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How Not To Become Lunch: 80 - Avoid a Grizzly Fate
*ding-dong*
*gasp*! “Coby!!”
An excited cry filled the house, loud enough to serve as a warning for those downstairs before a little girl came practically flying down the steps. A feat all the more impressive considering she was a canine and not anything avian.
“Sissy,” came a mildly chiding tone, as Mrs. Lupella approached the front door to find her youngest daughter reaching up for the handle with her tail wagging wildly. “You’re not supposed to answer the door, remember? It could be a stranger.” Or Jack, she added mentally. She knew her little pup wouldn’t actually try to eat the nice boy again now that she’d made extra sure to explain things, but she was still worried about the fact that he had somehow ended up in the little girl’s stomach twice now…
“It’s okay, I can smell them!” the young wolf assured, twisting the handle and giving it a tug. “Coby!!” she yelled again, finally laying eyes on her friend after entire hours of anticipation.
“Hey Sissy!” the little bear cub replied, peeking out from behind his big brother and catching a bit of her enthusiasm to add to his own. He giggled as she rushed over to greet him with a big grin and a series of excited little sniffs. Mrs. Lupella smiled at her daughter’s joy and made it the rest of the way to the door.
“You didn’t have to come pick her up, I would have walked her over,” the canine mother said appreciatively. The teen grizzly, standing even taller than she was on the other side of the doorway, glanced up from his little brother.
“Don’t worry about it,” Grizz replied, keeping his rather gruff voice fairly even and polite.
She smiled at him. He certainly came off as a bit intimidating, but boys his age often did. All the better to help look after her little girl on her play date, she told herself- while also thanking her luck that she’d only had to deal with raising a teenage girl.
“I’ll be home most of the day if you need anything for her,” she told the bear. “Say hi to your parents for me, Grizz.”
“Sure.” He nodded neutrally. “I’ll bring her back in a few hours.” And without much else, he turned and started walking back toward the road.
“Bye-bye mom!” Sissy called, before running off to form half of the pair of furballs excitedly scrambling around the big bear’s legs.
“Bye my little pup, have fun,” she replied, smiling as she closed the door.
…
“Alright squirts, go play,” Grizz grumbled neutrally, opening the door to his family’s house with a loud creak. “Just keep it in your room, alright Coby?”
The boy nodded up at his big brother obediently.
Meanwhile, little Sissy immediately started inside, following her nose as she walked. Coby’s house always smelled kinda weird, with lots of strong scents drifting through the halls and between rooms, and not all of them entirely pleasant. She’d decided it must be a bear thing. It hadn’t taken many visits for her to get used to it, though she did need a minute or two for her snout to adjust when she first walked in.
“Hi Mrs. Coby’s Mom,” the chipper pup greeted, stopping at a passage in the hall which hit her nose quite strongly.
“Huh…? Oh, hi there. Who are you little girl?”
“I’m Sissy, remember?”
“She’s my friend from school,” Coby reminded with a smile, quickly catching up.
“…Oh, right… Yes, I remember.”
Closing the front door, Grizz caught up a few seconds later, nudging his little brother along while turning his eyes to their mother.
“I told you yesterday she was coming over,” the older sibling said in his grumbly, gravelly voice, staying behind as the younger kids continued off toward Coby’s room.
They’d hardly made it down the little halls and through his door before Sissy began laying down the itinerary.
“So, I have lots of stuff we should do today. First, I think maybe we should make some pictures of all my ideas, so we can look at them all and tell which ones will be the funnest. But we should definitely see which one of us can make our claws the pointiest, and the winner gets to carve their name into this cool piece of wood I found. Oh, and how bouncy is your bed again? Cause we should really definitely see if we can bounce high enough to touch the ceiling.”
She went on like that for a good little while, with little Coby quietly listening and making animated expressions ranging from excitement to intrigue. Eventually, though, they did get around to actually playing, and while the drawing idea was supposed to be first, Coby didn’t have any paper or drawing things, so they ended up going with the bed jumping idea instead.
Before too long, Sissy’s tongue was flopping tiredly out of her muzzle and Coby’s shoulders were drooping, as they worked their hardest to bounce as high as they could on the admittedly not-very-bouncy bed. It was hard work! And they had gotten close a few times! So neither of them was ready to give up yet. They’d pause for a few moments to pant, giggle at each other’s tired faces, then bounce some more.
