Content
How Not To Become Lunch: 20 - Stay OUT of Detention
60 minutes. 60 whole minutes, Jack thought as he walked slowly down the hall. Swallowing a human takes the average pred maybe 15-20 seconds max; maybe a bit more if they’re taking their time- or much less if they’re rushing. He could be swallowed dozens and dozens of times in 60 minutes, and it would only take one. One successful attempt, and by the time 60 minutes was up, Fiona wouldn’t have much left to rescue- or maybe even recognize.
---
60 minutes! 60 whole minutes! Fiona thought as she raced down the hall toward the principal’s office. She could swallow a human in like 5 seconds! And they didn’t stay kicking for too long. She had to get in and out with the principal fast if she had any good chance of saving Jack.
---
Jack steeled himself as best he could as he approached the open door, and did his best to force the shakiness out of his limbs and breath. Hand gripping fiercely at his wand, he stepped into view of the detention classroom. Looking to the desks, he saw almost two dozen students scattered seemingly at random.
His heart fluttered. There were already eight or ten predators in the room. He had never really appreciated how friendly Fiona’s face seemed, until now, looking at the angry, threatening, mistrustful expressions that filled the unsettlingly quiet space.
Of course there weren’t just preds, there were humans too. Not as many, only five or six. Maybe that was because humans usually tried harder to stay out of trouble, or maybe it was because humans didn’t usually survive the kind of trouble they got into.
Then he looked at the teacher’s desk, and he nearly lost all composure. He had heard stories, but they’d always been too wild to believe, now he realized some of them had been restrained. In the teacher’s chair sat a huge, intimidating neko; the biggest tigress he’d ever seen. But she wasn’t huge in the sense of build or muscles, and she wasn’t intimidating in terms of an elegant form or fierce demeanor.
She was fat. Really, really fat.
Bulbous rolls stuck out from around her clothes or made their outlines clear where packed inside. Her body squished up against the sides of her chair, which seemed almost too small and feeble to support her. And she wasn’t so much sitting in it as she was lounging, leaning far back with her feet up on her desk. And then there was her belly, her massive, rounded belly. It rested atop her as she reclined, like a trophy on display, almost completely exposed, far too big to ever fit under her shirt. It was covered in fields of her well-groomed, orange fur, with the tips of her black stripes poking into view as they wrapped around her wide flanks.
“Well, well, a newbie,” said the cat, lazily letting her head slump in his direction. She wore a mild, content smile. “Go ahead and pick a seat, things’ll get started after the last snack shows up.”
“Y-yes, Ms. Garfeline,” Jack stuttered.
He looked back at the students, most of which were now looking at him, which only served to multiply his fear. He felt the overwhelming urge to quickly find a seat, if only to get those hungry eyes off him. But the moment he started to consider where he’d sit, he realized why the other students seemed scattered so randomly: they weren’t scattered, they were spread out. No one wanted to sit near anyone else, not when any one of them could easily decide their schoolmate would be better suited as a meal.
Jack scanned the room nervously for a second, but his fear of standing in the open wouldn’t allow him longer than that. So he started walking tentatively, still struggling to make a decision. Even the most isolated seats were too close to predators for his comfort, or sandwiched between several of them where they did have some space. He briefly considered sitting near one of the other humans, but quickly dropped the idea. That would only make both of them a bigger target. Eventually, almost by default, he picked a seat: toward the back of the room and a few rows in from the wall. There were a number of preds just a few desks away, but at least he could see all of them.
That seat also made it very clear when any of the preds were looking at him, and right now that was a majority. One by one he saw their noses begin to twitch, as the scent of his mark slowly permeated the room, magnified by his fear.
60 minutes. I’ll be lucky to last 60 seconds, Jack thought. He’d never heard any kid telling the story of a detention where no one got eaten, and right now he was top pick. Things were not looking good. He glanced longingly and nervously toward the open door.
Come on Fiona, hurry…
And then, through that door, there came a sound.
*thud* *thud* *thud*
---
“Fiona Lupella?” asked the secretary, her hooked beak tilting up from the desk as the werewolf came rushing in.
“Yes,” Fiona replied, catching her breath.
“Take a seat,” the avian instructed monotonously, gesturing with a wing. “The principal will see you in a minute.”
