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“Whoa! Dude! Quit it! Stop! I said I was sorry! It wasn’t my fault! Ugh!” Tyler pleaded in an aggravated, complaining tone. It was more than justified, given how roughly his ‘friend’ was manhandling him. For a human, the guy was tossing him around with less care than some predators. Getting pulled around by his hair and his clothes only stirred up his urge to fight back; he knew Boston was upset, but this was too much! Though, as the situation continued, a small bit of fear was starting to creep into Tyler’s mind. Boston was prone to ‘outbursts’, but this one felt different, like a line had been crossed.
“They’re coming! They’re coming!” another boy called in a hushed ‘whisper’.
Tyler managed to get a look at the guy and recognized him as one of Boston’s regular crew. Were they planning something? He tried hard to decide what the extent of any potential plot would be, but even though they’d been hanging out on and off for a while now, he had to admit in a moment like this that he didn’t really know Boston too well- just enough to keep a rapport and avoid his bad side- or at least his worse side. Usually.
“Listen, man! There was nothing I could have done! I wasn’t even with him. He was on the other side of the room and there were three preds after him at once!”
“Shut it you little-”
“You little-!” Another voice echoed his words, shouting loud from around a corner. A corner which ‘coincidentally’ was being rounded by two more goons- erm- kids. A pair of siblings Tyler recognized, with twin mops of messy hair. Unfortunately, they made up the rest of Boston’s crew. And worse still, they weren’t alone. As the boy and girl duo sped into view, they were followed a second or two later by one very angry fox.
“Now!”
“Now! Now!”
The twins called almost in unison, and Tyler heard the third crony cast a spell.
“Gherden wada chevilles!”
The fuming predator with fiery fur to match tripped, toppled over, fell flat on his muzzle, and skidded across the smooth floor of the hallway atop his sizably bloated belly. Tyler had just enough time to see the two humans the predator had been chasing turn the tables and pounce on the fox’s back, before Boston jerked him around toward the sound of an opening door.
“Dude, please! I’m sorry!” Tyler pleaded, good and worried now, even if he couldn’t tell exactly what was going on. It was clear enough that it wasn’t good.
“Take your apologies to the Abyss!” the belligerent brute of a boy replied with all the spite he had in him.
“Guys, come on, you can’t be serious, right?” Tyler turned his pleading to crony #1, who was just barely in view at the angle that Boston was holding his hair. The boy stayed silent, with a scornful expression. He pulled the door he had opened a little wider and Tyler glanced inside. It was a tiny little janitor’s closet- emphasis on tiny.
Thrusting into his view came the face of the feminine twin, flashing him a smile with inhumanly pointy teeth, the kind gained through months and months of working with predatory magic. She seemed to be enjoying this far too much, especially with the way she was dragging that fox kid along with her, with his furry arms twisted behind his back.
“In you go, tubby,” she called, shoving the predator forward into the closet shelves.
Suddenly, it all clicked in Tyler’s head.
“No- Nononoguysplease!”
But Boston wasn’t listening. Before the furious canine had a chance to recover, the bully shoved Tyler inside right on top of him. And the next thing anyone knew, the door was slammed shut, and locked with a click.
“H-hey! Get off of me!” came a furious growl, accompanied by a similarly ‘friendly’ shove.
Tyler grunted, but didn’t move- he didn’t have anywhere to go. He pressed up hard into the unyielding door as the predator’s back pressed against his. A number of unseen tools and supplies clattered to the floor, knocked from skinny shelves.
“Get off!”
“I- I can’t!” Tyler shoved back as hard as he could, riled up and instinctively protective of whatever little space he had left.
He heard a distinct *squelch*, followed by a renewed growl and an even harder shove.
“You little shit, you’ll regret that,” the fox promised, feeling the shelves press almost painfully deep into the bloated remains of his breakfast. Eager to make good, he tried to turn, ready to teach this annoying shit a lesson about pulling other people into his problems, but his belly was wedged into the corner where the shelves met, without enough room to turn, and the human at his back was taking up the space he needed in order to back out.
“Ugh! Stop! There’s no room!” Tyler complained, with every attempt of his unwilling roommate grinding his own snoutless face against the door.
