When Sesi finally awoke, she decided that in all events that you should awake with the feeling as if there were a tiny stampede running about inside your skull, or that your insides had been removed, stuffed in a blender, puréed, and stuffed back in… would never be a good place or time to be.

She groaned as she sat from her spot she had so unceremoniously passed out in just a few hours prior, lifting a hand to said aching cranium as if the pressure could relieve it.

Wait.

Hand?

She looked down, and on a closer (and relatively quick) inspection she found it was indeed a hand. Not a paw, but a hand. With opposable thumbs, she noted, wiggling one of the said appendages about. It felt really quite odd, having another toe… rather, finger, she supposed now, that could move like this did. She'd almost completely forgotten about her aching head at this point, her piquing curiosity fading it off to the back of her mind as she further inspected her new human body.

So Kowalski's invention had worked… he'd be ecstatic, she thought amongst herself, poking and prodding at her skin, pale like her hide but more pinkish (not incredibly so however), she kind of already missed her beautiful fur,.. This skin felt weird. Then she realized, her fur hadn't gone, when she reached a hand back up to her head; it instead had all migrated to her scalp. She was now sporting considerably long locks as pale as her fur originally, and completely. This had appeased her some to know.

Where was Kowalski anyways? She'd been too busy looking herself over to search for the penguin and tell him his invention had been successful. She cast a glance around and noticed she was in fact the first one up of them all… and they were all human too…

Oh dear…

She didn't think that was supposed to happen…

She got up onto her feet (after a few humiliating attempts at it, for which she was glad all the others had yet to awake for her own personal sake. Some poor unfortunate soul among the unconscious bodies scrambled on the floor was probably going to feel her trip over them for a few days after.) The Alaskan scanned over the others. She was surprised to find it was relatively easy to tell who was who, even as humans. Marlene was the easiest to tell, of course, her being the only female aside from Sesi herself; the lemurs were a bit harder but not by much: A heavier-set… about, middle aged she'd say, man rich in color… Maurice. Much smaller than the other two, with big eyes (she could tell, even if they were shut, those huge eyes were waiting just behind those lids to further stare into her soul.), much lighter than the other two but still more pigmented than any of the penguins, light beige mid-length hair to boot. And then there was Julien, obviously, him being the tallest of the three, slender with a darker skin tone but not necessarily matching Maurice, and finally slightly curly, but not overly so, jet hair.

And then there were the penguins. Equally pigmented, but luckily enough there was still enough diversity about them set aside from the color of their feathers (now darkened and straight hair), and their near-as-pale-as-her-own skin. She scanned over the four, whichever one had the scar and Mohawk would be Rico… bingo. He was easy to spot. Private would be the youngest, so therefore the smallest of them all. Kowalski and Skipper would only be the somewhat difficult ones to tell apart, that were, if Kowalski wasn't so tall, and if Skipper didn't have his boxy, prominent jaw line/entire rest of his head.

She'd also notice another thing. They were all extremely lacking in the clothes department… which really made sense, as they were wearing none to begin with, but still, how did Kowalski not think of this? He could turn an animal into a human but he couldn't generate at least a pair of pants to go with it? (Maybe this is what he hadn't been finished with, a side of her defended.) She herself, in all honesty, didn't really mind; this was her default state at all times, (as well as the others'), but she didn't think actual real humans, who considered clothes as bare a necessity as food or water, would be so fond of her going around like she was. Luckily, the souvenir shops usually had some clothes for sale. The Alaskan left through the back entrance and out towards mentioned shop, grabbing a discarded towel she'd found in a corner to wrap around herself.

'May as well get the others something too… who knows how long Kowalski set this to last.'

Meanwhile Sesi went shopping (or rather, breaking, entering, and stealing); the others back at the base were just coming back to reality. One by one they'd begun to realize their predicament, and it wasn't until Kowalski awoke that (those who'd already awoken with him) realized just how screwed they really were: The machine used waves to tell when it was time to change an animal back to their original state; in the meantime it'd install a temporary tracker made up of types of radiation within them, keeping an internal log of the time said animal had been transformed, and when it hit that hour it was supposed to go back, it'd send signals like a television out and kick-start the reverse transformation no matter where said animal was.

With the device broken, the tracker had been placed inside them but the internal log was no longer intact to keep base with the time they were supposed to transform back. In short, they'd be stuck like this; Kowalski had tried his best to explain. "Until I can fix it. But that may take some time." He went to grab his notepad from the floor, pen fumbling around in his clumsy fingers, those of which he'd never had to deal with before with his prior flippers, as he'd try to write down options and estimate just how long before it'd be whole once more.