It was during one of those rest breaks when Sissy noticed her friend had suddenly stopped smiling.
“What’s wrong? Did you hurt your paws?” the werewolf pup asked. She’d had a few ‘funny landings’ in her day. He didn’t answer, though, at least not right away, just looked at the wall. Before she could ask another question, Sissy heard it too.
Voices… Angry voices…
With the repetitive thumping and creaking of their game fading out, and their tired breathing calming down soon after, the voices only got clearer and clearer. They were coming from the next room over, on the other side of the wall. …Coby’s parents’ room. …Coby’s parents’ voices.
Sissy’s ears drooped back timidly at the sound of the grownups shouting. One, then the other, then both on top of each other. Even without the words, it was pretty easy to tell those angry shouts were pointed at each other. Even without the words- which they could hear quite well enough.
“Will you two shut the fuck up!?” That one came from Grizz, a new voice on the scene. Followed quickly by the sound of his parents’ door slamming shut again after the teen had barged inside. “Coby and his friend are in the next fucking room!”
Unfortunately, the only change that made was that two screaming voices quickly became three.
Coby sat down on his bed, wrapping his arms around his knees. Sissy frowned at him, worried and sympathetic, then pouted. She had to do something.
“Come on,” she said, grabbing his arm and hopping off his bed. He stumbled after her as she pulled him along without waiting for a response. Before he knew it, she was quietly opening the door and leading him out into the hall.
“But Grizz said to stay in my room.”
“Shhh!”
But the shouts were more than loud enough to drown them out. That meager verbal resistance was all Coby attempted as his friend ferried him back towards his front door, reaching up to undo all the locks.
“Where are we going?” the bear cub whispered.
“Outside,” the wolf pup whispered back with an ‘isn’t that obvious’ tone, as she managed to get the door open again. It creaked loudly, just like before, but the other occupants of the house were far too preoccupied to notice.
*creeeeeaaaaak* *click*
“There,” Sissy said emphatically as she shut the entrance behind them. “First step, check.”
“…First step of what?” Coby sounded meek and uncertain. He didn’t like not listening to his big brother, but he was feeling too tiny and upset to muster any real protest in the face of Sissy’s Sissy-ness.
“We’re supposed to have fun today,” she declared, like it was a mission of the highest order. “But first, we have to make you happy again.” She pointed a tiny claw at his sizable frown. “Come on,” she took him by the wrist again and led him further away from the door, where the faintest hints of the loudest shouts were still audible. “We need to cheer you up.”
Cheer Coby up. Cheeeer, Coooooby, up! she mentally repeated to herself, diligently scanning the road and thinking hard at the same time. She didn’t just need something normal-fun, no. After that, she needed something… something super cheery-up-y. So great that it could make her friend smile even after that. She scoured the deepest recesses of her young mind, applying every ounce of her kidly determination.
“Sissy…? I know you wanna have fun, but… what are we doing?” the cub asked meekly.
“We’re… We’re… *GASP*! I know what we should do!” she yelped.
“What?”
“We’re gonna catch you a human to eat!” she declared. “Yes! Perfect! I always feel happy when I have a human in my belly. That will definitely cheer you up! All the way!”
“B-but I don’t know how to hunt humans yet! Plus I can’t swallow them yet either, remember the last time we tried!?”
“Exactly! If any human can cheer you up, then your first human will cheer you way upper! And don’t worry, you have me! My sister made me an expert human hunter,” she bragged. “Now, we just gotta find one…” She lifted her snout to the air and sniffed. “This way!”
They rushed off into the neighborhood in search of prey, with the little pup still dragging the semi-willing bear cub along by the wrist, sniffing often and making lots of ‘mm-hm’ sounds like she knew what she was doing.
There didn’t seem to be a lot of humans in this part of town, though. Most of the houses she passed smelled like nekos or nagas or other werewolves- just lots of other predators. And even the human-smelling houses weren’t too helpful because she wouldn’t be able to get inside. All that left were the kids playing on the front lawns, and the only human kid they saw doing that had a daddy watching who gave them a very mean look when they walked by.
But then, just when she was starting to get desperate, she spotted her prey.
“Ooo! Look look look,” she urged in a hushed voice, pointing a claw. Crossing paths ahead of them was a human boy with messy hair and a faint scowl, walking all on his own. He was perfect! Well, except for one thing…
“W-what!?” Coby replied, almost forgetting to keep quiet. “That’s a teenager!”
