Lion Frat (Anthro Lionesses TFTG) (Patreon)

By FoxFaceStories

An Anonymous Commission

When John comes back from holiday to his frat house, a lion statue he brings back starts to cause trouble for not only he and his frat brothers, but for the entire town, too. Slowly, their hometown becomes a village of anthro lionpeople, and only those belonging to the frat notice the changes. Worse, when one of the frat bother’s girlfriends touches the statue, she begins to turn into a powerful male lion. Which means that the rest of them may just end up as her lusty pride of lionesses . . .

Lion Frat

The members of Zeta Alpha Nu cheered John’s return. In classic party fraternity fashion, the guys welcomed their brother back with jokes, ribbing, and a whole lot of prep for an outlandish party.

“We gotta get you some hotties now that you’re back!” Zack declared, grinning. “That is, unless you found some nice hot African chicks on your trip, eh?”

A couple of playful punches were directed John’s way. He simply smiled back and gave a casual, confident shrug.

“I give you could say I had a good time down there,” he said.

The guys cheered him on.

“John getting that sexy southern hemisphere pussy!”

“I hear they’ve got nice wide hips down there, woo!”

“Well, we just need to get you laid here even more now,” Zack said, “so you can give us notes on how their women and ours compare.”

John laughed and grabbed a beer, cracking it open. “You know Zack, that’s not a half bad idea at all. It’s good to be back with you guys.”

His other close friend, Tyrone, approached and placed an arm over John’s shoulder. “And it’ll be good to have you back on the Lions again, dude. Team hasn’t been the same without that arm of yours!”

“Well, I’m sure as their captain you’ve whipped them into shape without me. But speaking of, buddy, I’ve got us all a little present to display in the frat!”

John pulled away from Tyrone and opened his backpack. From it, he withdrew a carefully bubble wrapped statue of some kind. His frat brothers followed him, wondering what it was as he unwrapped it on the table.

“No way, that thing looks sick,” Zack said, always enthusiastic.

“Doesn’t it just?” John said, indicating towards the little statue. It was a stylised representation of some kind of lion, of lion god. It was bipedal, but covered in fur, and it wore a ceremonial robe of some kind. Its mane was intricately carved from stone, and it was in an impressive mid-roar pose. There was something ancient about it, like some forgotten deity surviving only in this artefact evidence. John rather liked it: in fact, he’d found himself oddly drawn to it, particularly since the football team of his college was literally called The Citygate Lions. A few other frat brothers - especially those who were team members - seemed to like it, but Tyrone just raised an eyebrow.

“Did ya’ll get swindled by some cheap con artist or something?” he said, folding his arms. He was a big, tall African-American man with a shaved head and serious features. He wanted to go big leagues with a football career, but of all the frat brothers he tended to his studies just as much, whereas the rest of Zeta Alpha Nu were looking to coast and experience the ‘frat lifestyle.’

“Dog, don’t be down on our man! This thing has to be genuine, right?”

That was Zack. The party animal. The lady chaser. Not that he was as successful as John or Tyrone in that regard. He had the wild energy of a tornado, and his spiky black hair attested to that. He wasn’t a member of the Lions, being not as tall or broad as the other frat brothers, but he more than made up for it with enthusiasm, party organisation, and his ability to somehow get them all out of trouble with his sheer charisma and ability to lie and flatter on the fly; something he was doing right at that moment.

“No idea,” John admitted. “But the lady selling it says it was!”

“She would!” Tyrone said with a chuckle.

“Well, she claimed it was an ancient artefact that belonged to some long lost civilisation of - get this - lion people!”

“Get out of town, man!”

“I’m not saying I believe it, but it sounded pretty rad. The statue supposedly has something called ‘the essence of the lion’, which as far as I’m concerned is exactly what our star football team has!”

“Better than the current lame mascot,” Pete said, one of the other frat brothers who was part of the team.

“That’s exactly what I thought! I figure since Zeta Alpha Nu is the practical home of the Citygate Lions, then we better have one impressive display item commemorating this! I say we put it above the fireplace!”

“The fireplace that doesn’t actually function,” Tyrone said, smirking.

John just shrugged. It was an impressive shrug: he was the only person bigger than Tyrone, and that bigness was all muscle too. He had the classically handsome lantern-square jaw, and light brown hair that was surprisingly good looking on him. He wasn’t entirely a blustering sort, but he was certainly with the fraternity for its parties, its run-ins with the hot ladies, and the sporty atmosphere.

“Who cares if it doesn’t work,” he said. “The lion will go great atop it. You gotta admit that, Ty. Maybe it will bring us good luck?”

Tyrone just chuckled. “Yeah, well, now that we’ve got you back maybe we won’t need it. You better bring us a big win to celebrate your homecoming, dude.”

“Of course! What else am I going to do? Study!?”

There was a round of laughter, and more beers were shared around. Not too many, though. The time to get really drunk was that night, when the party started.

***

John woke with a hangover, sprawled out on a couch in the frat living space. The headache wasn’t nice, but the knowledge that it had come after some truly crazy partying was pretty good: he’d missed the wild life. From what he could remember from last, even Zack had gotten damn lucky and ended up fucking Simone Gabels, who was hot as hell. Meanwhile, John had a sleeping form on top of him, a naked beauty with dark Middle Eastern skin whose name he’d forgotten, but had been a wild cat as they’d made out and fucked on the couch.

“Mhmm,” he moaned to himself, pleased to be back. He looked over to the fireplace on the other side of the room. Other frat brothers and sorority sisters were sprawled about in similar states of undress, and others had already woken and were flirting in the kitchen. But as much of a welcome home as this was, his eye was drawn to the lion statue on top of the fireplace, right where he’d placed it. It seemed to stare at him in a way that made him feel strangely uncomfortable. Its roar was powerful, its image dominant. And it seemed to call him. He could swear he could almost hear a tribal roar . . .

“Dude, get up! Everyone get up! Jared is coming!”

It was Zack who’d spoken, and he was in a seeming panic. It was not for no reason. Their frat president had been away for two days and was now returning. Jared was as much a party and sports animal as the rest of them, but he was very clear that leaving things in a state of practical orgy the morning after was a very bad recipe for getting their fraternity in deep shit, maybe even banned if it kept happening. They’d been warned twice already. John was thrown from his strange connection to the statue, helping the woman - whose name was apparently Tara - off of the couch and into a state of dress. The well-oiled machine of party boys and girls quickly hiding the evidence went to work, and before the president was even in sight, they were ready to scamper away - the girls, at least.

But not before Tara and paused, looking at the statue with interest.

“What is it?” Tara asked, pressing herself against John’s large, muscular form.

“Something I brought back from my trip across Africa. It’s a tribal statue to some ancient lion god.”

“It looks like it’s watching me,” Simone said, next to her lover Zack. “I feel this weird connection to it.”

“It does feel kind of weird, doesn’t it?” Zack said. He looked at John, wagging his eyebrows. They looked oddly thick, actually, as did his hair. But it was probably a trick of the light: Zack always needed a haircut.

One of the girls reached out to touch the statue, and to his own surprise John snatched her hand out of the air and pulled it back.

“Don’t touch it,” he said, before realising how dramatic he’d just been. “Uh, it’s fragile. And valuable.”

The two girls smiled awkwardly, then extracted themselves from the situation. Zack nodded in approval at the action.

“Good call, buddy. This thing is important. God me with Simone last night. I’m feeling the good luck. Makes me want to roar, y’know?”

He giggled in his silly way before heading off, but John knew what he was talking about. Something about the statue just felt . . . right.

It was at that point that Jared entered, peered around, and sighed. He was older than the rest of them by a couple of years, and damn rich. You could tell from his slick hair and fine dress sense, and the way girls threw themselves at him despite him not being as attractive as the other Zeta Alpha Nu brothers. He scratched at his ginger hair for a moment, then sighed again.

“I can smell the sex in the air,” he said. “And the damn booze.”

“Don’t tell us you don’t like parties anymore, Jared?” Zack said.

“Of course I do. Just like I love some good pussy. But we just need to be more careful, okay? Parties are okay, parties that become debauched libertine love fests are not.”

Only Tyrone really knew what half those words were, but he usually backed Jared anyway. “How was the trip, J?” he asked.

“Boring. Dad’s business. Rich people stuff. You wouldn’t understand.”

It was all good-natured ribbing, because Tyrone threw a beer to him, which he caught. “This is another thing to be careful of,” he warned, but he drank it anyway. “Don’t tell Kaley. I’ve told her I’m not drinking anymore.”

“Hell, I’d promise Kaley I’d stop breathing in order to get with her,” Zack said.

Jared grinned. “Ah, but she’s my girlfriend Zack, and she had expensive tastes. She’ll be round to visit later so I can show her off and you can be all jealous.”

Everyone was jealous, of course. Kaley was well-recognised as the hottest chick on campus. Her F-cup tits were also well-recognised, often before her face.

“What’s this new display I see?” Jared asked.

“Oh, that’s John’s new good luck charm. Tell ‘em, John.”

John did, giving the backstory again. “I just figured it’d be a nice centerpiece. Might help us with even more luck. I mean, Zack got with Simone Gabels last night.”

Jared whistled. “Well, I’d say it’s working. I like it. Gives me a kind of funny feeling, like it’s always watching me. Making the hair stand up on the end of my arms. But hey, maybe that’s just the good luck coming my way, huh?”

