All Homo (for Cimar)
(Thanks to Bug for letting me use his wishmaker character for this)
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"I hate that we're all different…"
"Judy," Nick sighed as he slowly, carefully, sat down. He winced a little as his rear end touched down on the sofa seat next to hers. "That's just the shock talking. Get some rest."
"I mean it," she grumbled, one of her bandaged ears flopping down over her bandaged eye. Her eyes closed, she winced and groaned, she bent over and clutched her head before screaming. "I really mean it!"
Nick just backed off at this point. He knew a mammal that just needed to shout it out when he saw one.
"A stampede. A giant stampede! And why? Why!? Because most of the Elephant Day parade was being run by African elephants, and the Indian elephants were angry about being side-lined. And then the African ones just say that they'd be doing Indian stuff, whereas African elephants have their own elephant… things, and… and… urgghhhhh!"
Almost instinctively Nick grabbed and held up a pillow. The bunny saw it and let loose a sucker punch into it, shouting out her anger with each stuffing buster assault. "Why can't we get along! Why can't we be all the same! That way we wouldn't all argue, would we! Would we!"
With one last punch, her body shook and she deflated, sighing. Nick, putting the abused pillow down, came in to comfort her, stroking her head to calm her. "There, there," he said, holding her tight. "There, there… Now, Carrots, let me first warn you that all mammals are awful and they'd find things to argue about anyway."
He gave her an eye roll break before carrying on.
"Secondly, that's not gonna happen. We'll continue having thousands of different species, and that's gonna be the way it is. It's what the world is like, no way of changing that and so no reason to try and think it through."
"Yes…" she groaned. "I suppose. Still… if we could all just be turned into one species…"
"Whichever one that was to begin with would never let it go, would they," Nick said. "You'd probably have 'originals' and 'newbies' fighting it out."
"Urghhh… -Have you got a vendetta against my imagined fantasies or something?" she asked, crossing her arms. Nick smiled, there was just a little bit of perk returning to her.
"I'd say my middle name was professional cynic… but in reality it's Piberius, so go figure."
She snorted. "Touché…" She trailed off, an awkward silence filling the room for the best part of a minute.
"-Say, Slick?"
"Huh?"
"If all mammals would be turned to one species, which one would you chose?"
"Fox, obviously. Just so I can watch those fox haters come to terms with it, popcorn in paw. And you? Bunny?"
Her eyes narrowed. "Even I know that that would cause an overpopulation catastrophe… Hmmm, what you said is right… Can't have any living species, so maybe an extinct one? Or a brand new one, unlike anything other out there."
"Calm down there, Frankenswine," he warned, Judy giggling. She seemed to be better now.
She was.
A little.
Later that night though, as the news talked about the damage caused and how a bunch of rhinos had gotten in, out of revenge for property damage, she contemplated it again. Having all these different mammal sizes was stupid, wasn't it? All these different types, diets, environmental conditions they needed… Everything.
It would all be so much easier if they were all the same species.
But which one. It had to be a new type, ever the cynic he was Nick was right there. But what kind of new species would it be?
She shook her head. She was tired. This was dumb. She began settling down to go to bed when, to her surprise, her phone rang. She paused, holding back for a second or two, before taking it up.
"Hello?" she asked.
"Good evening, Judy," the voice spoke, its cold tone sending a shiver down her spine. "I'm here to talk about your wish."
"My Wish?" she asked, her eyes narrowing. "Hey, who is this and how did you get my number?"
"I am an individual who grants mammals wishes. Such as yours; for all mammals to become one and the same, a new species."
She blinked, her eyes narrowing. "Did Nick ask you to do this?"
"I grant wishes to those I chose to," it spoke.
"Really… And sorry if I sound a bit too much like Nick here, but what's the catch, huh. Let me guess, this is one of those stories where there's some sort of terrible twist to watch I wish?"
"Normally, yes," it spoke, making her blink.
"Wait. What?"
"Say if your wish was to eat meat, it would be made so that your hunger for it took over you. Not in this case. For some, unknown, reason, I feel happy to present you with a straight, honest, innocent granting. All species will be turned into a new kind, distinct from all others but with no major flaw. They'll be intelligent, bipedal mammals around the size of wolves, they'll have independent digits and opposable thumbs, they'll have long lives and an adaptable diet, similar to that of pigs. There will be no hidden consequences, only those that are plane to see from the conversion."
Judy paused, her eyes shifting. "You know what? Sure, whatever. Night."
"So, it shall be," the mysterious voice said, as she put down her phone and burrowed herself under her blanket. Her last thought was about whether Nick had a silly prank in store for her in the morning.
…
Her first thought was that she was cold.
Her second was that her ears were gone. She couldn't feel them or move them and as her hands went up, she realised they were gone.
She could still hear though, but…
Her hands lowered, finding tiny little things on the side of her head. Bald things, just like her hands…
She blinked, thrusting them in front of her, spotting for herself that she now had four fingers and an opposable thumb on each paw, like a kangaroo. Only they were bald, covered in a thin delicate light skin, each digit ending in a small nail.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!"