“Uh-huh,” she nodded eagerly, in strong agreement with his ‘excitement’.
“B-b-but he’s so much bigger than me! And he has a wand! There’s no way I could ever eat someone like that!”
“No no, it’s super easy,” Sissy assured, speaking from experience. “My first ever human was a teenager too, and he had a wand. You just gotta get up close and then *nomf*.” The little werewolf made a mock chomping motion with her little muzzle.
Coby had to admit that was technically true. Technically, Jack having thought he was safe in her house might have played an important part in that fateful moment, but Coby didn’t really know about that any more than Sissy really understood it. And either way, the little pup’s enthusiasm was unstoppable. She quickly started faster toward the teen she had picked out, and Coby reluctantly kept up her pace.
“But… um… I’m scared Sissy, I don’t know what to do.”
“Alright, we can do it together then,” she reassured him confidently. “When we get close, I’ll jump up and knock him over, then you swallow his head, okay?” Coby swallowed something, but it tasted more like his nerves than anything else.
“O-okay.”
“Come on, we gotta go fast, before he sees us.”
The pair of young predators sped up even more, quietly scurrying after their target, creeping up behind the boy’s back. The closer they got, the more Sissy’s little tail wagged harder, even though she was trying to keep it still and calm like her big sister did. Coby watched the human get larger and larger in his vision, rising further above his head. As they closed in the last few steps, entering the human’s personal space, crossing the line of no return, the little bear felt something come over him. Something that felt like instinct. Despite his nerves, he felt a surge of confidence, of determination. He was gonna do it! He was going to eat this human!
*YEEP*!
With a determined little squeak, the cub leapt up at his prey before Sissy even had the chance. Tiny claws bared, he aimed all his weight square toward the center of the teen’s back and crashed into the bony spine.
“Wha-!? Hey!” Knocked off balance, the teen started to stumble, while also craning his head over his shoulder to try and see what the heck had just latched itself onto his shirt.
Similarly confused but quick to react, Sissy seized her moment and leapt up onto the boy as well, crashing into his shoulder. And with that extra bit of weight, the already reeling human finally came tumbling down.
“Hey! Ooof!”
Coby felt a rush of excitement and confidence, and in that split second of victory, he felt his little tummy rumble, hungry for its first taste of human. His eyes were caught by a bit of movement as the teen started positioning his nearby hand to pry himself off the ground, and without thinking, the young bear simply grabbed the appendage midair, parted his jaws as wide as they would go, and shoved the digits inside.
*gulp*
Fur across his little body stood on end as his prey’s knuckles stretched his throat. He- he was actually doing it! He was gonna gulp down this big human and make a big- enormous- lunch! He was-
“Coby no! His head! You gotta get his head!”
The bear cub had just enough time for his euphoria to falter, but not quite enough time to actually respond.
“Hey! Get off of me you little gremlins!”
Through the sheer size difference, the teen they had tackled lurched up off the ground with his chest and one free arm, and launched both the young predators off his back. Sissy fell back onto her butt, but the budding bear’s jaws held on strong, keeping him attached to the boy’s wrist.
Rolling onto his back, their prey finally got a look at his assailants, and the moment he set eyes on little Coby, his glare focused into pointed daggers.
“Let go!”
The little bear felt the prize in his gullet start to jerk, this way and that, strong enough that his own weight was barely enough to keep his body on the ground. His nerves returned tenfold, as his throat desperately tried to keep hold of his would-be meal.
“I said let go!” Finally, the human thrashed his arm so hard that the bear cub came flying off the end, knocking right into the little wolf pup, who had just been rallying herself to provide reinforcements. Their heads knocked together, both letting out little yips of distress.
When the two young predators got their bearings again a moment later, their prey had already gotten back on his feet. But by that point, they had done worse than simply lose a meal. Because this human wasn’t running away.
First Sissy and then Coby looked and saw the human they had been hunting pull the wand from his hip and aim it straight at them. Fury filled his pubescent eyes as terror rushed into theirs.
“Chew on this you little-!”
*NHOMF*!
The kids flinched as a giant mass of brown fur suddenly crashed into view, with accents of toothy-white and gullet-red streaking by to cut off their view of the mage they had just so ill-advisedly attacked. In a flash, the teen’s burning eyes had been engulfed by the jaws of a giant, angry, brutish bear.
“Grizz!” little Coby cried out with relief.