The fox tried again.
“Quit it!” Tyler jabbed with an elbow.
*yelp* “That’s it! You’re lunchmeat! You’re shit!”
Great! Great! Shit! Did they really throw me in here for dead!? Tyler was as angry as he was disbelieving. If he had Boston in front of him right now, he’d teach that kid a lesson even if that mage-pred twin was around.
“Oof!” But Tyler was in no position to do so, any more than this new vulpine acquaintance of his was in any position to eat him. “Ugh! Oof! Ow!”
*squelch* *glorsh* *groan*
“Ah! Oh- okay, okay OKAY! Enough already! There’s no room!” Tyler yelled.
The fox growled angrily again, but Tyler felt the pred’s body finally relax as he realized and then accepted that continued efforts against the impossible would only make him look stupid. A heavy silence took hold, accented by panting, as unactionable rage was forced into an awkward stalemate. The predator shifted his hand what little distance he could and placed it on his aching dome of a stomach.
“There’ll be plenty of room once I finish digesting my breakfast,” the fox spat, “Then I’m shoving you in here next.”
*glorp* came the noise as a bit of said breakfast- which by the sound of it had already made the transition to something much more liquid- struggled to work through the cramped passages of the predator’s restricted gut.
Great, just great, Tyler thought angrily. So much for life. Now all I have to look forward to is this stupid cramped closet, then getting crammed into this fox’s fat, stupid gut, where I’ll end up like all the other kids who flush out of school. And for what!? Because I saw Jules get eaten!? What was I supposed to do!? What!? His anger mounted until it burst from his mouth.
“Ugggh! Boston! You son of a shit eating whore!”
“Who in the world is Boston!?” the fox complained, with a tone that made it clear he was more interested in simply yelling back at the annoying voice shouting in his ear.
“The asshole who threw us in here! That’s who!”
“The mage-pred girl?! I thought she was Emily.” He thought back to a class he shared with her.
“No, her stupid brother’s friend. She sticks around cause her bro has a dude-crush on the guy. Boston calls the shots. We all listen to him cause he’s cool. Or at least I thought he was. Turns out he’s just a jerk. So happy I’m just learning this now.”
“Yeah, yeah, sounds like a real swell guy. And what in the world do I have to do with any of this?”
“Oh, don’t worry,” Tyler replied with biting cynicism. “I’m sure he only wants you to keep being an angry gut-brained predator and gulp me the first chance you get. Apparently that serves me right.”
“Hey!” came the snarling retort.
Ty knew insulting the angry fox, capable and declaratively intent on digesting him alive, wasn’t a smart idea. But he also knew it hardly mattered now. What was this guy gonna do? Eat him twice?
“At least by the sound of it I’ll only be eating some low-level lackey of a prick; humans like you are better off as gut stuffing, not like you would’ve made it out of school as anything else useful.”
The thick air went silent.
“Sounds like I’m right. Go on then, tell me. What was it that got you on his bad side? Messed up his homework? Outdid him on a test?”
“I saw our friend get eaten,” came Tyler’s answer, colder than any previous word. “Jules was the best of the bunch… the only reason I really stuck around those guys. I don’t know what that lunatic saw in Boston.” He said the word ‘lunatic’ fondly, almost as if it were a compliment. “He would always talk about the kinds of things he’d do once he made it through high school… But then he met a pack of werewolves on the wrong side of the cafeteria… I was too far away to do anything, but I was close enough to watch…”
“Not much to do against a pack of werewolves…” the fox muttered. He’d gone up against a pack once or twice in the school hunting grounds. They were always very good at taking their prey, better than any fox and his thrown-together hunting team could ever be expected to be- but try telling that to the lazy P.E. teacher.
“Try telling that to Boston,” Tyler replied, echoing the fox’s thoughts. “I told him the bad news, and the first thing he asked was ‘why didn’t I stop them?’”
“Pfff, like Mr. Prick could have done better,” the squashed predator said derisively.
“Right!? But no, suddenly it was my fault that Jules got gulped, and I needed to ‘pay the price’. This coming from a guy who probably couldn’t hold a wand against one wolf, let alone three- Wait! That’s it!”