Her scream woke up her neighbours. "HEY, SHUT UP BUNNY! WHAT ARE YOU… WHAT HAPPENNED TO ME!"
"YOU WOKE UP PRONK, IT HAPPENS…. WHAT HAPPENNED TO YOU!"
"WHAT HAPPENNED TO YOU!"
"WHAT HAPPENNED TO ME!"
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!"
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"
Judy blocked out their screaming as she stood up. Her clothes were mostly torn from her growth… She'd grown… She was the size of a wolf, oh carrot sticks it had happened! She felt her face, there was long hair-fur on the top of her head but the rest of her was bald… She didn't have a muzzle… Again, a bit pig like, only her nose pointed down. Deep breath, deep breath, her nose wasn't twitching but she could flare her nostrils, that was okay… Teeth… She went in and felt them. Front incisors, none of them big buck teeth, followed by small canines and molars… What about her tail, how was….
Her paw was finding nothing there.
She had no tail.
She looked down.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!"
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She looked at herself in the phone.
It was a new species alright.
Bucky and Pronk had knocked on the door and they… For some reason, their skin had been an ebony black, the fur on their head a short frizz, their faces a bit flatter and broader. But she was pretty certain they were the same species. It must have been similar to fur colourations and such.
She began wondering what Nick was like when her phone rang. Cautiously she opened it, blinking on as she saw the thing looking back.
It was Nick alright. He had a shock of spiky red hair up top and his stunning green eyes. Even though he'd turned, it was him. "So…" he began nervously. "It happened to you too."
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"SETTLE DOWN!"
Everyone did just that, maybe because they still associated Bogo's voice with that of the giant cape buffalo that they remembered him as. He was still intimidating, not just from his voice. He'd been transformed into a formidable, muscled up, black skinned version of this species… He still felt like the largest mammal in this room, even if he avoided walking too much. Just like with Nick, and many other species for that matter, they'd become much longer in the leg department and were a bit unsteady on their feet.
Though at least, unlike the canines, he didn't have to deal with losing a balance keeping tail either.
He still wore his shirt and pants though. Though the shirt draped off of him, many sizes too big, while his trousers were now shorts. She at least had been able to borrow some stuff from Bucky and Pronk, while Nick had a patchwork of clothes sewn together at home. Poorly. Most other officers were undersized for their clothes, but at least they had them.
Bogo paid it no mind. He looked on, down, before shaking his head. "I don't know what to say," he said. "I don't think any of you do, either. We've all become… this! I don't even know what this thing is! But what I do know is that it does not handle the cold well."
Judy paused, her ears would have gone down if she still had them. Oh Carrot sticks, she thought she was cold…
"Tundratown is currently on lockdown, all mammals staying inside with their heating on. We've deactivated the entire climate works. Let everything melt, let Sahara Square cool, let the rainforest go dry. It's our best option so far."
Everyone looked at each other, tensely.
"There's more," he warned. "Thankfully it seems that mammals too small to transform in their homes sleepwalked out or something, turning on the street. However, in some places it was too crowded even then. Little Rodentia is a disaster zone. It seems everyone just piled up. Many at the bottom didn't make it."
Judy felt queasy. She'd been trying to get in contact with her family, wondering how they were coping in the burrows, but none of her calls had gone through.
"Even if it wasn't destroyed, much of the housing stock is useless now. Same for all housing above a certain size, rough estimates putting it as more than half the entire cities stock. Your core duties will be commandeering any building you can find that can be used for shelter." Everyone nodded their head as he carried on.
"The hospitals were flooded with women complaining of light but persistent bleeding, at first thought to be a fault in whatever turned us. From what I gathered from the medics, it's now presumed to be a natural thing such as moulting or antler shedding, they suspect connected to this species' reproductive cycle. Not that that's putting anyone's minds to rest. However, mammals are relying on us, so if it happens to you… -I don't care. In other news, huge quantities of hay and sileage are now worthless, and with many herbivores not in favour of eating meat, there's been a run on food supplies. From what I hear, there's going to be a lifting of all fish catch limits to try and tide us over… Clothing stocks are also mostly useless, with resupplying hampered by the loss of our wool supply! There's going to be fighting over everything. It's hell out there officers, we need all mammals to get out there and stop it getting any worse. Now get out there!"
.
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Their shift must have taken twenty hours or something.
They were exhausted by the time they got home.
Ironically, Judy's tiny place at the Grand Pangolin became their new residence, given that, though much larger, Nick's apartment had a ceiling that was too low. Some mammals just put up with inconveniences like that anyhow. She couldn't blame them. She'd seen the rough shelters and camps being made up for those who couldn't go home, she'd take a place with a too low ceiling in a heartbeat. Heck, from what Nick had said, some mammals already had.
She'd finally been able to call home too.