John certainly hoped. He couldn’t help but notice that Tyrone’s arms looked just a little hairier than he’d thought they were meant to be.

***

Citygate, despite having the word ‘city’ in its title, was not actually very big. It had a populace of only twenty two thousand, and half its budget had gone into the overblown stadium that had never managed to fully revitalise the town. Still, it had enough of a night scene and tourist industry to placate those who went to the local college, which swelled its numbers thanks to the surrounding, even smaller towns that sent their kids there. As a result, reputations got around fast, and Zeta Alpha Nu was the frat to be in if you loved sport, women, drinking, and partying.

John was glad to be back with his crowd, his ‘pride’ as he had started colloquially referring to them as since bringing the statue back. Even Jared, despite being more cautious on the party front, was happy to have him. The frat president’s cautionary warnings couldn’t be taken too seriously, after all: Kaley Miggins, his ultra-hot girlfriend, pretty much lived at the frat, soaking up the attention from the boys and having a lot of sex with her boyfriend - very loud sex that made the rest of them quite jealous. Jared probably got off on it. It was the popular consensus, at least.

And yet, something about John’s return didn’t feel quite right. Try as he did to re-acclimate after his one month absence travelling the world, some things felt strangely off in a way he couldn’t quite describe. Little changes in people’s demeanours, and their appearances: bushy eyebrows or thicker hairlines were one such example, but he also noticed that more people around campus would make strange huffing sounds, like beasts, when irritated or excited. He assumed at first that it was some weird prank, but Zack and Tyrone were noticing it too, along with the increase in body hair. John was glad to hear that his frat brothers noticed, because his own chest hair was wilder and thicker than it should have been, and in following days the hair on his head seemed to be growing at an alarming rate. They all chalked it up to various reasons: the weather, the weird new shampoo the college had issued, even the fact that they had been fucking like wild men at the most recent party. A few of them took supplements, and John was one of them, so that was probably the cause.

But it wasn’t just the campus, either. Somehow, impossibly, it was the town as a whole. At least, that’s what John assumed when he went into town and saw women he recognised with noticeable peach fuzz on their chins and lips, or arms that were just a bit too hairy. Old Mrs Donaldson practically had a set of claws for fingernails: they had to be fake, as people always joked about how she was always biting her fingernails down to the bone in the most disgusting way. It was why her fish and chips shop closed down: who could trust the food?

Still, it bothered John a little. Other things too, like how the trash collection service had seemingly broken down, which meant that the workers came and physically picked up the trash instead, seemingly across the whole town. Water services were apparently having issues too, and the old well pump had been reopened in the middle of town just to deal with it. He had never been the most academic person, or the most studious. And yet he had a feeling that several things were connected.

It was just a feeling, though. Better left unexamined. It was probably just the weirdness of returning to Citygate, he was sure. Whatever Zack and Tyrone and Jared and the rest were noticing was just him being weirdly paranoid.

And yet . . . each night, he couldn’t stop himself from coming to visit the lion statue. He would stare at it, take in its gaze, and feel strangely submissive to it. Then he would return upstairs to fall asleep.

He dreamed of a pride of beautiful lionesses.

***

“Oh my God, that thing is so cool!”

Kaley shot up from Jared’s lap to go inspect the lion statue upon the fireplace. John, Tyrone, Zack, and all the others in the room enjoyed the sight of her full breasts bouncing in her tight dress top, and the way her perfect hips swayed, showing off her peachy ass, as she crossed the room. She inspected the idol, her blonde hair falling down her back. John gave an approving wink to Jared, who winked back. Just for show, Kaley wiggled her butt a little, pretending to be preoccupied entirely with the statue. It was a good arrangement: she loved showing herself off and helping Jared brag about what a hot girlfriend she was, and the rest of them got to enjoy having ‘their girl’ around. A feast for the eyes, at least.

“Mhmm, it’s kinda hot,” she said in her sultry voice, casting her blue eyes back at the gang. “Love them pecs. You might have some competition, Jarry.”

“Jarry?” Zack snorted. Tyrone couldn’t help but chuckle as well.

“Well, I’m your lion, don’t forget, babe.”

“Mhm, don’t worry, I won’t. You’re the alpha lion, right? That makes me your cute lioness.”

“Actually,” Tyrone cut in, “lion prides typically have mostly females. There’s just a few male lions in a pride. They’re mostly lionesses.”

Kaley turned, posed with a hand on her hip, thrusting out her chest a little so that half the guys couldn’t even look her in the eyes, John included. “Well, I guess I’m the lucky lioness that got stuck with so many boys, hmm? Especially you, Jarry.”

John grinned, taking in the sight of the frat’s favourite hottie. But then something weird happened: she cocked her head like an owl, turned on the spot, and re-examined the lion statue a little closer. All pretence of looking sexy in front of the boys disappeared, and instead she seemed totally transfixed by the statue.

“Wow,” she said. “It’s eyes really do follow you, huh? It’s kinda dominant, isn’t it? Powerful, right? It’s kinda . . . entrancing . . .”

It was almost twenty seconds later that Jared called out. “Hey, I’m kinda entrancing too, right babe? Babe?”

She turned, the spell broken. Her hair tumbled over her shoulders, and it looked more lush than it had been before. John could have sworn that was the case. Even her eyebrows looked fuller, which wasn’t a style she usually adopted.

“Sure, honey,” she replied with a smile. “I just love my lioness. I mean, my lion.”

Zack, Tyrone, and John all exchanged glances. The hairs on their necks stood on end in response to that strange moment. And they each had much more neck hair than they were supposed to have, at that.

***

Over the following days, all of the frat brothers starting to notice things were getting a little weird. A lot weird, actually. Not just around campus and in their classes either, but on the field, and out in town. For one, the athletes of Zeta Alpha Nu and other fraternities and sororities had always been pretty skilled as part of their culture, but suddenly they were running faster and further, leaping more impressively, and tackling one another in an almost bestial fashion. Even ordinary girls were displaying feats of strength quite casually, and acting as if they’d always been that strong. It coincided with a change in the bodies of people across town: each seemed . . . hairier, the women especially but the men as well. They were also more confident, outgoing, and outdoor in general.

The last part was significant, because increasingly town services just seemed to . . . stop operating, at least as they were meant to. The regular water service had not returned, but more water wells that dipped into the ground were starting to appear everywhere. John could have sworn none of them existed before, but the slightly-hairy inhabitants of various streets and parks proclaimed that they had “always been there.” John was perhaps willing to believe them, but Tyrone was utterly certain that this was not the case.

“Nah man, that shit was never there. Any the garbage trucks are still not coming, but people aren’t even putting much trash out anyway. Something weird is goin’ on.”

“Yeah,” Zack agreed. “Simone won’t talk to me anymore. She called me a fucking girl! Me! A girl!”

“I think we’re on bigger issues here,” John said.

“Fuck her, man. We’re having another party. That’ll get us all over this freaky shit. Like how there aren’t any planes in the sky lately.”

All three of them looked up. Tyrone and John hadn’t even realised. Why weren’t the planes in the sky recently? There were a number of private prop planes that cropdusted nearby, and an air traffic route went right over the town centre.

John shook his head. He couldn’t understand it.

“I swear it’s like we’re the only ones that can see it all, too. Fuck, I can’t even deal with this right now. Let’s just have a good party tonight and try to sort it all out tomorrow.”

Tyrone nodded, though he looked equally troubled.

“Yeah,” Zack added. “As hot as Kaley is, I can only watch her strut her stuff so long before I need to find a good hot lay of my own!”

***

Unfortunately for Zack, he was less successful that night despite putting on his A-game. But he wasn’t alone in that failure: neither John nor Tyrone managed to score either. In fact, at the frat, it seemed only Jared and Kaley were getting down, and quite hard at it as always, the lucky pair. All the other visiting women were ‘too tired’ or ‘not interested’ or just felt that ‘something was a bit off, ya know?’ It was not the kind of return to form that John had hoped for, particularly after scoring with that other hottie several nights ago. Even the beer had been stronger than he’d thought: once again he had a hangover that was more powerful than it should have been, and he woke on that same couch, looking up at that strangely hypnotic lion statue.

It was still staring at him. It was still . . . dominant. Powerful. There was something alluring about it too. He stood, almost as if in a dream. It wasn’t like there were others around: the girl he had made out with had left before it escalated any further, and he’d passed out alone in the living room. So it was just him and the statue.

“Is it you?” he asked it, staring deep into the powerful lion god’s stone eyes.

He received no answer, at least not in words. What he did experience was a sudden, sharp, and very unexpected pain in his tailbone that made him yelp quite loudly.

“What the f-fuck!?” he cried, reaching for his backside. It was only then that he felt something that shouldn’t be there. A nub that had pushed out from his tailbone. One that was soft and . . . no.

“Fur? What the shit? What the fuck!?”

It didn’t take long for others to arrive: Tyrone, Fred, Zack, Jared, and all the rest. Kaley even came down the stairs in a sexy nightie that left little to the imagination. But for once the guys weren’t even staring at her. Their gazes were all on John, who was practically hyperventilating. If he held up his shirt and pulled down his pants a little, and twisted just right to the side, he could manage to see it.

“Holy fuck,” someone said, probably Sam, “John. You’re growing a fucking tail!”

