(((A/N: Here's the (un)finished aftermath sequence unearthed that was mostly written prior posting the TF sequence. Apparently, I thought it was important enough to write even though it goes nowhere, but I guess we could do more with superficial and indulgent body exploration after invasive body transmogrification, can we?)))
Consciousness stirred, awareness teasing at the inner folds of your resting mind. The light pouring further took you away from sleep into the waking world. You felt stiff all over. Faint memories of a vivid and disturbing dream drifted about in your mind, but you couldn't comprehend a singular meaning from any of them. You were content to settle back in for a few moments of extended rest. Then you grew tired of tasting your own breath.
You yawned with force. There was a lingering thick, fool taste that coated the insides of your mouth. You tried working some saliva in to wash it away. Opening your eyes, your eyes were hazed with the abundance of morning light. Blinking away the bleariness, you noticed a wall of blue obscuring your vision.
More blinks brought more clarity. Then you identify the object as a tail; a vaporeon tail to be exact.
"Wha..." was what you muttered in your groggy state. Except, that wasn't what you heard. You froze and spoke out again.
"Vaaahhh-por?"
That sounded like a pokémon...
…
A pokémon?!
Crying out, you jumped to your feet, disorienting yourself from the sudden movement and tripping over feet that didn't move right.
The momentum carried you backwards. You landed hard on your back, sharp pains issuing along from what felt like raised portions of your spine, earning a surprising shrill yip from you.
You gaped wildly at the sight of your body laid out before you, from your legs folding into your sleek body to the tail flopping between your thighs. You wordlessly tracked it up until it met your underbelly, then to a slightly elongated spot at the edge of your vision where your nose used to be.
I'm the pokémon...
A spot at your rear twitched, and the tail flopped again in response. You squirmed at the sensation of it moving.
Panting, you try to take it all in, the events of last night came flooding back, drowning you in waves that threatened to overtake you. At once came the realization that shook to your core.
"V-Va Vaporeon?!"
That wasn't a dream?!
You rush to an upright position, only to trip over your fore-paws and crash to the ground on your hyperventilation chest. Your tail swung erratically as the rest of you quickly became an assortment of jangled up limbs sprawled out onto the floor.
"Va-Por!" your curse sounding too cute to be taken seriously. It was an effort to calm yourself, but you finally managed to get your breathing under control. Limbs not so much...
Rolling over slowly to a more comfortable position, you stood on quivering legs and trembling paws, your heavy tail swinging out as a counter balance to your new center of gravity. You stared at it. New body, new instincts? Shoving away the existential terror of being warped and mangled into a new, animal form, you decided to test the body out.
Your moist nose twitched.
Driven by what you assumed were instincts, you were compelled to smell your surroundings. Identifying and inspecting any scent that permeated through the air. You identified your scent, which smelled like wet dog.
Gross. Need a shower.
A couple of experimental sniffs told you the complete history of your room. From every visitor in the past month including your new animal form, to every piece of dirty laundry inhabiting your closet floor. Even down to the particular molecules floating about alongside the dust motes. You sneezed, instinctively bringing a hand up to wipe at your nose, only to yip from scratching your snout with your claws.
You stared at your paw and the claws attached to them. You sniffed curiously at it. It smelt like you: wet dog. Your gaze traveled along the long, nimble limb until it met the shoulder. You lowered the paw, feeling the tough, yet puffy pad at the bottom. Putting more weight on it, pushing until your claws started to scratch at the wood floor, you tested the padding that would equip you for running at high speeds.
You glanced down at your muscled, barreled-out chest. You took in a breath, testing yourself. You noted how your chest barreled out, before releasing it in a drawn-out shuddering gasp
Looking back to your sleek flank, then down at your hind-legs, you spotted some sock fluff still remaining wedged between the toes of your hind-paws. You kicked at the remains of your shoes wrapped around your transfigured legs, it flew off and smacked against the wall, then proceeded to test your new legs.
First, you fold them up to your body, starting with the left then the right. Satisfied you got that down, you moved on to stretching them out from you. Noting the movements of the muscles and ligaments from under the skin.
You then felt an itch and got an idea. Furthering your experiments, you twisted your midsection, brought your head closer to your rear, then extended a leg forward. The balance was awkward to say the least. After almost falling down a few times, you successfully touch a back-paw to an ear-fin. Another few tries, and you managed a singular, successful scratch.
On another whim, you tried to stand. You pushed your weight to your back-half, pushing up with your fore-legs, falling forward until you managed a "begging pup" stance. Sticking out your tongue, your face screwed up in concentration at the herculean task before you. You slowly rose higher and higher, fighting against your center of gravity pulling you back down, until you reached your full height. Legs now fully extended, and tail frantically sweeping across the ground, you maintain the stance before your balance begins to betray you. Desperately pinwheeling your front-legs to pull your weight forward, you narrowly avoided falling on your back.