Her entire family had eventually been able to crawl out, finding shelter in the barns. They were now busy in the process of taking out every other floor, so they could return back in.
Her parents…
They sounded the same, but they…
She shook her head, throwing her phone down only to pause.
That caller.
No, it was a dream.
It couldn't have, right?
Right?
But…
It all made sense.
-Except, he said that there would be no tricks! No deception! Nothing!
Only…
No…
He said the only issues would be those plain to see and he… He'd said that they'd be wolf sized, didn't he? She shivered, everything was plain and simple to see if she'd have thought about it for a second or two. Why hadn't she? She was just a stupid, dumb… not a bunny! What even was she!
She curled up, crying, Nick coming over to hug her. Comfort her. Tell her it was okay. No, it's not your fault. No, nobody called you up like that. It's your mind. It's playing tricks on you! Calm down, it's okay. It's okay…
.
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Months passed. The pair looked out across the sands of what was once Sahara Square. The climate wall was off, Tundratown had melted, the exposed areas now home to construction sites. Mammals ordered to work for food, trying to build more housing. Others were busy making basic clothing. Everyone just trying to fill the gaps.
Nobody knew what to call… what they were now…
A common name thrown about was 'Homo'. Latin for 'the same'. They were all the same now. Scientists had paired it with the latin for smart and, thus, they were 'Homo Sapiens'. Though it induced much childhood giggling, the name homos began to spread. Another variant was based on them still being mammals. 'Same Mammal'; 'homom'. That was winning out now.
They were homoms.
It was different to being a bunny, she had to admit. She could eat more, she was taller, she could jump less but she found that she had very high endurance. Indeed, it seemed that this species, were it to have evolved alongside others, would in effect fill the same niche that arctic wolves did, only in the desert. One of the most curious things about them was that they were true bipeds. Before, she and Nick could still walk about on all fours just fine if they wanted, but this species had much longer legs. Resorting to all fours was near impossible.
It was… different.
She looked out of the window, past Nick. They'd been out a lot in the sun, soon becoming aware that their pale skin could burn, unlike that of the darker skinned variants. With carefully exposure, their skin was darkening, getting more resistant, but his pale skin had been very stubborn. Refusing to tan, brown freckles were now covering it. Still, it was Nick.
"Still thinking this was your fault?" he asked.
She sighed. "I don't know," she admitted. "Part of her told her that yes, she'd answered that call. It had happened. But Nick had kept talking and kept talking, and she was less sure now. Regardless, he'd argued that even if she had, she had no reason to think of it as anything other than a prank. She couldn't be blamed…"
In the pit of her stomach though, she felt she could be.
"Hey, we're going to eat lunch with a friend," he said, passing over the bag of cooked fish. She'd gotten used to the taste, her new palate adapting, though Nick had to get used to new things too. His sense of smell had taken an absolute beating, and initially he'd vastly over spiced his food. He'd grumbled a bit at first, but now… Life went on.
"Who with?" she asked.
"Someone," he began, paw… no, hand now, up. "Who really likes this new species he's in."
"Huh?"
He stopped the car, holding her tight. "Judy, I know you blame yourself for this. You wanna go save the world every day, and if bad things happen, you're not good enough. I'm sure that if we could find a therapist in all this, they'd say that that wishmaker thing is all in your head or something. -But, if you still think it's real, there's someone who'd like to thank you."
"Who?" she asked, as a familiar painted van parked up next to him.
Judy stepped out, looking on as it shook and looking up as Finnick… Oh my…
"Yeah," he said, crossing his tan massive arms, a row of giant white teeth shining through his light brown lips. "I'm BIG now!"
.
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A few years later, and it seemed that maybe, just maybe, things were getting back to normal.
For instance, mammals were hating on each other again.
"Oh come on!" Judy groaned, crossing her arms at the news report. It had seemed that Indian mammals, from the elephants to the tigers to all sorts, had all turned into a fairly distinct type of homom. And so, they were organising their pride thing again when a blacked skinned one, claiming to have once been an elephant, argued that 'this was exactly what he was talking about all those years ago. Cue a small riot, but a riot none the less.
"Stupid…" the ex-bun complained, whacking her head into her pillow. "Stupid… Stupid…"
"Yeah, go figure," Nick replied next to her.
"Go…" She turned to him, her nostrils flaring in and out. "This was supposed to be the one benefit of all this! And guess what, mammals have just gone and messed it up. Again."
"Your point being?"
"I…" she began, before deflating. "I mean, was there any benefit to all this? Any?"
Nick shrugged, before smiling. "I don't know. Let's get a third opinion, shall we?" He leaned forward and spoke into her big belly. "Hello in there. I know you may be biased, as before bunnies and foxxo's couldn't, you know, but do you think there's any benefit to this?"
Judy's eyes narrowed as she gave him a look, only to be shocked out of it by a sudden kick. She leant down, rubbing her belly, while looking at her ex-fox but still foxy husband. "You know what," she said, a smile growing on her face. "Maybe there is. Maybe there is."