She nodded and did as she was told, picking a chair from the row against the wall.
“If you need to use the bathroom, do it now. I don’t need another pup piddling in the office after getting an earful.” The woman spoke disdainfully, already looking back at her papers without so much as a second glance toward Fiona. The wolf teen decided to ignore the vulture’s insulting… well, everything.
“No, I’m okay,” she replied. Besides, she had to be there as soon as that door opened, Jack was counting on her.
---
*thud* *thud* *thud*
No…
*thud* *thud* *thud*
Ms. Garfeline glanced toward the door with a smirk of mild interest.
*thud* *thud* *thud*
A large, brown mass of fur stepped heavily into the room; a bear boy that most students knew all too well, and that many former students had gotten to know much more intimately.
“Nice to see you again, Grizz,” the teacher greeted. From under her desk, Jack could just barely see the tip of her tail start to wander and twitch with a sort of idle excitement.
“Hey, Nerma,” the bear teen replied in his casual, always vaguely annoyed voice.
He walked right in as if it were a normal class, glancing over the other kids with disinterest. That is, until he saw Jack. The boy felt a jolt as the predator laid eyes on him, and then his heart began to pound, harder and harder. Those eyes weren’t looking away.
Grizz kept walking, getting closer and closer. Jack’s eyes went wide, he swore he could feel the blood draining from his body. The huge bear walked right up to his row, cleared the intervening desks in two large steps, and then sat down. Right. Next. To Jack.
“Ooo, looks like Grizz’s picked himself out some dinner,” one of the pred kids jeered.
“Darn, I wanted to try and get a bite on that one. He looks tasty.”
A loud creak grabbed the students’ attention. They turned to the front of the room to see Ms. Garfeline had let her feet down and was getting up from her chair. The neko turned and walked lazily toward the classroom door.
Jack was surprised and almost amazed by the way she moved. Her whole body bounced with every step, particularly her jiggling belly, but her stride was completely steady and solid. There must have been some muscle buried in there after all if she could handle herself that well. And even though she was obviously much heavier than Grizz, her steps didn’t make nearly as much noise. Maybe it was a little bit of that feline grace peeking through? Regardless, it was clear this was a predator who knew how to carry her weight; one who was very used to being very well fed.
Ms. Garfeline shut the classroom door and pulled out a key from somewhere in her folds. She locked the exit with a click.
“Welcome to detention,” she said as if she’d been waiting to say those words for a good while. She wore a small, mischievous smirk. Her tail swished back and forth as she turned to walk back to her desk. “Feel free to help yourselves to the buffet, at your own risk of course.” She leaned against her desk with one hand as she arrived.
“Oh, except for you.” She pointed loosely at a fox boy sitting in the second row.
“What?” he asked, surprised but trying to sound tough.
“You sat in the ‘linner’ seat, come on up.”
The boy looked confused, but did as he was told.
“‘Winner seat’? What did I win?” he asked hopefully as he approached.
“No dear, ‘linner’ seat.”
“Huh?”
As soon as he was within range, the teacher’s head came down like a guillotine. Jack recoiled in horror. The fox was gone up to his bushy tail before the neko even bothered to close her muzzle around him. He’d slid right up into her throat more smoothly than a hand into a glove. Rolls of chubby fur sunk back into place as Ms. Garfeline rose upright again, taking the kid off the ground with the light support of a single hand.
She tipped her muzzle toward the ceiling and swallowed twice. A noticeable bulge slipped down her neck, and then disappeared into her stomach. And it really did disappear. Usually, when a predator took a humanoid meal, their bellies grew many times their usual size. But this was different. The neko’s belly was already so big, that while there probably was some growth, it was nearly impossible to notice. What was very noticeable, though, was the struggling. Her plump, distended gut now jiggled and bounced vigorously, sending little ripples across her fur coat.
“‘Linner’,” the fat cat said again, addressing her belly as she licked her chops. “It’s like a late lunch, or an early dinner; a mix between them, really. Detention can be so boring without a nice, wriggling belly, so sometimes, I pick a ‘linner’ seat. Whoever sits there gets to be my linner.” She turned and lumbered back toward her desk. “My first one, anyway.”