John exhaled, barely able to control his breathing. The thing at the end of his tailbone stuck out about two inches or more, and it was very furry. Like a lion’s tail, it had a tuft of wavy, slightly curly dark-blonde/light brown fur at the end.

“It looks like a . . .”

“A lion’s tail, sort of,” John said, confirming the worst out loud. “It feels fucking weird. What the hell is happening?”

He pulled at it, hoping it was a weird prank, but that was not the case.

“Does anyone know why John has a lion’s tail? Or whatever it is?”

“Looks like a lion’s tail.”

Someone cleared their throat. “Umm, guys? He’s not the only one. I’ve, uh, got one too. The start of one, anyway. Like John. It’s fucking weird.”

It was Zack that had spoken. There were tears in his eyes, which was a big development, because everything was a joke to Zack. Instead he turned and lifted his shirt, showing off a development that looked identical to John’s.

“Oh God, I’ve got one too!” someone called. “It’s - nnngh! - coming in right now! It’s - oh God no - it’s growing!!”

They all peered to see the same happening to Sam, and then to Tyrone, and then to Jared. Kaley pulled away from her boyfriend with a shriek, only to cry out herself moments later. Outlined against her tight dress was a noticeably prominent bulge at the end of her tailbone, large enough to be obviously similar to what all the guys were getting.

“Eewww! Someone get rid of it!” she cried. “I don’t want a tail! What the hell is happening!?”

John simply looked up at the statue. “It’s - it’s . . .”

And then, for reasons he couldn’t explain, he didn’t give the answer he knew in his heart to be true. Instead, he shrugged.

“It’s a total fucking mystery. But . . . I think we aren’t the only ones affected.”

***

John was right. Other people were changing too. Not only were they also getting hairier, all across town, but he and all the other frat brothers were noticing the stubby tails growing out the backsides of individuals young and old, male and female, hot or not. The cheerleading team did their dances while John and Tyrone played a practice match, and it was easy to see that the women were more muscular than normal, and that their nails were longer too. Similar to everyone else, they seemed to be developing hair - almost fur - in places they really shouldn’t be. And that wasn’t even talking about when they gave the Citygate Lions a roar as part of their chant.

“It actually sounded like a damn roar,” Tyrone said, echoing John’s thoughts. “Like, a real lion’s raw. Almost, at least.”

And yet, not a single person they confronted, not even family members, seemed to recognise that anything was changing.

“What are you talking about, John?” his mother said. “I’ve always had my tail, just like your father, and your little sister. And how dare you ask me about my hair! Just because my coat is a little . . . thin, these days, doesn’t mean you have to call attention to it!”

The others relayed the same information from their respective families: it didn’t matter what neighbourhood, so long as they were part of the town of Citygate, they were all changing, and seemingly all unaware of it. Only the frat brothers of Zeta Alpha Nu, along with their ‘live-in girl’ Kaley, recognised what was happening. It was freaking the poor woman out in particular.

“Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God!” she cried one morning. “I’m getting so much hair in so many places I shouldn’t. Jared, I just shaved my armpits like, last night, and now look at them! They’re hairier than yours!”

John happened to be passing by, and saw that they were indeed impressively hairy armpits. He also noticed something even more disappointing, which she mentioned next.

“And my tits are disappearing! Or getting smaller! I’m meant to have F-cups, Jared! Fucking F-cups! My pride and joy! But now they’re only E-cups, or triple-Ds! I’m not fitting into my bras!”

“Is it your period?” her boyfriend said.

“God no, I haven’t even had it, but I’m not pregnant - I checked. This is so shit! Why is this insanity happening? I couldn’t even start my car this morning and now my tits are getting smaller!”

John spied that while she complained, Jared was rubbing his own chest and wincing. John mirrored the action, and the reaction as well. His chest had indeed felt sore since that morning, and after showering he noticed that his nipples were larger. Swollen. He’d hoped it was just from stress, or some rash. But it could well be another change. After all, his tail had grown out to be six inches now, as had all the frat brothers and Kaley as well. There was no notion of when it might stop.

It was late at night that a meeting was finally organised for all members of Zeta Alpha Nu, with Kaley sitting beside Jared and trying to hide how much her boobs had reduced in size. John found it hard to not look at her, as did Zack and Tyrone and all the rest, and she herself was gazing around, as if caught between anxiety and flirtatiousness. Perhaps the tension of the situation was making everyone feel a kind of desperate arousal, because John had to hide his erection. Others were doing the same, even as Jared tried to get their attention.

“Everyone, listen up! This isn’t about the party tonight, that’s been cancelled. It’s not like we were going to get lucky with girls anyway, judging from all the weird shit that’s been happening lately.”

There was a murmur of agreement. The fact that they’d all been getting a lot hornier recently only made things worse. Tail or no tail, they wanted to ‘catch some tail’ still. They were frat boys, all things considered, which meant the total lack of sex outside of Jared and Kaley was making them all go a little crazy.

“Is anyone else’s tail getting longer?” someone asked.

“Obviously!” Kaley shouted. She stood up and turned, showing that she’d had to cut a hole in her dress just to let hers out. It was perhaps eight inches long, and seemed to be growing pale blonde fur along its length, ending in a much hairier end. “It just keeps growing! What the hell is causing it!?”

“The cause,” Tyrone said, “is obvious.” He glanced over at the statue above the fireplace, and everyone else’s eyes followed too. As always, the statue seemed to be watching them. Changing them. Exerting some kind of mystical power over them.

“It might not be that,” John said weakly. He scratched his chest again, trying to ignore how swollen and sensitive his nipples were. The other frat brothers were doing the same thing, he noticed. Hell, Sam even looked smaller: his shoulders at least had reduced in size. It made John wonder if the same was true of him.

“Explain,” Jared said.

“I just think . . . it might not be the statue.”

“He’s right, it wouldn’t be the statue.”

“It can’t be.”

“Yeah,” Zack piped in. “This shit is crazy, and I’m really freaking the fuck out here guys, but how could it be the statue. Let’s just leave it alone.”

It was Tyrone who managed to push through the programming. He clutched his head, his longer nails almost scratching his slightly hairy temples.

“N-n-n-NO!!” he shouted. It astounded everyone, except for Kaley, who stood oddly still, watching Tyrone with something that almost looked like desire.

Zack nearly jumped. “Dude, what the hell?”

Tyrone pointed at the lion statue. “It’s the statue! Can’t you all see! It’s the damn statue that John bought. Ever since it arrived, we’ve been changing, and the world around us has been changing. At least Citygate has! How many of you have been able to leave town since it arrived?”

There was a general murmur of realisation.

“I had to turn around when I hit the highway,” someone said.

“My car isn’t working, like all the others in town, but I tried jogging out. But then I just sort of . . . turned around.”

Others gave their own stories, all reinforcing the fact that since the statue had arrived, no one had been able to leave town, even as the town itself began to change. It hadn’t escaped anyone’s attention that the seven story Hartley building in the CBD, the tallest in town, was only five stories tall now, something everyone thought was normal. Nor had it gone unnoticed that a lot more buildings seemed to be made of wood rather than brick, and that some even appeared to have heaped long grass upon their roofs.

“Are you saying that we’re all turning into lions or something?” Jared asked.

Tyrone looked to John. “What do you think?”

“I think - I think . . . I think this is all nonsense,” John said, but he managed to nod, clearly indicating that he was struggling to tell the truth. Before he could try to muster his words again though, someone shrieked and pointed at the statue.

“Let’s just destroy it already! C’mon!”

Several individuals ran forward to break it, but they paused suddenly, as if frozen, their bodies unable to step any closer. All were transfixed by the statue.

“Holy shit,” John said. “Its eyes are glowing!”

They were glowing gold, staring at everyone present. There was a thrumming of energy in the air, and each man present - and Kaley also - realised that it had been there all along, just never so powerfully or so concentrated. They each clutched their ears - or thought they did - because as they tried to block out this strange signal their ears suddenly shifted. John groaned in discomfort as they began to expand, becoming bigger and pointer and most certainly hairier. They shifted upwards on either side of his head.

“NNghh! What the - this is impossible! Ohhh!!”

Even as his ears became large and cat-like, other small changes occurred, all of them worrying. Kaley experienced a dramatic one first. The panicking woman had stumbled into the centre of the circle and was groaning as she clutched her face. She already had a set of cute cat ears, but now a set of actual whiskers was emerging from either side of her nose, a set of wiry points that were surprisingly thick.

“Whiskers? I’m growing whiskers!?”

All of them were: Zack was screeching in a voice that was embarrassingly high for the party boy as he tried to remove them, only for his skin to pull out painfully as he did so. He quickly let them go, rubbing the sore skin. But his attention quickly altered as his tail pushed out yet further. Tyrone was in the same awkward position, bending over and grunting like a woman in labor as his tail extended also.

“Ohhh! Nghh! It’s g-getting b-bigger!”

John couldn’t say a word. He was helpless to the changes wrought by the statue, and unable to do anything to it, lest even more changes be triggered. All he could do was whimper and try not to make too many embarrassing noises, even as fur began to push through the skin of his arms and legs, and along his chest. It itched terribly, and he scratched it with his fingernails, fingernails that were starting to closely resemble claws in their impressive thickness and sharpness.

“G-growing f-fur,” he eventually stammered.

“Fur!? FUR!? WHY AM I GROWING FUR!?”

That was a terrified Kaley, who was overcome by the expansion of hair all over her body. Even more than the guys in the group, she was horrified by what was happening, her sexy smooth body, hairless and perfect, was now altering to leave her as quite literally the hairiest woman on campus.

