keith and Jackie even had polite discussions with his mother over how they were doing, how life was treating them, and if they had learned how to shoot fireballs of chi from their palms yet (no, not luck on that yet,).
Naturally, with Krystal being a teacher for the predator cubs, visiting her become an inevitability.
"Decided to try out being a fox yet?" She'd always ask with a grin as her greeting.
"Not in this lifetime." He'd always grin back. And the two would laugh. "So, what happened to your plan of being Nintendo's cover girl?" Not that Chris thought she'd last as one with her old attitude.
Krystal thought for a few moments before saying, "I think... that I realized I was worth more than that. How about you? Keith and Jackie tell me you're actually enjoying the site now instead of looking for brawls."
Chris was silent a second two, "I think I just realized I was worth more than that too."
"And?"
"And I'm still not becoming a fox."
"Okay."