Jack was stunned and utterly terrified. He knew it happened rarely, a predator eating another predator, but he’d only seen it himself once, and he’d never expected to see it done so casually. It was generally a rather strong taboo. Even he felt disturbed at the sight, just like he would if he’d seen a mage use their magic to eat another human. It just felt wrong.
But that was part of the point. This was detention, it had to be ‘an effective deterrent’, for both humans and preds, and that wouldn’t work if the preds weren’t in danger. Of course, there were also those certain predators, usually those unconscionable enough to end up in detention in the first place, who couldn’t care less about taboos, and who might even relish the opportunity to send a rival pred down to their bellies- either for revenge, or just for the thrill- and letting them do so here in detention meant fewer of them out in the world.
*URP*! A bit of gas escaped the neko’s mouth from her hasty meal as she lumbered back towards her desk. Her belly shook violently, but she never lost her footing in the slightest. She sat back in her chair and put her feet up again.
“As for the rest of you, you ought to be ashamed I think,” she spoke with a slightly mocking, sarcastic tone, hardly putting in any effort as she reclined to enjoy her new meal. “You’re all so antisocial; no wonder you all ended up in here. I mean, just look at how spread out you are, so eager to avoid each other. Grizz is the only one with any decency, and he’s been in here more times than any of you.”
To those in the room who weren’t terrified beyond thought, her real intentions were clear. She obviously couldn’t care less about their ‘antisocial distancing’. She’d had her linner, now she wanted a show to go with it.
“Just look at this poor kid,” Ms. Garfeline continued, peeking sideways around her belly to point to a human boy toward the back of the class.
He instantly clenched up as soon as he was pointed out, and glanced around fearfully at the other students, then back at the teacher.
“He’s terrified and sitting all alone. Won’t someone go keep him company?” There was a short pause.
“Oh, I’ll gladly go sit with him, Ms. Garfeline,” came a voice. It was a gruff looking weredog, a jackal boy by the looks of it. He answered with mock-politeness and clear sinister undertones.
The pred stood up and started walking toward the human in the back. The teacher eyed the weredog closely, and for a moment Jack almost expected her to leap from her desk, tackle him to the ground and make another meal of him, if only to teach him a lesson for being foolish enough to turn his back.
Jack certainly would never have turned his back on a predator like that, he hadn’t even taken more than a sideways glance away from Grizz, but the hulking bear next to him had hardly moved beyond breathing and watching. There was the small matter of his belly, though. Jack was close enough that he could hear it gurgling faintly, and every little sound amplified his fear to no end.
“Heeey there,” the jackal boy said malevolently as he pulled out the chair adjacent to his prey. “I hope you don’t mind me sitting so close, just wanta do like teach said and give you some company.”
The human kid cowered, trembling, but he didn’t leave his seat. Most preds- and prey who live long enough to see their classmates eaten- saw this eventually. A paralysis of fear. It was an almost guaranteed meal.
“On second thought, maybe I’ll sit a little closer.”
The boy’s eyes went wide, and then so did the jackal’s maw. It plunged down, ready to snatch the poor kid right out of his chair.
But then something wildly unexpected happened. That terrified little human kid, his mouth suddenly shot open, gaping a third the size of his entire body. The weredog, taken completely off guard, dove headfirst between the human’s jaws, wedging his muzzle into the boy’s throat.
*gulp*
*squeal*!
The human swallowed, and the jackal began to panic, but it was too late. The human boy grabbed the furry kid’s arms with decidedly superhuman strength and swallowed again, taking the canine in over his shoulders. All traces of fear were gone now.
He’s a pred! Jack realized with a start. That whole thing had been an act. He glanced very briefly at Ms. Garfeline. She watched with a pleased, cynical smile, not the least bit surprised.
*gulp*
*gulp*
*gulp*
And then soon the jackal was gone, reduced to a fresh, squirming bulge in the belly of whom he’d thought to be his prey.
“Ha ha ha ha,” Ms. Garfeline chuckled. “I’m glad I haven’t eaten you yet, that never gets old.”
“Thanks for the easy meal,” the boy replied smugly.
“I wouldn’t get used to it, though. You’d be just as entertaining to me in my belly, so I’d try not to end up in detention again if I were you. Unless you want to be my meal, of course.” As much as she enjoyed herself, the neko never fully forgot her place. If she wanted to keep her job, she had to make sure detention was something most kids avoided, not hoped for. And she was not about to lose such a perfect job. Of course, for some kids, it couldn’t be helped.