Or so she thought.

It was Jared who stumbled to one of the windows, trying to call for help. Always the more responsible one, at least among the irresponsible frat, he slid it open and peered outside, managing to shout despite the growth of his tail and hair coming into being all over his body.

“Please! Help us! S-something’s happening! We’re transforming or s-something! Call the p-police . . ?”

His voice faded as he saw something shocking. Right before his eyes, out on the campus grounds, on the steps and walkways and beneath the shade of the trees, everyone was changing. All of them were gaining cat ears, and sandy-tan fur, and even sporting longer tails. He couldn’t see whiskers from the distance, but had little doubt they were developing as well.

And not one of them seemed to be noticing what was happening to them.

He turned, borderline shell shocked, and looked to the rest as their changes finished. They even looked a little smaller: still athletic, but their shoulders reduced in size, all except for Kaley, who was already slim.

“It’s not just us,” he said as the furor died down. “They’re all changing out there! And they don’t even know it!”

The group turned as one, focusing Jared, then on themselves again, and then on John. He bore the brunt of their stares, and winced.

“I didn’t mean for this to happen, I swear! I thought it was just a cool, like, trinket or whatever! C’mon Tyrone, you’re my best buddy. You too, Zack. You know I’d never try to pull this shit on purpose!”

Tyrone sighed, and stepped into the middle of the room. He was trying to ignore the fur coating on his limbs, as well as on his chest and lower back. Certainly, there was no way to ignore the tail that was now writhing of its own volition out his backside. The same could be said for all of them, who were awkwardly fussing over their tails.

“John’s right, even if he did get us into this mess. This is a freak accident.”

“So what the hell do we do?” Sam whined.

“We get rid of it . . . somehow. Destroy it.”

For just a moment, the statue’s eyes flashed that golden yellow light again. Right before their very eyes, Tyrone’s nose changed, becoming the inverted broad triangle of a big cat. His eyes went wide as it pushed forward a little bit, taking up more of his vision. There was a gasp from the group.

“How can we get rid of it if we can’t even suggest doing that?” Zack asked. “John, is there an instruction manual for this shit?”

John shook his head. He was practically mute. He hadn’t intended for any of this to happen. Normally, he would remain stoic and decisive, and do his best to explore his options. But something welled up inside him again. To the surprise of everyone, he turned and fled, openly sobbing as he ran for his room.

He’d never felt so emotional in his life.

None of them had.

***

The changes continued, and that included some small mental ones as well. While the physical alterations concerned them the most, it was undeniable that even thinking about destroying the statue was difficult, and talking about it openly even harder. Several individuals, like Sam, tried to go further and smash it to bits with a baseball bat or other like blunt objects. They were the unlucky ones. Each time they attempted the idol’s destruction, they only found their changes accelerated, growing yet more fur across their body, losing more of the width of their shoulders, and even gaining a more leonine face, including the sharp, carnivorous teeth.

John felt guilty as all hell, but could provide no solutions. Some of the frat brothers didn’t talk to him anymore, despite him formerly being one of their most popular members, but Tyrone and Zack stood by him. Jared did his best to keep order as well, and backed by Kaley the rest of the frat brothers fell in line. It was kind of strange though, because as much as Kaley was becoming furry and lion-like as the rest of them, she still had a stunning appeal that left them all gazing at her, John included. Even Tyrone, who did his best to respect Jared’s relationship with her, was finding it hard not to look at her tail swaying in counter to her lovely hips, or to stare at her chest. She hated that her breasts had reduced further to ‘mere’ C-cups, but they were still sumptuous in everyone else’s eyes, particularly since she began packing on muscle in the days that followed. For some reason, John found that the sight gave him an instant hard-on.

“Boys, give me some space,” she said one morning as she passed through. She no longer had heels on: like the rest of them, her feet had transformed to have their own claws, fur, and a more digitigrade configuration, not that anyone other than Tyrone knew the meaning of that particular word. Still, the boys all parted, borderline obedient, and she waltzed through to get some water. “What?” she asked. “Can’t someone make me up a damn sandwich or something? I’m starving here!”

It was an odd request, as normally she made her own food, or Jared did, and the rest could enjoy the sight of her poses as it was done, but now they were pushing past each other to help. Even John got carried away, shoving a couple of boys aside to make her something.

“Here you are, Kaley,” he said, voice squeaking a little.

“Cheers, John,” she said, taking it from him in her increasingly paw-like hands, something they all shared now too. “You’re sweet.”

Then, to the surprise of all including herself, she kissed him on the cheek. There was a sudden silence, and her eyes went wide.

“Don’t tell Jared,” she said.

They were all sworn to silence. Frat brothers could be notoriously gossipy, but whether it was anxiousness over their changes, or a sense of camaraderie because of them, they each kept their vow. In fact, they felt they had to. Without even meaning to, Kaley was exerting more and more of an influence over the frat brothers, and none of them, not even her, understood quite why just yet.

But then, there were a lot of things they couldn’t understand, and they grew with each passing hour - not day, hour. John and Tyrone and the other football players had dared to re-enter campus where numerous other students with cat-like features acted as if nothing weird had happened at all. People were walking to the lectures now, even those from afar, and there wasn’t a car or even bicycle in sight. They even saw some people carrying jugs of water - actual jugs! - instead of bottles. For a time, they tried to live normally until they figured out a way to reverse the statue’s magic or destroy it, but what was ‘normal’ was rapidly changing. Lectures no longer had screens. Parties no longer had electronic music, but actual fucking musicians at the back! Beer was being served in olden style mugs. And when they played football at the stadium they were cheered on as powerfully as ever . . . except that the opposing team was not from another campus, but drawn from other members of their own.

And then, just hours later, there was no stadium at all. Just wooden seats on either side of a field with crude markings, and a crude pigskin ball of a type none of them recognised. But everyone still felt John was the star player, and in this new reality he simply had to ‘re-learn’ the ropes of a game that was like football, but with half the number of players and a lot more kicking of the ball. It felt . . . bestial.

“How the fuck is there no football!?” John whined. “This is insane! It’s like our whole way of life is disappearing. They couldn’t even get the big electronic screen working, and now it’s gone!”

“What the hell is an electronic screen?” a passerby asked.

John and Tyrone froze. Zack was with them also, and it took a moment to dawn on him what had just been said.

“It’s . . . technology,” Tyrone tried to explain. “It uses electricity? Y’know, televisions, microwaves, all that kind of stuff?”

The young woman who was passing had the same leonine ears, whiskers, tail, and fur as the rest of them, but she clearly had no idea she’d changed, because she just smirked as if utterly amused.

“Surrrrrre,” she said, stretching out the word condescendingly. “Capture the lightning? Good luck getting a shaman powerful enough for that.”

“A . . . shaman?” John said.

“Yeah. One of the tribal leaders, dummy. But hey, if you can capture the spirit of the storm then best of luck to you! Anyway, I’m off to class.”

The three men were struck silent, watching her tail wag as she went.

“She had an iPod sticking out of her pocket,” Zack noted. “How the fuck can she not know some of those things but have others? Like, that literally doesn’t make sense, right? I don’t just mean this is all magically changing, I mean that’s a total fucking plot error right? We’re talking blue screen of death of reality here, huh?”

He was hyperventilating a little, and John had to place a hand on his shoulder to calm him down. He held it there longer than he would have: bodily contact felt familiar and normal in a way it never had. Not sexual . . . just normal.

“Hey man, it’s okay. We’ll figure this out, somehow. Maybe it’ll all return to normal?”

Tyrone folded his arms. “Dude, are you serious? This shit is only getting worse. Zack is right, it’s not making sense. But I think that iPod will disappear entirely before that girl remembers what a TV screen is. Don’t you see what’s happening? Our technology is regressing! Look at the carpark! Notice anything?”

John scanned his eyes over the carpark and did indeed notice two things. The first was that there were no cars there at all. There had been a few before the game, but now there were none. The second was that sections of the car park were now cracked and broken, with tufts of grass, burgeoning trees, and elements of nature pushing through.

“It’s, like, eroding away or something,” he said.

“Yeah. Whatever that statue is that you brought, it’s literally changing our reality, dude. I don’t even think we’re gonna be on Earth soon.”

“What!?” Zack cried, tail going straight, ears sticking up. “Don’t just say that, man!”

But Tyrone just clenched his furry fists, his claws starting to retract a little - another new development for all of them. “I think I might be right. We can’t get out of town, and the town is changing. If the whole world was changing, we could go anywhere. But it’s just Citygate. It’s like we’re being transported elsewhere.”

John furrowed his brow - a brow that was hairier each day as the fur started to creep over his face. “I don’t believe it. I know I’m responsible for this, but there’s no way we’re ending up in another dimension like some kind of nerdfest. I refuse to believe it.”

But Tyrone just gave him a despairing look. “I hope you’re right, dude. But look for the signs.”

That night, as his tail pushed out a little further, and his shoulders and torso shrank down a little further, John looked up at the stars. He’d never been a big astronomy nerd, but surely he could recognise some constellations, right? His father had taught him a few, and he’d been under that sky all his life.

There seemed to be a lot more stars in it now than there ever had been. And they were a whole lot brighter too.