The fox felt a new round of squirming and shoving that pressed the shelves uncomfortably into his bloated belly once more.
“What now!?” the frustrated fox complained, ready to flatten this pitiful, annoying human against the door like a pancake.
“My wand! They never took it off me! I know a spell that can unlock this stupid door!” The struggles continued for another moment. “Ugh! But I can’t reach it!” As bad luck would have it, his spellcasting arm was pinned against his chest, with exactly zero wiggle room, and definitely out of reach of his hip-holstered wand.
“Well then quit moving like that! You’re giving me indigestion!” The predator jabbed with his one semi-free elbow, knocking against a “stupid shelf” on the way.
“Ouch!” Ty protested, feeling the sharp strike in his side, right above- “Hey, wait, I think you can reach it. It’s down there on my hip.”
“And I should just hand it over to you so you can ‘unlock the door’, and definitely not do anything else?” came the predator’s sarcastic reply.
“Oh, I’m glad to spend the rest of the day stuck in here with you until your ‘breakfast’ breaks down. That sounds like fun too.”
The fox silently considered.
“Look, what’s your name?”
“Alan,” the predator allowed.
“Look Alan, I save you a handful of very uncomfortable hours and a trip to detention over missed classes, and you let me off without turning me into fox pudge, deal?”
“…Ugh, yeah, yeah, fine. Fair’s fair.”
Wow, turns out Boston is less reasonable than an angry fox, Tyler mused, but he kept the remark to himself.
“Okay, the wand should be right around your elbow, see if you can grab it and pass it up to me.”
Alan wiggled his arm, pressed in against the bloated, furry folds of his gut, and half-pinned against a supporting beam for one of the shelves. It wasn’t easy or pleasant, and he practically had to fold his arm backwards on itself to reach, but after a few tries, he managed to just snag the tip of Tyler’s wand in the tips of his claws.
“G-got it!”
“Yes!”
The fox snaked his treasure back toward him, around the semi-malleable dome of churning ex-human that was his last meal. It burbled and bubbled as he pressed against the pudge to maneuver, but despite his discomfort, he managed to get his arm up enough to reach the wand out back over his shoulder.
Tyler saw the quivering stick in his periphery and strained himself to reach with the fingers of his pinned casting arm. It took several tries and several grunts, but he managed to get just enough of his digits on the thing to form a grip, and gravity helped with the rest.
“Alright, got it!” The boy smiled, then took a moment to take as deep a breath as he could.
“Well, come on!” his vulpine roommate complained. There wasn’t exactly a lot of room for deep breaths in there.
“I have to concentrate!” Tyler replied. He made a second attempt at focusing; he couldn’t aim the wand physically, so he’d have to work harder to channel the spell’s direction mentally. He closed his eyes and focused on the location of the door handle, which he could feel sticking him in the ribs.
He chanted a few words, then another few, tracing the path from the tip of his wand to the door’s lock, listening to the little clicks that came after each word. It was less one spell, and more of a series of spells he’d pieced together from a ‘totally legal magic book’ his friend had shown him. He’d learned it for a party trick, but it sure was coming in handy now.
“Almost… Almost… There!”
*click*
As soon as the lock was released, the door swung open from their combined pressure. Tyler came tumbling out first, and Alan, tripping over the human, came tumbling down on top.
*splorsh*!
The fox landed on his belly for the second time within an hour, but this time he had two humans to cushion the fall. Tyler, for his part, got a very hearty facefull of furry pudge; the warm, rendered remains of Alan’s recent meal molding around his head and sloshing in his ears. It was by far the closest he’d ever been to a predator’s belly, and it was much closer than he liked.
“Hey! Hey! Alright! I’m getting off! Sheesh,” the vulpine predator complained, feeling the human pinned beneath his gut immediately start to struggle. It was a natural, instinctive response, as was the fox’s subsequent impulse to grab the squirming prey and part his jaws. But Alan held himself back; a deal was a deal. He pushed himself off, finally free to stand and stretch. His belly gave a grateful gurgle as it finally expanded again to its full, unrestricted size.