“Grizz,” she turned her attention to the large bear boy. “I noticed you haven’t touched your linner.”
Jack tensed up.
“I’m still working on the kid I had for brunch,” Grizz replied, matching her satirical tone. “This one will have to wait his turn.”
“He’s marked, isn’t he? I can smell him from here. Better hope no one steals him in the meantime.”
They both knew what she meant; they had a history at this point. Grizz was too big for the neko to take without a serious fight, and she was far too lazy for that. Even fighting him over a delectable, marked prey was something she would probably skip on, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t challenge the rest of the class to do it. If she couldn’t punish Grizz directly for getting detention, she’d at least have him work for it.
The grizzly bear looked around at the other students.
“Good luck,” he scoffed.
Fiona, where are you already?
---
Come on!! Fiona screamed inside her head. She tapped her claws nervously against the floor, tail twitching every few seconds. She’d been waiting for what felt like an eternity, just sitting there, staring at the principal’s closed door while his secretary lazily flipped through her papers. And all the while Jack was fighting off who-knows-what in detention. For all she knew he could be digesting at that very moment, asking himself over and over ‘Fiona, where are you already?’ and she was stuck just sitting there.
She could have busted in, saved him, and been back by now. She was already in trouble anyway!
She stood up.
“Going somewhere?” the vulture secretary asked.
“Oh, just to the bathroom,” she replied.
“I asked you about that when you got here. Don’t think I can’t spot a kid trying to sneak off. You sit back down and wait; the principal will be ready in a minute.”
You said that already, way more than a minute ago, Fiona thought as she sat back down with a barely concealed huff.
Come on, Jack. Just hold on a little longer…
---
“Ahh!” came a terrified scream.
Jack nearly jumped out of his skin. His eyes flicking to one side, he saw the girl who’d cried out. Or, rather, he saw one leg flailing in the air, the rest of her was being dragged under a desk, and judging by the smug expression on the naga behind her, he had a pretty good guess on the culprit. He couldn’t say how she’d failed to see the snakegirl coming, but that hardly mattered now.
A few noisy seconds later, and the human girl was trapped in the binding coils of the naga’s scaly tail. The pred licked her lips excitedly before digging into her meal. She struck with a delighted hiss and cut off the screams of her prey, replacing them with the much quieter- but no less terrifying- sounds of her swallows.
*gulp*
*gulp*
*ROAR*!
That last one hadn’t been from the naga, but from a lion boy with a scruffy mane. And if the snake attack had startled Jack, this nearly made him pass out, because the predator in question had made the sound not three feet from his head.
The sight of a large, gaping maw with huge, pointed teeth flashed in front of Jack’s face. But it was followed quickly by a blur of brown and the sound of a heavy impact.
“Back off,” Grizz growled angrily, as his backhand sent the boy flying across the room.
An alligator boy, who up to this point had been minding his own business, saw that as an opportunity he couldn’t refuse. He opened his huge reptilian jaws and caught the feline in midair. Of course, the impact sent him flying as well, but that didn’t matter, the force had knocked his prey halfway down his throat. After the clatter of the landing passed, a second round of swallowing filled the air to accompany the first.
*gulp*
*gulp*
*gulp*
*gulp*
That last one had been uncomfortably distinctive. It was the sound of that final little mouthful disappearing forever, clearing a predator’s maw and leaving them with a fully captured meal. Jack looked back over at the naga to find a very human-shaped, human-length bulge wriggling its way through her body. It passed through her humanoid chest and through her midriff, where one might have expected it to rest, and it continued straight into her serpentine body, slipping deep, deep inside. It finally stopped when it fully passed the naga’s waist. The coils that had just recently held the human girl so tightly from the outside, now held her even more tightly inside.
A few moments later, the alligator boy finished his meal as well, leaving him with the more traditional, rounded bulge in his midsection as the neko within protested harshly at his new place on the food chain.
“Looks like detention is going just fine,” said Ms. Garfeline with a satisfied smirk, jiggling her belly a bit to stir up a few more struggles from the meal inside.