***

It was two days later that the next horrifying realisation came over the members of Zeta Alpha Nu. Since the changes began, the frat brothers had found their forms shrinking. They still retained a strong athleticism and stamina, some even more so than before. In fact, their speed in running had only grown. But despite this, their masculine frames had reduced in size. John and all the rest had assumed this was simply part of the new ‘normal’ - it only made sense given that most of the population seemed to be becoming less robust in that same manner - but there were other aspects that were starting to become worrisome.

One of them was their chests. Each of the men, even less fit ones like Zack, still enjoyed a good pair of muscular pecs. But as the changes continued, their chests had softened, and their nipples swelled in size. They had assumed and hoped that this was ordinary, but even as it occurred, Kaley’s considerable bust had actually been shrinking. It was now to the point where she was whining about being on the verge of tiny little A-cups, and she had actually passed on to Jared that her nipples were shrinking even as his swelled to become positively feminine in nature.

That might not have sparked a panic, if not for other subtle changes that were now becoming less subtle over time. John continued to notice in the mirror that his waist was shrinking, even while his hips seemed to expand. It was leaving him and all his frat brothers with figures that were embarrassingly womanly, especially since their shrunken shoulders gave them a softer, feminine vibe. The fact that when they got agitated their voices seemed to crack and whine a little bit was just icing on the cake.

And yet they each still ignored the terrible possibility of what was happening, hoping that this was just the new standard body type they must have to deal with.

But it all came crashing down the next morning, when Kaley woke the whole building with a squeal.

“AAAAIIEEE!!”

Jared was trying to calm her when the rest of them made their way into the frat president’s room. Poor Kaley was holding herself, nearly naked (not that there was much to see anymore), and trying to obscure her pussy from sight. At least, that’s what John and the rest thought.

“It’s not fair!” she cried, voice deeper than it should have been. “First my tits, then my gorgeous figure, and now I’m losing my goddamn pussy!”

Jared was freaking out. “Kaley, what are you talking about? What’s happening?”

But she just sobbed, and raised a spare hand to point at the other figures in the room. “Are you all stupid? Don’t you see what’s happening? Look at my fucking shoulders, then look at yours! Look at the fact that you’ve all got bigger titties than I do! Me!” She gave a crazed laugh. “Don’t you get it? You’ve got more of an hourglass figure than I do. Your voices are cracking. How am I, like, the one to be figuring this out? Is it male pride? Haha, oh God, pride. That’s soooo hilarious.”

“Is she fucking drunk or something?” Zack asked.

But the rest of them were all putting it together. They had been woken up by her, and hadn’t had time to examine their own changes overnight. But now, looking down, they could feel that there was more of a heft to their chest. A softness. A jiggliness. John gasped at the sight of two mounds protruding from his singlet, forming a faint but noticeable cleavage that was undeniable. Breasts. He had breasts. They all did: except for Kaley.

“What the fuck,” Tyrone muttered, more a statement than a question.

“We’re becoming women,” John muttered.

“Lionesses, actually!” Kaley announced, still cackling a little madly. She pulled her hand away from between her thighs and turned to face the men directly. “And it looks like I’m your goddamn alpha male, boys.”

Silence fell as every eye stared at what was hanging between Kaley’s legs. It was small, still developing, but it was very much there.

Kaley Miggins had grown a penis overnight.

***

Zack was frothing at the mouth. John was in despair. Tyrone had his face in his hands, trying to sort through it logically. Jared was clinging to Kaley as if she were the man and he the woman, which may well be the case in just a few days. All of the men had showered - a process requiring more drying these days - and taken the time to examine their bodies. Lord knows that John had spent a long time poking and prodding his new B-cup breasts until Sam had told him to get out. They were small, but felt big on his reduced body. More than that, they were surprisingly sensitive, especially his big nipples, which he brushed accidentally a few times, causing him to groan. And just as he had suspected, his manhood, once so damn impressive, had shrunk noticeably by a full third of its size. He actually shed a few tears over that.

He was still shedding tears in the main living space as they all tried to figure out what to do. A lot of the men were, most in fact. Only Kaley was a bit more stoic, which was a far cry from her usual reaction to things. Instead, she chuckled softly occasionally, and pointed out the irony.

“It’s like you’re all becoming more emotional the more you become lionesses, and here I am for once not crying about a catastrophe. Ha! Cat-astrophe.”

There was a collective groan across the room, and she actually grinned, flicking her hair off to one side. It was growing wilder and mangier, and it was obvious to everyone now that she was getting a lion’s mane, while the rest of them would only had the shorter hair of lionesses, with perhaps a dash of humanoid styling thrown in.

“We don’t have power anymore,” Jared said idly. “There’s not even wiring in the walls.”

“I can make candles,” someone said.

“Since when can you make candles?” John asked.

The man named Hank paused. He’d once been a big brawler, but was now the smallest and daintiest of any of them. He was developing a cat nose too, and John imagined he was around the corner for that too, judging from the weird sensitivity in his own.

“I just . . . can,” he said. “Wait, how do I know how to make candles? I know how to work the fat and get it out of things we hunt. And how to treat the wick.”

“I can do the hunting, if need be,” Sam said, and Tyrone agreed with him.

“I’ll make the traps.”

“Is anyone else hearing this?” John said. “You’re talking as if you're a group of village people! We live in a fucking modern society or whatever.”

His words shocked sense into them.

“We’re losing our goddam minds,” Jared said, leaning against Kaley’s thicker chest.

“I don’t think so,” Tyrone said. “I think our society is regressing to a tribal level. It’s why we’re getting skills that would help us. I’m guessing there’s a cave painter here somewhere? Or maybe a weaver?”

Two of the transforming frat brothers put up their hands awkwardly.

“Thought so. We’re not losing our minds, but we’re getting new skills to survive. I think . . . I think we’re in for the long haul.”

“But why are we turning into fucking females!?” Zack cried, still hyperventilating.

Tyrone swallowed. Everyone was listening. Kaley seemed to have worked it out, because she nodded for him to continue. What he said next made John feel deeply anxious.

“Because a pride of lions only needs a few males, and the rest are mostly female. I don’t know why we’re switching, but in a tribal context-”

“A what?”

“In a tribal situation, it’s important to have as many women who can, well, who can breed as possible. We’re turning into Kaley’s pride of lionesses so we can reproduce and continue as a society.”

With those final, weighty words, the room turned into chaos. Everyone had an opinion on this, especially Jared, who was mortified at the notion that his girlfriend would soon be the one penetrating him. It was a fraternity of sporty jocks, at least formerly, so every male ego in the room was chomping at the bit to argue against the now-silent Tyrone. But John was silent with him. He knew his friend, and knew that he was the smartest of them all. He’d worked it out, and Kaley had too.

“Oh God,” he said to himself. “I’ve fucked us all. Literally.”
For a brief moment, he imagined being a full lioness woman, and bearing a litter of cubs in his belly. He instantly turned away from that thought when he realised it sounded almost sort of tantalising.

“No way! No fucking way!” came a voice, high above the rest. It belonged to Zack, who was pacing around the back of the room, freaking out. Even his words had jumped up a higher octave, and he’d torn his shirt in his agitation, revealing the shape of his breasts, which had to be a C-cup. For some reason, John felt briefly jealous.

But then Zack did something very, very stupid. He grabbed a chair from the back of the room, and using all the strength available to him, he flung it across the room straight towards the fireplace, intending to smash the statue from afar.

“No!” John called. “NO ZACK NO!!”

But it was too late. In what felt like slow motion, the chair soared across the room, over the heads of several frat brothers, whizzing passed a confused Jared. It smashed against the statue, splintering open and falling to the hearth.

The statue hadn’t budged an inch.

But it’s eyes did begin to glow.

“Zack!” Jared cried. “You fucking moron!”

Tyrone just closed his eyes, accepting what was about to happen.

John pleaded. “Please! Wait, it wasn’t us! Don’t change us any - NNGHH!!!”

The changes began, even more powerfully than before. Every man in the room quickly lowered his hands to his manhood, intent on protecting it from the change. It was a futile effort, because each of their penises and testicles began to shrink yet further, drawing back into their bodies slowly but surely. John moaned in unwanted pleasure; it felt far too good for such an emasculating moment. Even as his cock pulled back though, he was distracted by the growth of his breasts, and a strange tingling feeling below them as well.

“N-no! You can’t! Please!”’

But no matter how much John or any of them begged, nothing could stem the tide of change. Their breasts grew, and their bodies softened, becoming slimmer and more feminine in shape. Their hair, which was still a little wild, shrunk in again, while Kaley’s expanded further and wilder, leaving her with a luscious mane that John couldn’t help but be entranced by. He groaned as his waist pulled in, and again as his hips creaked wider. For just a small moment he imagined them to be ‘cub breeding hips’, and then he tore his thoughts away from that.

“No! Not thinking about - NGHH!!”

His tail lengthened, gaining vertebrae at a rapid pace as it snaked down until its furry end was level with his calves. His vision blurred, and for a moment he was confused until he saw that all of the rest of the transformers were also rubbing their eyes. When their paw-like hands came away, it revealed something astonishing: all of them now had amber-coloured eyes.

The changes settled, and there was a period where everyone freaked out, as well as cussing out Zack for his idiocy.

“Jesus, I thought it would work!” he whined, voice cracking audibly so that it was even higher. “I didn’t mean for us to become fucking female!”

“We’re not female!” John declared, who’d checked more than once to make sure that was definitely the case. “Not yet! But I’ve lost a lot of freakin’ length here, guys.”

