(M to F Wooloo)

Jo grinned quietly, checking left and right to make sure nobody was around. It felt a little silly, especially since he was in the comfort of his own room, but he had to be sure there wasn’t anyone watching. After all, today was the day he’d managed to score an advance copy of Pokémon Sword and Shield.

Honestly, it was surprisingly easy. Someone had run up to him earlier, asking if he’d heard; there was a new way to get into Pokémon. Of course, the man had said yes, as any respectable fan of the series would. Apparently that was all it took to play for free, months early.

Perhaps the best part of this all was that the little demo cartridge was emblazoned with a picture of Wooloo, the new sheep Pokémon. It looked like a cotton ball with a head and a Viking shieldmaiden’s hair, and Jo had already resolved to catch one and name her Princess Snugglebuns. Or just Flufferkins, if the character limit was still oppressively small.

Eager to start, Jo grinned, looking to his Switch. “So what if it’s a little shady? I deserve some time-urp-off.” He blushed, glad that he’d checked to make sure nobody was around. “Maybe a quesarito with Diablo sauce wasn’t the best of things I could have had for lunch…”

His belly rumbled, as if agreeing with his offhand remark. Or perhaps it was just offended that he’d remembered the unholy combination of Chipotle and Taco Bell. Either way, it was giving him a severe case of the bubbly-tummy, a condition he was hard at work trademarking.

A quiet ding from his phone brought him back to the present, and he pulled it out with all the innate grace and skill of a postmodern millennial. “Ooh, Pokémon Go notification! And a rare Pokémon is in my area? That’s great!” He beamed, putting his Switch to the side and toggling his phone’s camera.

A sweep of his room didn’t reveal anything at first, which was a bit odd given that his phone insisted it was right in front of him. “And… That’s really weiurrp—whoo!” He exclaimed, patting his chest. His hand met with an unfamiliar softness, and he wondered for the second time in as many minutes if he should mix up his diet.

The bubbling in his belly only worsened, and he closed his eyes, bracing for the inevitable. Sure enough, a cry burst from his lips—though it wasn’t what he’d expected. “HLOOO!” He exclaimed, eyes snapping open and cheeks reddening.

“Woos that me?” Jo asked, his heart starting to race. He’d drawn, written, and commissioned enough art of a certain persuasion to have an idea what was coming, but he didn’t yet know the all-important ‘why’ yet. It couldn’t have been the pseudo-neo-faux-Mexican, and it couldn’t have been his phone.

Only one option remained, and he turned his attention to his treacherous Switch. Sure enough, the screen was lit up with a screen from Pokémon—the evolution screen, to be precise. A shockingly familiar visage looked back at him: his own reflection, mirrored in a cute Pokémon sprite.

The mini-Jo on the screen glowed, and a four-note chirp heralded an evolution. Transfixed, Jo watched as his avatar lightened until it was a white silhouette. The image shrank and widened, alternating between a cloud with legs and a human, though with each flicker the human image lasted for a shorter and shorter amount of time.

“Wooait! I can hit B!” Jo exclaimed, lunging for his Switch—too late. As his fingers touched the console, a triumphant jingle filled the air and he found himself looking at an image of a Wooloo.

A bomb went off in his chest, and an explosion of fluff literally tore the clothes off of his body. Scraps of cloth littered his room, though he was no less naked for it. Thick, soft, white wool covered his modesty—though it seemed to have a rather puritanical definition of ‘modesty’.

The only things not enveloped by the cotton ball of fluff were Jo’s head, arms, and legs; and even then, the latter two were still half-swallowed by snuggly softness. A small squeak slipped from his lips, followed by another bubble of gas. It started deep in his cottony belly, moved up to his throat, and burst from his lips as a loud “WooLOO!”

Frantically, Jo wracked his brain for people to call. All of the treasured patrons on his mind would doubtless express endless joy and excitement at his transformation; the hospital probably wouldn’t believe what he was saying was real; and any local shepherds probably didn’t deal in Pokémon anyways.

Wait, what was that last one? Why did he even think of that? Jo’s face heated up, though instead of a pink blush, a soft darkness crept across his cheeks. The dark, coffee shade swept from his cheeks to his ears, before encroaching on a nose that lightened to a pleasing pink.

Jo knew he had to focus his thoughts, and the best way to do that would be to calm down and sound them out aloud. “Wooloo looloowoo!” He managed, before reconsidering. Clearly that wouldn’t work, so he had to think of another way to get the ball rolling—

Rolling.

The word stuck in his head, and before he knew what he was doing, he tucked his arms and legs in close to his body, tumbling from his bed onto the floor. The soft cotton that enveloped his body left him surprisingly springy, and he found himself easily drifting along his floor, until bumping against his closet.

Head spinning with dizziness, Jo struggled to fumble to his hands and hooves. Hooves and feet? Hooves and hooves. That sounded the best. “Loo,” he breathed, looking down in time to see the last of his fingers clump up into tiny, well-trimmed hooves.

It wasn’t much, but it was enough to remind Joo that he wasn’t supposed to have a set of hooves. He yelped in panic, shaking his head in distress. The only thing the motion accomplished was stretching his ears, each shake of his head stretching them more and more until he had a pair of ovine lobes dangling pat his cheeks.

“Loowooloo!” Joo whimpered, eyes spiraling, only to coalesce into the familiar dark orbs of a Wooloo, complete with horizontal slits. He blinked them repeatedly, seeing the world differently: things were now either Fluffy or Not-Fluffy. His bed? Fluffy. His desk? Not-Fluffy.

He stumbled back and forth, increasingly clumsy thanks to his shrinking arms and legs. They weren’t particularly muscular before, but that was still a far cry from the tiny little stumps they’d become. He looked down, wailing—WOOling—in distress at his Not-Fluffy hooves and his Fluffy legs.

A sudden revelation gripped his mind, followed by several sudden rotations gripping his body as Jooloo rolled his way to his mirror. His brown hair lightened to a white fluff along the way, and his sideburns tousled out into long, braided locks. By the time he reached his mirror, Jooloo was indistinguishable from any of the other sheep Pokémon, save perhaps for the fact that he remained a tad cuter.

Or… Was it that she remained a tad cuter? Jooloo didn’t feel much different, yet it was hard for her to think of herself as a guy. Something about her soft body was enticingly feminine, and she had a sneaking suspicion that she was better at laying eggs than pipe.

She looked to her reflection, seeing nothing more than a cute Wooloo with a twitching nose. Fluffy. Her ear twitched, as she struggled to remember why that was a bad thing. Or much of anything at all, really. It was like all of Jooloo’s past was being stripped from her, memory at a time, until all she was left with was today.

Even that faded, but as it did a single thought slipped into her brain, a fateful questionnaire. ‘You’d heard? There’s a new way to really get into the new Pokémon game?’

She’d heard. She’d misheard. That shady guy hadn’t asked if Jooloo had heard. He was asking if Wooloo would herd.

“WoolooLOO!” She squealed, a last fading protest at an ill-made pun. Then the memory faded, as did the notion of what a pun was altogether. After all, things like wordplay weren’t very Fluffy, and Wooloo was only concerned with things that were.

Wooloo tucked her legs in beneath her, rolling to her Fluffy bed, then rolling up it thanks to the miracle of probably static electricity and definitely not author overtiredness. Content to rest in her Fluffy home, the sheep Pokémon curled into a small ball, and counted her twins as she drifted off.