I don’t think I can take much more of this, thought Jack, panting. If I stay here much longer, I’ll end up insane or-
---
Dead. He’s dead. I’ve failed him. Oh, poor Jack, Fiona lamented, sitting dejected and defeated in her chair outside the principal’s office. She’d tried every excuse in the book, but the secretary had kept her right there.
*click*
The door opened. Just like that. She almost couldn’t believe it. She’d been staring at it so intently, urging it to open so strongly that the ease in which it finally moved was shocking.
“Fiona Lupella, the principal will see you now.”
Yes! He’s not dead! I can still save him!
Fiona got up and practically dashed into the office, scattering a few of the secretary’s papers with her wake as she passed by. She rushed right up to the principal’s desk, fueled by anxiety and determination, but she shrank back considerably once she made eye contact with the person who’d called her there.
Principal Tengu was a tall, fierce avian. Undeniably striking with his curved beak manicured to a fine, even point, and his huge eagle wings folded neatly against his back and flanks like a long cape. His raptor’s eyes locked onto her, and instantly she was reminded that she was a student, a child, and he was her principal.
Uh-oh, I hope I didn’t make him too mad, Fiona thought.
The door closed behind her, which gave her a start. She turned back to see who had closed it and was very surprised to see a familiar frog looking back at her. It was Ms. Ivy, her teacher for predator class. Fiona looked to her with confusion as she walked toward the desk to stand next to her.
“Take a seat, Fiona,” Principal Tengu said. He had spoken rather softly and invitingly, but somehow anything from him felt like a command.
Fiona sat down in one of the chairs in front of his desk. Ms. Ivy took the chair next to her.
“I’ve been told you’re doing very well in predator class,” said the principal.
“I-” Fiona found she couldn’t speak; she was too confused. Why was her teacher there? What was this about pred class?
“Go on, Fiona, tell him,” Ms. Ivy encouraged.
“I- I am, sir,” she replied.
He nodded, signaling her to continue.
“I’ve been completing my assignments, getting good grades,” Fiona elaborated. “I’m doing alright.”
“You’re practically top of the class,” Principal Tengu replied.
“I am?!” exclaimed Fiona with surprise, her ears perking up.
The adults continued to look at her, as if waiting to gauge her reaction.
“I’ve… just been paying attention, and doing what comes naturally.”
“Have you been enjoying it?”
“Sure,” she replied, though not with any passion. Out of all her classes, pred had been her favorite for a while now, but that was largely because she disliked a majority of the others.
“Has it been challenging?”
“Uh… not too much,” answered Fiona unconfidently.
“And what about the volunteer prey during physical education?”
“Oh, those were definitely a bit of a challenge,” she said readily.
“But you still managed to catch one.”
“Yes.”
“And this last assignment: You chose to hunt an unfamiliar human. You selected your prey, marked them, and consumed them all within a few hours of the assignment being given. And not only that, but I have several reports that you defended your marked prey from several other predators in the course of completing the assignment, none of whom managed to succeed in besting you.”
“Um… Yeah, I guess that’s all right,” she replied after a long moment of thought. It was a bit misleading, considering it implied that the marked prey she had defended was the one she ended up eating, but it was technically correct.
Speaking of the marked prey she had defended.
“Um… am I not in trouble?” she asked.
“No, Fiona,” her teacher assured her with a smile.
Uh-oh.
---
“*sigh* A wriggling belly does the mind good,” Ms. Garfeline muttered pleasantly.
The room was a low symphony of gurgles as numerous bulging stomachs set about digesting their newly acquired meals, and a number of empty stomachs joined in with hungry desire.
Luckily for Jack, Grizz was still in the latter group. But the boy sat in silent terror, listening to the bear’s stomach whine. How long would it be, he wondered, before that stomach had finished making room for him? And even if there was ‘room’ that wouldn’t mean it was empty.
Jack thought back to that morning, he’d seen Grizz claim his ‘brunch’ firsthand. What was left of that boy was still in there, sitting next to him, winding its way through the predator’s guts. And if- when- Grizz swallowed him, he wouldn’t just be joining it, he’d be swimming in it. He’d be packed into that tight belly with a soup of post-digested human, sloshing around him as he was slowly turned into more of the same.
“I think mine’s starting to get a little tired,” the big cat announced disappointedly from the head of the class.