“You deserve it,” Sam said. “You’re the one who got us into this mess! If anyone deserves to be turned into a fucking lion-girl, it should be you, asshole!”

“Yeah!”

“It was your dumb statue that’s changed everything!”

“I didn’t mean to!” John cried, trying to ignore how high his own voice was, or how the two growths on his chest wobbled with each motion. “It was a damn accident! I said I was sorry, didn’t I?”

But there were more jeers and insults thrown his way, and the crowd of near-women were getting angry. All of them looked very leonine by that point, complete with the noses of big cats, prominent whiskers, and amber eyes, not to mention the fur and ears. All they were missing was a slight muzzle, sharp teeth, and perhaps a more feminine shape to their features, and they would be done. But there was more than enough primal anger, and a number of them growled, even Zack, who was eager to cast the rage of the crowd towards someone else. Tyrone put out his hand to try to calm the crowd, but to the shock of all it was Kaley that spoke. Well, she didn’t speak per se, so much as let loose a loud and very dominating roar.

They all were cowed instantly, even John and Tyrone, crouching just a little in the presence of Kaley as if by instinct. She had changed as much as they had, but hers had been the reverse of the feminised frat brothers. Her frame was massive, easily the size of John’s huge muscular figure before he’d started transformation. Her muscles bulged, but her top had not ripped or anything: instead, her clothes had altered to fit her newly masculine frame. She seemed to just be coming to terms with it herself, as she looked to be taller than all the guys present, easily six feet in height.

“No more fighting!” she shouted, her voice lower, practically a man’s voice, almost. “I’m sick of all of you blaming each other. I’m turning into a lion, you’re turning into my lionesses. I mean into, uh, just into lionesses. Nothing can change that, and attempting to destroy that statue is only making things go faster so about, like, we don’t do that, huh?”

There was a murmur of agreement, and no counter argument whatsoever. Even John, who wanted to keep finding solutions to the statue problem, found himself agreeing with her. He was getting the same sensation from Kaley as he did from his impression of the lion god of the statue: with her powerful frame and increasingly glorious mane, she was more of a he now. And he was impressive. Dominating.

“Yes, my . . . Kaley,” he said, awkwardly. What had he just been about to say?

“What are we meant to do, then?” Tyrone asked. He was even slimmer than John, and also had a pair of what had to be ripe C-cup breasts outlining his now-female shirt. His question had not been directed to the group, but rather straight to Kaley. She - or he - folded her hairy arms and thought.

“We need, like, to figure out what’s happening with the town. And maybe hit the library or something? Has anyone thought of that?”

They hadn’t. There was a wave of embarrassment across the group: they were a sporty jock frat, not nerds, after all.

“I can go,” Tyrone said. “What else?”

“Well, I think we should ask people, you know, who don’t remember. See what they think this place is meant to be.”

Zack volunteered for that, as did John.

“And we should figure out how we’re changing too. Like, what new skills we suddenly have and how our minds are changing. Like how hot you’re all looking to me right now, even though you’re almost fully a pride of cute lionesses.”

The lion-male-to-be blurted out this last part. A few members of the frat gulped. They in turn were trying not to look at the muscular lion. Kaley was drawing everyone’s eye, and the knowledge that she was growing a penis and they were not far from having vaginas was . . . wrong, but enticing.

They quickly dispersed. No one wanted to deal with those thoughts right now.

But the thoughts followed the fraternity members anyway, particularly Jared, who stayed behind with his former girlfriend.

***

The changes, as near as John and Zack could tell, were only becoming more radical. The town had regressed yet further in history, to the point where it was near tribal. Some important buildings were made of heaped stone, while others were log cabins. On the outskirts, such as where their parents lived, they were utterly shocked to see mud huts, complete with long grass heaps for roofing. The roads were disappearing, and farmland too. The hunting club no longer existed: they were all hunters now, after all. The big mega mall had shifted since the last major change, and was now something like the ‘centre’ of the soon-to-be tribal community, complete with larger huts and simple buildings where the increasingly lioness-heavy population weaved fabrics, made ornaments and tribal trinkets, and tended to the water supply and management of food.

“This is insane,” John said, for what had to be the umpteenth time in just a few hours. “It’s barely recognisable as Citygate now. It’s not even called Citygate. They just call it ‘the village’ like it’s the only thing around! My mom and pop live in a damn hut! God, it’s all so fucked up.”

“Yeah, we’re turning into chicks on top of it,” Zack whined. “My hips keep swaying from side to side, and my clothes are changing to show off my damn belly!”

“Mine too,” John complained. “And my boobs hurt. I’m not even meant to have boobs, but they’re just getting bigger! And my voice is super high too. I’ve fucked this all up, and now we’re gonna be a bunch of lionesses getting fucked by Kaley’s big lion cock.”

Zack let loose a low moan. “Ohhhhh, man, that sounds good. I mean, terrible!”

John gave him a sympathetic look. There was no denying that their minds were changing, becoming more female. Zack was already realising that he could embroider like a champ, and John’s sport experience had melted away, giving way instead to alien things such as the care of cubs for mothers out hunting, and how to deal with furs.

“We’re not . . . we’re not going to actually have sex with her, are we?” Zack asked. “You know, get knocked up with freakin’ cubs and everything?”

John bit his lip - his teeth were a lot sharper lately. “I hope so. I mean, I hope not! God, my mind is on fire, I can’t stop thinking about it! It’s like I’ve got this freakin’ heat inside me because of that goddamn statue! I’m so sorry about this, man.”

Zack sighed. “Yeah, I know. My hips are sore. I think they’re getting wider.”

“Cub-making hips.”

“Fuck. Yeah. Ohhhhh, why does that sound so fucking hot?”

***

Fortune of fortunes, Tyrone found that the library still existed. It was now a building formed from heaped stone and wood, but at least it was there. The collection of tomes was greatly reduced, but still existed for now, though for how long he wasn’t sure. As the most studious of the group, he was galled that he hadn’t thought of researching the statue earlier, but he was beginning to realise it was partly the fault of his changing mind. He didn’t want to tell anyone, but his slim lioness body was feeling a strong, passionate heat that he just couldn’t dissipate. Like others, he dreamed of his future state as a lioness, but he was also dreaming of becoming pregnant with cubs and birthing them to his powerful alpha lion. The fact that he was the only one to realise that they were all growing extra nipples below their breasts added to the weight on his horny mind.

“Just gotta keep it in my pants,” he said. “I don’t have a pussy yet. If I can focus and do a bit of research, and stop thinking about how much I would be a damn great pregnant mother, breastfeeding some little cubs, and . . . fuck!”

He searched through the tomes, and for a moment he thought he might be lucky. After all, the statue itself was present as a drawing on the cover of two of them, and clearly had special significance in this new reality. But then he opened the text, and sighed.

“Goddamn.”

There was no language. No words. Just runic inscriptions and symbols, none of which Tyrone understood.

“Good luck understanding that!” one of the individuals present in the ‘library’ said. “You’re not one of the shamans or omen-readers, Tyra!”

Tyrone paused. “Tyra?”

***

By the time the various frat ‘brothers’ returned to the fraternity building after their soul-searching and investigations, it was clear that the building had changed. Like the library, it too was made of heaped stone, but it had lost much of its size, and there were numerous fireplaces and downy cots in order to stay warm during the night. Embroidered carpets and furskins gave a sense of comfort underfoot, which was a good thing, because shoes were no longer an option: everyone was now barefoot. It made sense, really: their legs were changing to become more cat-like, which meant they were walking more and more on their clawed toes. ‘Digitigrade’, Tyrone called it, though John just thought it was ‘freaky.’

There was a sense of malaise in the air. A sense of defeat. The world had changed too much, and there was no going back. Citygate - now just ‘the village’ - had entered a new reality and left Earth behind, and no one even knew it except those who resided in the fraternity.

“It’s not a fraternity now, though,” John said aloud as he returned. He and Zack met up with Tyrone, who was similarly dejected. Even across the course of the day, their respective facial structures had altered to make them appear more female, and their voices were now consistently woman-like. The perpetual tug at their genitals only made it clear how close they were to the final change.

“What is it, then?” Zack said, looking up at the crude carving of a lion’s head above the entrance, which had a hanging flap to pull aside.

“No fucking idea.”

“It’s a temple,” Tyrone answered, arms crossed beneath his impressive, and furry, breasts. “A temple to the lion statue.”

“Shit.”

“Yeah.”

They entered, and found that other lions that didn’t belong to their frat were already in there, making prayers to the lion statue, which was no longer atop a fireplace but on an altar upon a central raised dais. A number of the townsfolk looked their way approvingly.

“Priestesses of the statue,” one said. “It is good to see you. We are praying for success with our families and the hunt. Will you join us?”

Jared was already there, kneeling beside them and giving a look that was slightly panicked. Sam too, and Fred. Clearly, they had been caught unawares by this. Zack and John and Tyrone wanted to get right out of there, but instead their minds were flooded by sudden knowledge and skills. John cringed as he felt a compulsion, a need to play the right part. This was a temple to the Great Lion, god of this new tribe, and the figure they came to worship on matters of health and sickness, hunting and honour, mating and cub-bearing. To his astonishment, he could see that one of the visitors was pregnant - probably a pregnant woman prior to her change, and wearing just furskins that covered her womanhood and breasts, and that was it. Something about the sight of her made John jealous, and he could see his friends looking at her with the same gaze. Jared too was trying not to look.