Landing back on all fours, you huffed tiredly before going back to examining your body. Your gaze traveled back to your hindquarters, glancing over the thick, well-muscled haunches that made up your rear to eye, in particular, your tail. Your eyes roamed along your tail to the pair of fins, noting the ridges that traveled on top of it.
It swung through the air independently from your input, the kinesthesia made known the parts of your new anatomy responsible for its movement.
You gave it an experimental flick, feeling the mesh of muscles and fibers and nerves at the base that worked to control the heavy, unwieldy thing that sprouted from your backside. You clench the muscles in your rear, halting the tail's movements. You kept it still for a moment before relaxing your haunches, allowing it to resume swaying behind you. You settled on letting it sway instinctively as it took a considerable amount of effort to keep it still compared to letting it move on its own.
Waggle your big tail...
Sticking your tongue out in concentration, you focused on the appendage, trying to emulate an enthusiastic tail wag to test your ability to whip it about, but only achieving mild sways. Managing a some-what halfhearted wag after shaking your butt in an attempt to spur it into motion. Apparently you lacked the instinctual motor-skills to voluntarily control the dolphin-esque tail. Or deep down, you know you have no reason to wag the meaty thing. Snorting derisively at the lame, meaty thing you're with stuck lugging around, it gave an involuntary flip, barely a twitch, as if jeering to you, "So what?, What do you have to wag about?"
You flashed your teeth at it before jerking away. Damned thing.
Undeterred from your failure at tail wagging, you felt bold enough to at least try walking, you began hopping between paws in an attempt to feel out your new legs and how they moved, which thankfully was easier than getting your tail to move.
Starting with just the back paws, then incorporating the front ones to feel out a proper canine trotting cycle. Trying to imitate the quadruped movements of the many 'mons you saw in your life from memory alone. After some awkward paw hopping, you settled on a pattern that felt natural: Moving either front leg with its back counterpart on the opposite side then repeating it with the other set.
Right front-leg. Left back-leg. Left front-leg. Right back-leg. Et cetera, et cetera.
Now that you had a workable pattern down, you were ready to move on with walking on all fours for real. You were prepared. You were confident. Determination was written across your blue muzzle.
I have this.
You moved both right legs and fell over, picking yourself up with a grumble.
Your first odd steps were clumsy. Some steps were hesitant; you thought about it too much and messed up your flow. Others were too quick; making you trip over your own paws and fall.
"Va-por, Ee-on. Va-on, Ee-por." FR. BL. FL. BR. You drilled yourself incessantly. Your foot-falls become more sure and steady over time. Then they became quicker and more natural.
FR. BL. FL. BR. You sang to yourself as trotting soon became second nature. "Va-por, Ee-on. Va-on, Ee-por!"
Feeling elated and proud at nailing walking as a poké-dog as easily as you did, with minimum bruise and face-plants, you began to imitate a shows 'mon gait. Posture firm and refined. Head held high, snout almost pointed to the ceiling. Front legs hiking up high before stomping back down with purposeful force. Sashaying your flanks with your thick, long tail gracefully cutting through air behind you in time with your swaying haunches. You noted how your tail swung naturally in a counterbalance to the motion of your hind-legs.
You came to a stop after completing several tours of your room. Tongue hanging out, panting in a happy expression. Lost in elation at your successful trot.
Your heart skipped a beat when you spotted a figure from the corner of your eye.
Jerking to face it brought you face to face with another pokémon; a vaporeon like you, staring back at you. You froze as did the intruder. Seconds drifted by, neither of you moved. You sniffed at the unknown 'mon carefully. Smelling only yourself gave you pause. You approached with caution, hesitating as the other vaporeon mirrored your movements. Your head, earfins, and tail were low in a non-threatening, placating posture, hoping to not frightened or anger the home invader.
You still couldn't place a smell on it, which confused you greatly. Seeing something and not being able to smell it threw you for a loop, and your animalistic mind didn't really know how to comprehend such a scenario.
Bonking off the glass of the mirror hanging off the closet door brought you out of mental gymnastics as it became clear as the looking glass before you.
Why haven't I checked myself out before? I must be really losing my mind...
Seeing yourself fully, including your canine head was jarring to say the least. Your eyes were dark; a pit of a void that appears almost uncanny. The fins crowning your head jutted out, making you look more reptilian than canine. You prodded at them with a paw after managing to flop your ear-fins on command. I guess they'd be good at cutting through the water... You then pawed at the collar of webbing around your neck.
...But I don't have a clue what this is for.
Pulling attention away from possibly unnecessary body features, you began testing your facial range. You stuck your long tongue out at yourself, trying to extend it as far as it could go. After successfully blepping, you run your tongue along the roof of your mouth; feeling the surprisingly smooth texture. The teeth were another story.
You carefully poked at their pointed edges and into the spaces between them. Your expression looking eerily like that of a human with a mouth full of peanut butter would as you ran your tongue over the fangs and anywhere else to develop familiarity. Every tooth was new. You don't feel any familiar teeth or your dental work present. Then you open wide to get a full look of your new sharp teeth, testing the limits of maw extension before closing.