Jack glanced over, thankful that something had pulled him from his thoughts, but sickened to see her jiggling her gut- and to a very limited response.
“I think it’s time I add another snack to the mix.”
The entire class perked up, even the preds with full bellies. No one assumed that she’d be above taking a two-for-one; she definitely seemed capable of it, even with another kid already inside still waiting to be digested.
“Let’s see now, who to choose… Oh, I know!” She lifted one chubby, orange-furred finger and waved it in the air, and then she began a rhyme, her digit bouncing between students with every syllable: “Eeny, meeny, miny, moe; A tiger caught you by the toe; If you holler, we'll never know; Eeny, meeny, miny, moe.”
Jack went stiff as a board and white as the moon, but managed to take a breath as he realized the deathly digit wasn’t pointing at him, just near him. She was pointing at Grizz.
There was a long, tense silence, disturbed somewhat comically by the many noisy bellies. On one hand, if she ate Grizz, he wouldn’t be around to make good on Jack’s nightmare. On the other hand, Grizz was kinda the only reason he hadn’t been eaten yet in the first place.
“Ha ha ha ha,” Ms. Garfeline chuckled. “Well, I guess we both know that’s not gonna happen, not today anyway.”
“Not unless you plan on getting up and working for it,” Grizz replied. The neko rolled her eyes dismissively.
“Well then, maybe I should take your little future meal instead? Seems only fair,” she offered.
Jack expected himself to go stiff with terror again, but instead he just went limp. All this constant fear of getting eaten was really taking its toll on him.
“Give it a rest, Nerma,” the bear replied with mild aggravation. “I caught this one fair and square, just pick another of your ‘snacks’.”
She eyed him with a bit of aggravation herself. She respected his size, and enjoyed their usual banter, but she was almost starting to think he was forgetting his place. She could claim him, if she wanted to.
Grizz sighed yieldingly, and for a moment Jack thought the bear was about to give him up, but instead he made an offer.
“Look, if you back off for today, I’ll hand deliver your next snack.”
The fat neko’s expression returned to her usual pleasant satisfaction. Now he was speaking her language, any deal which got her an easy meal for no effort was a good one in her book.
“Hmm, alright then… That one!”
“What!?” An avian boy jumped out of his seat, as if a thunderbolt of terror had struck him from her finger. The shock slowed him down, but Grizz was ready on his mark. Before the designated snack could react, the bear had already knocked his own desk out of the way and trampled across the room, grabbing the avian by a wing.
“Hey! Let me go!” But it wasn’t the birdboy calling out, it was Jack. Grizz had dragged him across the room too, holding the boy in one hand, even as he’d gone to grab his target with the other.
“Not a chance,” the bear replied. “You think I’m gonna leave you sitting there where some other chump can nom you? You’re mine, kid.”
That shut him up good, both the logic, and the promise. The images his mind had been conjuring up of the bear’s stomach sprang back into view, but they were quickly driven out by something just as terrifying and much more real, as Grizz dragged his unwilling body closer and closer to the oversized mass of fat and fur with teeth that sat at the front desk.
“Here you go: one bird for the hungry cat.” Grizz tugged the avian boy forward toward the desk, while holding Jack behind him.
“Ooo, quick work as usual,” the neko complimented. “Well, bring him over then.”
Grizz snarled indignantly, but obliged, walking around the desk and right up to Ms. Garfeline’s chair. Jack watched in silent terror as he was dragged far closer to the overweight predator than he ever would have gone willingly. Her great belly loomed before him, so voluminous that he feared he could get lost inside it, and he shivered as he realized that was exactly the point.
She leaned over sideways in her chair- which somehow both remained intact and stayed upright- bringing her face over to her next snack. But as she leaned, she peeked back behind the brown wall of bear fur to look at Jack. She eyed the boy with a hungry smile, and licked her chops just to tease him. Jack cowered, but Grizz’s iron grip refused to let him run or hide.
Looking back to her meal, the neko sniffed for a moment and then casually opened her mouth. The massive jaws slowly parted to a gape, right in front of Jack’s eyes. If he curled up into a tight little ball- much like he felt the urge to do now- he could’ve sworn the cat would have taken him in a single gulp.