The three friends prayed with the visiting lionfolk, and then set about their duties that they somehow knew to perform. John lit the animal fat candles in the right sequence, while Zack burned crude incense. Tyrone muttered prayers and painting runic inscriptions on the bare clothing of the visitors, all in a language he should not have been able to know.

When it was done, the ‘priestesses’ were thanked and given gifts of food and sweet-water, as well as strips of fur and threaded grass to do with as they wished. It was only when they left that Zack exploded.

“What the fuck was all that!? We were acting like a bunch of frickin’ cultists.”

“Not cultists,” Tyrone corrected. “We are now priestess women of this new lionfolk tribe. I fear that this may be our fates, now, Zariah.”

“What did you just call me?”

“Zariah. I mean, you are Zack.” His eyes widened. “But I think of you as Zariah.”

Zack swallowed. “Me too. Oh shit, I’m starting to even think of myself as a woman. And you’re Tyra!”

“I am. I realised it in the library, not that it is a library anymore.”

John took a deep breath. They were right. He could feel the magic of the statue upon him in this room, its eyes always following him. The changes were near completion, both mental and physical. It was almost impossible to hold onto his own sense of maleness. Still, he tried to grasp onto it, even as he realised that Jared was better described as Jarea.

“N-no. I’m not a woman! I’m n-not a lioness!” he cried, grasping his head. The tugging between his legs became stronger.

“We can’t fight it,” Tyrone said, defeated. “We must accept our new lives.”

Jarea swallowed, having been silent up until this moment. His new voice was sweet, like that of a princess. “Yes,” he said, fondling one breast as if still not believing it was there. “Yes, we must accept it. Yes. Where . . . where is Kaley?”

“I thought she was here?”

Jarea nodded, as if in a daze. “That’s right. She went upstairs. The high priest must be male. The high priest’s room must have a second story. I will go see to him. To Kaleb.”

She stood slowly and walked off as if in a trance. Even through his light clothing, it was easy to see his prominent nipples bulging, denting against the fabric. He idly rubbed his lower nipples, not even realising he was growing a second set of breasts. He needed to see Kaleb, his lion.

John recognised the strange amber glint in the former frat president’s eyes, and the way his tail twisted seductively. There was a sashay to his hips that worried him, and worse, made him jealous.

“No, no, no! Fuck this, man! Fuck this! Zariah - I mean, Zack - let’s get out of here!”

Zariah paused for just a moment, then moved to John’s side. The two fled from the building, despite the dominating statue. They needed to be away, before they succumbed to desire and their new roles as priestesses to Kaleb. They were just lucky he was resting upstairs, because John knew that if he had seen the former girl of the club, he would have been unable to resist serving the new alpha lion.

“We need to get away,” he said to Zariah. “Off the grid!”

Zariah nodded. “Let’s get the fuck out of dodge.”

***

Tyrone/Tyra chose to stay. After the revelations of the library, his willpower was sapped, and more than that, he was starting to think of himself as a she. There was no getting around it: with her fertile hips, adorable tail, cute leonine features and impressive bust, no one could mistake her for male unless they examined her genitals, which were nearly to the point of becoming a vagina anyway. In fact, the transformation was so close to completing that the contemplative man-turned-lioness simply wished it to be over.

“What will it take?” she asked the statue. “What will it take to have this over and done with? I’d rather just be the tomekeeper priestess of this place and learn my new life as Tyra than hold on to the past.”

The former football player stroked her darker fur, a remnant of her former black-skinned appearance. She was about to make another plea, when some sounds from above interrupted her.

“Mhmmm! Ohhhhh! Yesssss, my high priest . . . “

“Are you sure about this, Jarea? I’m getting, like, such strong compulsions. I don’t know that I can resist you. And I’m g-growing, down there. Are you sure you want this?”

“I c-can’t fight it, Kaleb. You’re my lion, now, and I’m your lioness. Please, let m-me be the first. You’re the ‘president’ of this place now. Take m-me. I want all the girls to be j-jealous of me, like they were of you.”

“Very well. Ahhh. This is all, ah, very new to me. But I will follow my instincts.”

“P-please. Just fuck me, my lion! Breed your priestess!””

Tyra tried not to listen to it, but found herself entranced. With her new ears, she was able to hear the sounds of passion so much more clearly, the way that Jarea was being taken, the former president now the lover of their new leader. Their lion. Her nipples stiffened, her lower ones too, and she felt the statue’s dominating radiance. Other lionesses joined her, members of the frat who were no longer male - at least, barely so - to listen to the animalistic sex happening upstairs. Jarea was filling her role, acting the part of the lion’s harem woman, just like a real pride. Tyra knew she should not feel this way, but while she was now the tomekeeper in this new village society, she also felt a deep and throbbing desire to be fucked by her lion, and to be bred by him also. It was part of her purpose as a lioness and a new woman. It terrified her, but she could barely resist that call, and as Jarea’s pleasure mounted higher and higher, she too wished to be mounted in her own way.

Jarea herself was overcome with bliss. She was on all floors upon a mat on the floor, and a warm fire raged beside her and within her. Kaleb’s cock was huge, and it entered her easily, her new vagina slick and wet and waiting to receive him. She had pleaded for her changes to be finished, and the statue had granted them. Now, she raised her tail high, letting it sway as Kaleb thrust into her wet snatch.

“Mmh! Yes! Oh G-Gods, it feels g-good! More! Don’t s-stop, Kaleb! I love you! I want to b-bear your cubs!”

Kaleb too was riding high on pleasure, dominance, and power. The new lion-man had never felt so strong, and while he had always enjoyed being the sexy girl all the guys lusted after, he found the prospect of being the leader of a harem of pretty lioness girls even better. To have their nubile forms lusting after him, to impregnate them as he wished, to have their soft bodies and breasts and round hips against him. And to have them serve him, as lionesses did for their lions. Yes, it made him embrace his new role, and want all the former frat brothers to come into the fold.

But first, his original love deserved her blessing most of all.

“I’m going to breed you full of cubs, my mate,” Kaleb groaned. “I’m going to fill you. You want that, Jarea, don’t you? You want our positions to reverse?”

Jarea moaned. “I do! Ohhhhh, I do! Please m-make it so! Cum inside me! YES!”

“UUGHHH!!!”

Kaleb roared, and achieved just that outcome, spending his seed inside a lioness for the first, but certainly not the last time. Jarea also roared, and the pair were momentarily bestial as they made all sorts of snarling sounds, scratching at the mat and baring their teeth. The pleasure was intense, and so was the satisfaction of meeting their expected roles. In the aftermath, Kaleb extracted himself from the still-panting Jarea, who fondled her breasts, and investigated her second, smaller pair below. She had a third set of nipples too, but these did not have breasts, just small pouches of tissue behind them at best. Still, it made her deeply turned on.

“When can we - ahh - go another round, my lion?”

But at that moment, there was a third figure in the room. Tyra stood there, utterly naked, body entirely female but for the genitals that were so very close to retracting fully. She was breathing heavily, emphasising her larger breasts, which were quite impressive to Kaleb’s eyes.

“Please,” she begged. “I fucking need it. Me f-first. I need to be a lioness, fully. You can do that, can’t you, Kaleb?”

Kaleb grinned. He had always enjoyed the way the boys fell over themselves to impress Kaley. Now it was the same, only better: Kaleb was expected to fuck all these delicious lionesses, and complete their new purposes.

“Like, fuck yeah,” he said. “Come in, Tyra. Let’s make you, like, a super hot lioness. And maybe fill you with cubs as well when I cum inside you.”

Tyra went weak at the knees. In moments she was kissing Kaleb, nipping at him, letting him rub and caress her large breasts. And then not long after, she was moaning in ecstasy as he ploughed her with his virile cock.

She had accepted her role.

***

John and Zack fled to the edge of town, only to find a teeming jungle there. Everything else had become a village, mostly crude hut buildings, with repurposed ancient stone structures such as the former library and current temple. The wilds were beyond it, with numerous creatures calling out. There was something scary about it, and yet at the same time both had an instinct of how to navigate the area. How to hunt.

Those instincts proved true. John was shocked to find that his own body was now a weapon, more dangerous than even when he’d been a massively jacked human male. Working with Zariah, who was struggling to maintain any male thoughts, the two brought down an impressive antelope together, giving in to their roles as hunters for the temple. It was an accident on John’s part: he was merely hungry, and the taste of recently brought down flesh was too good to resist. Still, to taste it sizzled would be even better, and his mouth watered at the notion of returning to the temple just to get it roasted.

“N-no! Not doing that! I’m not going back to Kaleb, that lion.”

“Stop talking about him!” Zariah cried. “I don’t want to think about him! It just makes me so fucking turned on, man. It makes me want to go back and just have him breed this fertile lioness body already, ugh!”

John shivered. He didn’t want to think about it either. He was just glad that he’d never seen Kaleb in his full glory. It sickened him to think that Tyrone . . . Tyra was probably fucking that lion right at that moment. Wailing in ecstasy. Being filled with his seed. A red jealousy rose up inside him once more, and that tugging returned in his genitals. Even this far from town and out in the wilds, he could practically feel the gaze of the lion statue upon him.