Turns out, you could smile, as well as frown, still. The results were more human-like than you had expected. Running a full gamut of human expressions, you decided to now try the canine variety.
The happy, content panting was easy to pull off; as well as the confusing head tilt. The begging dog was next: sitting up, forelegs tucked in with paws underneath a lowered head, puppy-dog eyes with lowered fins and whimpering pitifully, complete with your tail cutely sweeping the ground behind you.
You tried out a few more. Getting into it as you progressed further. Your successes caused your tail to thump with joy, betraying your actual mood. For the last one, you went all out, putting as much conviction as you could muster. You barked out and snarled, baring your teeth with a jagged, toothy display, and managing to get a convincing growl to crawl out of your gullet. Dropping your upper-half low to the ground while whipping your tail back-and-forth in a confrontational stance. You were so into it, you even snapped at your reflection, which of course snapped back.
Barking out a yip involuntarily, you transitioned into a more playful demeanor. Face morphing into a grinning pant and your tail began to wag in a more friendly manner. Still panting, you rose back up on all fours. The vaporeon form was becoming more and more familiar to you. Even admiring it, continually striking all manner of poses, both showing the beauty and power of your new body.
Your attention was drawn to your still-wagging tail, focusing was once more on the strange feeling appendage; a subconscious yet visible indicator of your emotions for the whole world to see. It wagged faster than when you'd tried to force it. A visual metaphor, you thought, displaying the futility of trying to force oneself to be happy versus simply letting themselves be happy or some other spun yarn.
Regardless...
You took the opportunity to swish it about some more, seeing how far you could lash and twist it in either direction. Apparently your actions, direct or not, caused its motions. The act of excitable wagging excites you, much in the same way a casual sway is soothing. No doubt it was the manifestation of the primal rush of chemicals to your animal mind. You had no idea simply being an animal would be this much of a rush!
Watching it swat at the air was surprisingly enticing. You don't think you could avert your attention from the tail if you tried. Turning in tight circles, you followed it closely as it whipped about, examining the strangest of the changes until a fin smacked your snout.
Growling playfully at the mischievous tail, you lounged at it and barely missed a fin. Thus began the chase. Tail chasing, you learned, was a surprisingly fun and exhilarating experience. Maybe it was from a chemical rush, maybe it was scratching an instinctual itch. Regardless, you were having fun. Yipping in excitement at the surprising fun and exhilarating experience that was tail chasing.
It smacked into the mirror, the strong tail cracking it, yet you neither cared or felt it. You were having too much fun! You nipped at the fleeing appendage before successfully chomping on a fin, not too hard though.
Soon, you were down on your haunches, panting. Tired, yet content. Your fish-tail softly thumps against the floor, producing sounds of wet-slaps, displaying your mood quite clearly from the whole exercise.
"Pooor~", eyes closed in content, you purred.
The sound piqued your interest. Next, you decided on testing your vocal range or lack thereof. Your throat felt tighter, the tongue longer. Rolling it over your sharp canines once more, you were left with the impression your new tongue was a lot more flexible and the hope you'd be able to make more sounds with your canine features.
How can I even make the "Puh" sound with this muzzle? It has no lips...
You bring your face closer to the mirror, continuously saying your species, each time taking note of the movements your muzzle made. Surprisingly, it was able to contort in a facsimile of that of a human's, making the sounds possible, somehow. However, when trying to say other things, for instance, your own name, the memory of producing each syllable is muddled. Every memory ends up being one of those four syllables. No matter how hard you try, any attempt at speech, every spoken word, inevitably ends up being just "Vaporeon".
Must be hardwired that way...
A chill ran along your spine. You still had your memories, and you were still human in them, but the idea your brain could be so easily warped in such a way that you forget basic speech terrifies you. You're not sure how much this new body had affected you.
Despite being a pokemon only for a few hours, most of which you were knocked out, you feel more at home in your vaporeon body. Your human body only existing in phantom sensations that quickly faded in mere minutes as you were exploring your new form
Am I even me?
Your body and tail was uncharacteristically still as the ramification ate at you. Staring into space, thoughtless thinking as your mind tried to reassure itself that it was whole but couldn't.
An itch behind an ear-fin persisted until your leg kicked at it. Finding it irresistible, you leaned into it gladly, your previously dreads lost in the satisfaction of a good ear scratching. Your mind came back to you, and you jolted away from the offending limb. You tried to scratch at it with a fore-paw instead, failing and resigning to do it the doggy way once learning you can't bend like that.
Fuck it. I need to take that shower anyways.
You trotted over to the door, pleased that walking on all fours now felt natural. Your tail joyfully rolling behind you at the prospect of a late night shower, which you tried to suppress by clamping it over your rear. You've had enough tail wagging for tonight.
You stopped at the door, staring particularly at the knob. You glanced down at your paws. Then back at the knob. Then at your paws, again. Your tail drooped in realization.
"Vah, Por."