“Ugh…” Tyler groaned, blinking the fox fur from his eyes. His vision refocused on a clawed hand.
“Come on, get up before anyone else gets any big ideas,” Alan offered unenthusiastically. Despite the disturbing image of a predator looming over him with a big, burbling belly full of human, Tyler smiled a bit.
“Thanks.” He grabbed the furry mitt and pulled himself up with fairly little effort on the fox’s part. But once he was up, the deceptively strong digits didn’t let go. “…Alan?” He tried slightly harder to pull away.
“Sorry, you’re not off the hook yet.” A bit of frustration was creeping back into the vulpine voice.
The thought crossed Tyler’s mind to ready his wand for self-defense, but then Alan spoke again.
“Show me where I can find this Boston guy.”
…
“Hey, um, listen. No hard feelings, right?” Emily asked. The mage pred walked beside a fox she’d pranked earlier that day. The wild smile on her face didn’t exactly show remorse, but it didn’t show malice either. It showed more of a ‘no self-control, happy to go wild, sorry if I marked you last night’ sort of vibe. “I mean, I know it must have sucked, but you got an easy lunch out of it, right?” She didn’t have the self-preservation to keep herself from messing with bigger preds, but she at least had enough sense to try to make nice afterwards.
“Yeah, yeah. That kid was pretty good. What was his name again?”
“Tyler.”
“Yeah, yeah, Tyler.”
“Man, you digested that kid fast. Didn’t you already have someone in there?”
“Well, when you flattened me against the ground, it made some room,” Alan complained. Emily wasn’t the most well-studied mage-pred-to-be, so she wasn’t completely clear on exactly what the limits of a true predator’s digestive system were.
“Hope I can nom kids like that one day. Though I guess I’ll be on to adults by that time; probably won’t be ‘til I make it through high school.”
“Yeah, good luck with that. Anyway, you sure he’s in there?” Alan gestured to the boy’s bathroom, where they’d been standing around waiting for a few minutes already.
“Oh yeah, my bro’s in there with him, he gave me the signal. Imma make myself scarce. See ya tomorrow for those pred tips you promised?”
“Sure thing,” Alan said with a smirk. As long as he was getting his part of the bargain, he was happy to oblige. A deal was a deal. Tyler led him to Emily, and Emily led him to-
The door opened, and out stepped a vaguely familiar, grumpy looking, frankly foul-smelling human boy.
“Hello, Boston,” Alan said with a threatening grin. A short moment hung long in the air. Then, in a blink, the mage had flash-grabbed his wand and opened his mouth for a spell. But he was already in Alan’s.
“P-”
*NOMF*
*gulp*
*gulp*
Alan felt the boy chugging down his throat as he started to squirm and writhe. The gradual flex and stretch of his growing gullet was a pleasure all its own, even aside from that of a fresh, kicking meal. A predator’s body was meant to be free and flexible. Being cramped and confined was the role of the prey.
*gulp*
The fox crammed Boston’s barrel down his throat, simultaneously ramming the boy’s head down into the waiting vulpine stomach, still sloshing with the last remains of his breakfast. But for all the human bully knew, it was the remains of Tyler.
*gulp*
Alan smiled deviously around his dinner as he considered the thought, consciously squishing the boy deeper down into his regrowing gut, while absentmindedly relieving the mage of his wand. He had always been planning to reveal Tyler’s fate to his prey once he’d been safely tucked away, just to rub salt in the wound, but now he wondered if letting the prick stew in the remains of his own treacherous victim might be a more fitting end- even if it was all in the doomed human’s head.
*gulp*
*gulp*~
*gulp*!
…*Ahhh*
“Welp, for a j-UUURRP-ck, you weren’t a half-bad dinner,” the fox condescended to his freshly wriggling belly.
*MMMMPH!*
“Don’t worry, Boston. If Tyler’s word is anything to go by, a prick like you wouldn’t have made it through high school anyway.”
The mention of that name seemed to stir up an even more vigorous round of struggles. But the fox only grinned wider. He slapped his belly and turned from the bathroom to continue down the hall.
All in all, Alan was decidedly satisfied with this deal.
*UUUURRP*