“Let’s just . . . get some rest, Zariah,” he said, still unable to call his friend ‘Zack.’ They were the hunters, after all. They’d caught some new meat for the tribe, and maybe if John kept it up, he could forestall the change forever.

“Yeah, sleep. Sleep. I can do sleep. Just so long as I don’t dream of getting fucked by sexy lions or something, Gods!”

Zariah didn’t even realise she was suddenly referring to polytheistic beliefs, but the changes were too many to track by that point. The fact that part way through the jungle adventure her clothing had shifted to a sort of furskin bikini was what concerned her more. She couldn’t stop thinking about how luscious she would look in Kaleb’s eyes.

John went to sleep first, but Zariah’s mind continued to race as it always had. The fast-talking former party boy needed to return to civilisation. Needed to be at the centre of things. More than anything, she needed to get fucked.

“Sorry, Jace,” she said to her sleeping friend. She stood, and silently left to head back to the village.

***

Jace woke with an awareness of two things: first that she was alone, and the second being that the final mental change had come: she was now thinking of herself as a woman, including with a new name.

“By the Gods, it’s not fair!” she cried. “Zariah! Where are you? Are you hunting!?”

She sniffed the air by some new instinct, and realised that Zariah’s trail led right back to the village that had once been Citygate.

“Damn you!” she cried. “Fuck you and damn you! We were meant to stick together!”

At least Zariah had left the antelope, but Jace wasn’t hungry for food. No, her body was hungry for something else, and it enraged her. Even worse than the previous day, her bodily needs were rising, and she could just imagine the feeling of a male mate’s fur against her own. Her breasts had swelled in the night, and were easily D-cups or larger now. To her surprise, she found a small pair of B-cups below them, and then a third set of nipples atop what could barely be A-cups. Only the upper pairs were contained within her new fur coverings, and it seemed to her that her body appeared even more fertile than before, with wider hips and a more evident posterior.

“Fuck, this is crazy. I’m not going to be mated. I’m not going to be bred. I’m not going to - AGGGHH!!!”

She roared out loud, angered by it all. She was meant to be John! But her rage was directed inwards. The statue was something she had brought back, and all the other changes were because of her. She had brought this all about, and in doing so had gone from a sporty jock who liked hot girls to a lioness who desperately yearned to serve her high priest of a lion, in all the passionate ways appropriate to this strange and ancient pagan lion world.

She had to go back. Why should the others succumb to their new positions in life, but she be spared? If even Tyra and Zariah had given up, and Jalea and all the rest too, then she did not deserve to escape. She didn’t want to. She missed her brothers - sisters now, she supposed - and the camaraderie of the former frat house-turned-temple.

More than that, she was sick of fighting already. She spent another few hours deciding, going back and forth and really trying not to dwell on her new innate knowledge that lionesses went into heat, which explained how horny she was.

And then she too walked back.

It was a long trek, particularly since she was lugging the fresh kill of the antelope, but she wanted a gift to show her readiness to return to the fold. She passed into the village, and so that its image was complete. Citygate was gone, and everyone was now lion or lioness, with the latter being the clearly higher number. Quite a few females gathered around their males, and it made her wonder how many were former men who never knew. In some ways, that was a mercy, but she would refuse to give up her old memories if given the chance. At one point she passed a quite pregnant lioness who nodded at her, recognising a priestess of the lion god temple. It stirred instinctive desires in Jace that made her breath heavily.

And then she was before the temple itself. She could smell incense, burning animal fat, and sex within. The last intrigued her, and again that tugging in her genitals increased, pulling them back even more. She was so close to having a pussy, she knew. So damn close. Her body wanted it, but she was still nervous.

“Can’t fight it,” she mumbled to herself. “Don’t even want to. Time to become a lioness.”

She entered the temple. Within, her former frat brothers were gathered around, performing their duties and otherwise lounging about. Many looked utterly satisfied, if a little embarrassed. One of them was Zariah, who was rubbing her breasts softly and stroking her womanhood, sighing. From her scent, it was clear that Kaleb had cum within her recently.

“J-Jace, you’re back! I didn’t expect you for a few more days.”

“Like you, I couldn’t help it, man. Woman, I guess. I just . . . didn’t want to leave you all behind. Where’s Tyrone?”

“Upstairs, with Kaleb and Jarea. Fucking lucky. I want to be screwed a couple more times. Jace, it’s incredible. You won’t regret it. You have to let him fuck you. He’s incredible. And just like before, he enjoys all of us. We’re still us, you know. Our personalities may have changed a bit, but we’re still who we are. We just . . . like partying as the girls, I guess. And letting our big, strong, sexy-maned lion have his way with us. Ohhhhh, I want that right fucking now. Go before I cut in line!”

Jace swallowed. Just hearing it described was something else. She slowly took the stairs, and shifted aside the flap that led to the inner sanctum. There, she saw Kaleb’s finished appearance. The lion man was massive, easily six foot four tall, though he was sitting so it was hard to tell. His main was magnificent, and his muscles bulged. He was entirely naked, and flanked on either side of him were Tyra and Jarea, who licked his fuck and rubbed their chests against him, purring softly.

“Holy fuck,” Jace said.

“Yeah, right?” Kaleb said. “I’m, like, still getting used to this. I have all these strong urges, Jace. Gods, I need to fuck all my lionesses and keep them happy. It’s sorta my job now.”

There was an unusual interaction between Kaley’s old speaking habits and his new form as a powerful lion, but it intoxicated Jace all the same. She stepped forward, swaying her hips a bit more. They were very good hips.

“I’ve . . . I’ve come for my job,” she said submissively.

“Mhmm, I see that. A lion’s work is never done, I guess. Tyra, Jarea, do you mind if I have a minute, my gorgeous girls?”

They both pulled away reluctantly. Tyrone stroked Jace’s back as she passed. “It’s okay,” she said. “You’ll love it. You’ll accept it, dude. It’s awesome.”

And then they were gone, and Jace was alone in the room with Kaleb.

“You’re the last one,” the lion said, standing to his full height.

“I - I know.”

“You ran away. Is everything okay?”

He reached out and stroked Jace’s cheek. It was the most wonderful feeling in the world. It made her heat go into high drive.

“I am now, m-my lion. I’m still nervous.”

“Don’t worry, I totally was too, when I used my dick for the first time. But I’m very good at it now. Do you want me to fuck you, my lioness?”

She nodded eagerly, unable to help herself. “I just want it over with. I just want it done.”

“You are, like, the one that started it, I guess. And you know what, Jace? I’m glad. This is the best life I could imagine. It’s awesome. And trust me, I’m going to make you love it too. Come here.”

He grabbed Jace, and she let herself be pulled towards him. She moaned as he nibbled at her neck and kissed her features, and soon she was kissing back. They made love, her pressing her prodigious chests against him, and he in turn licking her nipples, driving her wild with delirious joy.

“Ohhhhhh, yes! That f-feels wonderful! D-don’t stop!”

He didn’t, instead taking charge as a proper lion should. He pulled her to the ground, and positioned her so that she was on all fours while he rubbed her flanks.

“B-breed me!” she cried. “I need you inside m-me! Please! I just want the changes to be d-done!”

Kaleb grinned, reached out with a pawed hand, and stroked the final remnants of Jace’s cock. It shrivelled at his touch, drawing back into her body, and in moments she had a perfectly formed, and very wet, pussy. One that was hungering to be entered.

“P-please!” she gasped. “Ohhhhh! Please! I’m a lioness now, just b-breed m-OHHHH!!!”

Kaleb did, entering her easily. Her vaginal muscle clamped down upon his massive cock. She couldn’t believe how it felt. She was being penetrated, her insides filled with his impressive girth. It stretched her inner walls, sending jolts of pleasure through her body. Her tail swayed from side to side, almost panicking, but she held on even as she clawed the ground in minor panic. She needed this more than anything. It was so alien to her, so foreign. And yet so right.

Kaleb thrusted again and again, building up speed. She was utterly submissive to her lion, craving him within her. She rocked her fine hips in time to his, her fur almost on end with anticipation.

“Yessss, please! K-keep going! I need it! I need you, my lion! I’ll be your huntress, I’ll f-fucking feed you! Bring you the b-best damn meats! If only you’ll breed me!”

“YES! I WILL, JACE! UUGGHH!!!”

He roared as he always did when cumming. Jace’s body exploded with pleasure, and she roared in time with him as well. It was too much, but then another wave of ecstasy hit, and her body was flooded with his hot, sticky seed. That brought another rush of joy from the new lioness. Her body was now christened as his loyal priestess, and he as her master. She wanted to feel his cubs growing inside her, to birth them into the world and feed and nurture them. That was her role, when she was not a huntress. To be here, and to please him, the same as all of her sisters in this new servile sorority.

She collapsed to the ground, extracting herself from him, panting and purring heavily as she took all of this in. Citygate was gone, and there was only the village now. And it seemed finally to be a good thing.

“How do you feel?” Kaleb asked. “Is everything okay?”

“Y-yeah,” she said, struggling to get her words together. She hoped she was pregnant already. She hoped she could serve her lion as one of his harem loyally until the end of her days. She was Jace now, and there was no going back. “I’m f-fine, my lion. I’m just really, really glad I brought back that statue.”

Kaleb grinned. “We all are, my beautiful lioness. Good work with that one.”

The pair laughed, cuddled, and then went a second round. After all, Jace had a bit of catching up to do to get up to speed with the rest of her new sorority sisters.

The End