A pair of panicked arms quickly shot up to claw at the muzzle which had abruptly sealed around the human teen’s head and chest. But a second pair of much beefier, actually clawed hands came forward to hold the human toothpicks in place, before the bear heaved the young man off the ground with practically his jaws alone and took a sizable, seismic:
*GULP*!
A large swath of human chugged deep into the brown-furred gullet with a single lurch. Grizz lifted his head higher, pointing the now kicking feet out to the side so they wouldn’t hit his little brother, before taking another firm swallow, further cementing this mage’s place in his digestive tract.
“Yeah, you get him!” Sissy cheered, with a petty tone like she was tattling on a boy who had just pushed her, rather than one she’d actively tried to turn into bear food. And bear food was what the boy was quickly becoming, even if not for the particular predator she’d had in mind.
With his big brother’s gullet having secured a firm grip on the squirming teen, Coby watched the older bear twist the wand out of the mage’s hand, before abandoning the human’s well-pinned arms entirely to work on preparing his meal’s lower body. He dug his claws into the fabric of his food’s pants and after only a moment or two of resistance, tore the clothing clean away.
*GULP*
The bear’s enormous neck shuttered as it sucked down the teen’s trunk, packing the panicked head into a growing lump that protruded from the furry midriff. And very soon it shuddered again, wasting very little time at all on its well-practiced task.
*GULP*
*GULP*
Coby watched his older sibling pack away the human without even the slightest obvious trouble; thighs, knees and ankles disappearing past the broad jaws as easily as water spilling from a cup. The hand that the little cub had just barely managed to keep a grip on was already a basically meaningless little curve, lost in the wriggling lump that was his brother’s growing distention. He could see all the familiar shapes and features he recognized of his own body, and yet he could still hardly believe it when he watched how easily they shifted and swelled when it was time for Grizz to claim yet another one of his meals.
*GLRK* … *sigh*
The big bear let out his breath, his lunch complete and teasing out a loud rumble from his gut as it settled.
“Ha!” Sissy blurted out victoriously. “That's what you get for trying to magic us, meanie!” She stepped forward and gave the furry bulge a firm poke with one finger, pressing a little dent in the dome, completely irreverent to the feelings of the human inside or the potentially belligerent bear it belonged to.
Coby quickly reached out to curb his friend’s invasion of his brother’s personal space, but not before she’d set off a little chain reaction.
*glorp* *BRUAAP*
“Hehehe,” the little wolf girl giggled. The big bear nearly snarled, but kept his fangs to himself and only rolled his eyes.
“You two twerps alright?” he asked in his grumbly, but relatively neutral voice.
“Yeah,” Coby replied meekly, matched by a little “Uh-huh,” from Sissy.
“Sorry we snuck out. She was just trying to cheer me up,” the little cub apologized. The older pred glanced over the two kids quietly for a moment, his degree of frustration unclear.
“Ghh, whatever. I needed to let loose anyway.” He bent over and handed his little brother the pants he’d received from his impromptu prey. “See if that guy had any lunch money for you for tomorrow.”
The young bear did as he was told, but kept glancing up at his older sibling towering above, belly rippling from the struggles within.
“Oh! Uh, yeah, look,” Coby replied a moment later showing what he’d found. Grizz smirked slightly.
“Perfect, looks like this guy’ll give us both a free lunch,” the big bear remarked, but then added in a light grumble, “Just don’t go tryina catch your next one on your own, a’right?” The young bundle of fuzz nodded understandingly, wide eyes fixed.
“Thanks for saving us,” he told his big brother. “You’re so cool, you gobbled up that guy like it was nothing.”
“Yeah, well, no one messes with my little bro. Not mom and dad, and certainly not this gut stuffing.” He shoved his gut a bit, splashing more fresh stomach juices over his freshly ingested meal.
Coby started to smile. Maybe his family wasn’t the happiest, but at least he could always count on his big brother to be there for him.
“Ah! Yes!” Sissy cheered.
The two bears looked at the little wolf with twin expressions of confusion.
“Smile! You’re smiling! That means you’re cheered up!”
Coby couldn’t help his admittedly small grin from growing a bit wider; his friend’s fluffy, wagging tail seemingly a bit infectious. Her plan hadn’t exactly worked, but he had to admit he was feeling at least a little bit cheered up. Between Sissy and Grizz it was hard not to be.
“Alright, come on you two,” the big bear said, turning back down the road. “Let’s go home.”