But she left him be. Instead, she lazily extended her rough, feline tongue and wrapped it halfway around the avian’s torso. She was no frog, she couldn’t pull him in with it or anything, this was just to taste and tease at the quivering child. Besides, who needs a prehensile tongue when you have a grizzly bear around?
Grizz gave a firm shove, and the birdboy squawked one final time as he plunged into the abyss of the neko’s maw. The jaws closed around his chest, and Ms. Garfeline rolled back to her normal, reclining position, lifting the light avian body off the ground without any further assistance.
*gluk*
*gulp*!
And the kid was gone. The teacher’s neck swelled and jiggled, and then her belly gave a loud, emphatic groan. A moment later, her towering gut began to wriggle and kick once more.
“Ahhhh… that’s the stuff,” Ms. Garfeline sighed. “Alright Grizz, you’re off the hook. In fact-” She paused to let out an enormous yawn, giving the rest of the class a far more distant view of the nightmare Jack had just witnessed up close and personal. “With all this fresh meat-” she patted her bulging belly- “I think I could use a bit of a cat nap.”
She spoke a bit louder now, so the whole class could hear. In clear view of everyone, she reached somewhere into the folds of her fur and pulled out the key.
“I think I might just let the rest of you out early. I’ve already had my fun; you’ve already had your trauma. Grizz, be a dear and open the door for me. Go enjoy that meal of yours, while I enjoy mine.”
“Whatever you say,” Grizz replied with unnerving eagerness.
Jack looked up at him in terror, as the bear’s belly growled once more.
---
“Wait, so if I’m not in trouble, what am I doing here?” Fiona asked, trying her best not to sound rude.
“Your teacher, Ms. Ivy, has recommended you for the advanced predator class,” Principal Tengu replied straightly. Fiona’s jaw dropped.
“Really?! The advanced class?!” she asked. Surprise and excitement flooded her head, drowning out her other thoughts. Only the best, coolest preds got into that class, it was almost legendary as far as school went.
“Yes, and I’m inclined to agree. You seem to have the aptitude, the grades, and a bit of humility as well. What do you think about it?”
“I think that sounds great!” she exclaimed. “Erm- sir,” she added.
The large eagle smiled softly. “Well, alright then, Ms. Lupella. You start tomorrow.”
Fiona’s face lit up. She’d always known she was a ‘good’ predator, but she’d never thought she was that good. Half-formed thoughts of hanging out with the coolest preds in school- thing’s she’d never even thought to imagine- started floating through her head.
“You can go now, Fiona,” Ms. Ivy told her after a moment, as the werewolf was obviously too busy daydreaming to read the room.
“Oh, right. Thanks Ms. Ivy! And thank you Principal Tengu! I won’t let you down!” She stood up and walked out of the office with her head held high, still slightly in a daze, tail wagging excitedly.
She wouldn’t let them down. She’d be the best predator the school had ever seen! Just wait until she told-
JACK!!
Her tail fell limp. All the fur on her body instantly stood on end. She broke into a dead sprint, practically stumbling forward onto all fours as she raced through the halls, knocking anyone and anything out of her path. The sounds of her pounding gallop, her rushing breath and her thumping heart filled her ears, until she finally arrived, skidding harshly to a stop, her claws scraping grooves in the floor.
The door to detention… it was open. Had it already been- no, it couldn’t have been more than half an hour at most. Her ears twitched as she heard the unmistakable sounds of digestion coming from inside. She approached quickly, but cautiously. Peeking in, she found the room was empty, except for one exceptionally large cat- and the unfortunate students struggling in her wriggling gut.
Did she eat everyone!? No, even she couldn’t do something like that.
Jack’s unmistakable scent reached her nose, tangled heavily with the scents of the other students who had been nearby. She could smell the fear he’d felt.
“Excuse me, Ms. Garfeline?” Fiona asked from just outside the door, mustering up the courage she needed.
The enormous neko slouched over lazily in her direction and opened one eye. Luckily it seemed she was still too sleepy to be annoyed.
“Please, can you tell me what happened to Jack?” she asked past the lump of fear in her throat.
“…Who?”
“The marked boy.”
“The marked… Oh! That delightful little snack! Grizz got that one. Lucky boy.” The cat rolled back upright and closed her eye to return to her nap.
Fiona’s fur bristled.