"No way, get your own!" Marlene and Julien could be heard arguing in the near distance over a singular and seemingly last towel, that of which the ex-otter had scooped up and covered herself with as immediately as she'd seen her own lack of decency… but as far as Julien was concerned; it was Kings first, ladies second, and like hell that was going to fly for Marlene!

Skipper was exasperated. All the times the lemur had gotten them into some sort of new trouble were too countless to accept any longer. He pointed a finger at the no-longer-lemur-king, "You! We wouldn't be in this mess if it wasn't for you!"

Julien threw up his hands, his conflict with the now chestnut-haired girl temporarily dissipated for the time being, for which she took this opportunity to side-step out of sight while the two males duked it out with one another (with her towel! Victory!). "I'm not the one to be being blamed here. If Sesi hadn't been talking her smack about me, then none of this would being either!"

Skipper's eye twitched. Him and his damned broken language too… everything about the non-lemur infuriated him, and now for his mistakes they'd be forced to leave their homes until Kowalski could right his (yes, Julien's, no matter how much he tried to deny any fault on his behalf,) mess he'd made.

Some could have called it a miracle that just as Skipper had been ready to throttle his taller counterpart, Sesi had chosen this time to step back through the doors.

She took one look around, doing her best to keep her eyes averted from the lower half of the room for her own sake. Seeing everyone up she started, "Ah good, you're all awake. I have clothes for us." She held up arm-fulls of t-shirts, hoodies, and jeans that she'd curiously managed to haul back all on her own despite her short stature as a human. The Alaskan had already deigned to dress herself: She donned only a plain black hoodie, hood down. (Plain, minus, of course, the proud zoo logo printed on its front as most of the others similarly were.) plus some jeans. Who knew souvenir shops sold jeans? (The articles had taken her a little longer to figure out than she'd like to admit, but what animal could blame her? None of them wore clothes either!)But shoes, however, (she'd just figured out why humans needed them so bad on her way to the shop,) she'd have to find somewhere else, which was unfortunate. Why were human feet so tender?! Her toe pads as a wolf were at least tough, but she hurt these on just about everything!

She let a good portion of the stuff onto the floor, taking only personally a few more articles (a choice between a t-shirt or a tank top, with a couple sizes of jeans) over to Marlene whilst the men were distracted with getting their own clothes, not knowing how exactly modest was she, but nevertheless sparing her from having to dress in front of them. Marlene in the end would take the green foresty colored tank top (Good, Sesi thought, much better choice for your hair color and skin tones…) plus both the jeans to try on before Sesi turned from the entire scene with hands on her hips, waiting, but giving them their privacy.

She turned back to the men only for a second to check on their progress, but what she saw had almost made her burst out laughing. Kowalski was doing the bunny hop trying to fit into a pair of pants, whilst Julien had a shirt somehow stuck around his elbows and was in urgent requiring of Maurice's assistance to pry it off him. Skipper almost had it down besides the fact his own shirt was inside out. Only Private and Rico had seemed to manage their way fine into the clothes, (Rico probably had experience, dressing up his doll and everything…) and were now standing on ceremony for the rest to figure it out. Well… Sesi thought as she turned back to face the wall still keeping in a devious giggle, at least she hadn't had as bad of a time as them!

Once the ordeal was over with, and she was sure they were all decent, the women could look back once more. Marlene however, had been prepared with a question, and so Sesi would have no time to judge what the men had decided to wear; Marlene had began asking why the ex-wolf had been looking to leave so badly, why she didn't like the zoo.

"It's not that I don't like the zoo," Sesi began. "It's a very nice one; I've been to a lot, so I would know this… but… it's just that" She paused.

She'd never told anyone just why she was so desperately on her way back to her homelands, but now she found herself in an immanency for having to tell judging by the looks she was getting thrown from all over the room. She knew this look well, it was the infamous 'tell or we'll keep bugging you until you do.' (And with Julien on their side and how persistent he is, she'd never win.) "It's a bit of a long story".

"We-apparently now- have the time." He stole a glance at his newly determined adversary, who gave a shrug at the glower, still failing to see how any of this was his fault.

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Wow! Hooraaaaay! I've got my first (multiple!) reviews and even a favorite! I'd like to say thanks and give a shout-out to LadyBookworm18 for taking the time to comment (and also for the favorite, of course! (I admit I had gotten a little sad that I hadn't got any feedback yet ^_^' but you just made my entire day!))