No…
She sniffed the air again, with intent this time. If she could smell Jack, she could track him, and she could never miss his scent. She took off down the hall, leaving the feline to her meal and her sleep. The scent of bear grew stronger as she went, which only made her run faster.
Maybe it’s not too late, maybe he’s still alive in there, I can still save him! But she thought back to the last time she’d tried to save Jack from Grizz. He’d thrown her like a ragdoll. She batted the thought aside and kept running.
She rounded corner after corner. With school having ended already, the halls were mostly empty and quiet. But in that quiet she started to hear a sound. At first she thought her worry-ridden mind was just tormenting her, but it quickly grew louder.
*gulp*
*gulp*
She careened around the final corner, almost hitting into the wall, and then she saw. She saw Grizz. He was standing in the middle of the hall, facing one of the walls. Looking at him from profile, the kicking feet disappearing into his jaws were clear to see, as was the growing contour of his belly as his meal filled it out.
“JACK!!”
Fiona rushed at the bear, claws extended. Grizz looked in her direction as he gave the final swallow. She saw the bulge disappear from his throat as it slipped into his gut, but rather than follow it down, she kept her eyes on his neck. She knew she wouldn’t be able to simply convince this one to cough him up, and she wouldn’t be able to overpower him either. There was only one way she’d be able to rescue her friend, and if she had to eat the evidence afterwards, in that moment she didn’t care.
Grizz bared his teeth and growled as the threat approached, turning to face her and raising one massive, clawed hand to meet her. But as he turned, something else came into view, and that ‘something’ caught sight of the charging werewolf and shouted.
“Fiona wait!!”
Fiona was so startled that she lost her footing and tumbled across the floor, sliding to a stop a few feet short of Grizz. And a few feet short of Jack, standing next to him.
“Oh, you must be that werewolf, then,” the bear boy muttered, lowering his claws. He released his iron grip on Jack’s arm, for the first time since leaving his desk in detention.
Jack was shocked, but he pushed past it almost immediately. He ran over to Fiona and helped her up, but found he couldn’t let go of her hand once he’d grabbed it. He was too relieved and thankful to see her again, to be away from all the other preds who had wanted him dead and gurgled. But even as waves of relief washed over him, he looked back at Grizz with a healthy bit of fear still in his eyes.
“B-but… you said…” Jack muttered. He was so confused. For a moment, he feared that the only reason the bear had released him was that he planned on eating them both. But he’d just downed another kid, and there was no way even Grizz could handle three kids his own age at once.
“Yeah, well,” he looked away and snarled quietly, as if reluctant to continue. “I owed you a favor.”
“You- you did?!”
“For what you did for my brother,” the big bear added.
There was a short moment of silence. Jack and Fiona looked at each other, both confused, and also slightly worried that Grizz might be mistaking them for someone else, and that he’d turn on them when he realized his mistake. But then Fiona’s face lit up.
“Sissy’s friend from school!” she realized.
“…The one I saved with that spell!” Jack caught on. “With your help, of course.”
He thought back to the polite, curious little cub that had raced up to him to thank him and admire his wand. Then he looked back at Grizz: the huge, hulking bear with a body like a furry brick wall and a big, wriggling belly full of fresh, live meat.
“That little guy was your brother?” he asked, almost incredulously.
“Thank you,” Fiona butted in, with a much more polite and appropriate response.
“Whatever,” Grizz replied. “Now we’re even. But either of you tell anyone that I let you go, and I’ll turn you both into bear shit.”
Fiona and Jack both nodded vigorously. Grizz eyed them one more time, and then started walking past them with his large, thudding steps.
“See ya around, Jack,” he grumbled.
They turned and watched him go for a moment, frozen there in disbelief, right up until Jack swooned and practically turned into a limp noodle.
“Jack!” Fiona exclaimed, catching his exhausted body.
“I think… I’m ready to go home now,” he muttered, grinning with relief despite his fatigue. Fiona laughed and smiled back.
“Yeah, I’d say you’ve earned it,” she replied.
She wanted badly to ask him what had happened in detention, and to tell him about what had happened in the principal’s office, but this wasn’t the time or place. They’d have plenty of time to talk once he’d spent a few hours lying safely in his own bed. For now, Fiona would be content to walk him home, and know he was still alive.