FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Virtually Real "Is my helmet on straight?" Silver asked as he tilted his head and wiggled his helm slightly. "Something doesn't feel quite right."

Bucky chuckled as he looked over at his silvery dragon friend. "Bend down a bit and hold still."

Silver hunched down and found himself staring at a stain upon the concrete sidewalk. The ancient remains of someone's long discarded chewing gum, he mused as he scrunched up his nose. So gross. "Well?"

"Looks like it's a bit stuck on one of your horns. Hold on," Bucky mumbled as he gripped the sides of the bright blue helmet. He jiggled the helm to no effect. "Hmm," Bucky grabbed hold of the offending horn, holding Silver's head still as he yanked downward on the helmet.

"Hey! Watch it!" Silver yelped.

"Sorry, " Bucky shrugged, "but it's on straight now at least."

Silver rubbed at his horn with a gauntlet clad hand. "Thanks, I think. Hey... are you sure I don't look stupid dressed like this?"

Bucky grinned and spread his arms wide. "Stupid? You're Mega Man, you're awesome! Now come on," he said, twirling his exquisite mustache between two gloved fingers, "we don't want to be late. It's Mario time!"

Silver snorted. "Yea, yea, after you." He held the glass door open, allowing the large overall-clad buck to step through. The dragon stepped in behind Bucky, gently closing the door behind him, then turned and smiled. He eyed the large red and white Nintendo sign hanging behind the front desk. "I still can't believe we work here," he whispered.

Bucky grinned, then strode up to the golden fox sitting behind the desk. "Hi, we're here for the beta testing."

She scribbled something onto the paper beside her, then looked up and flashed a quick smile. "You must be Bucky and Silver. We are so happy that you two are joining us. The room is already ready for you." She slid out of her seat and bounced around the desk. "If you'll just follow me, please," she called as she opened the door and entered the hallway.

Bucky and Silver quickly followed after her, peering into every room they passed. Bucky elbowed Silver while pointing into a room on their right. He silently mouthed the word 'Look'. Silver peeked around the door frame, his eyes widening as he caught sight of a life-size replica of Yoshi. Bucky and Silver grinned at each other and then hurried to catch back up to the fox.

"Ah, here we go. This is our VR testing room," she said as she swept the door open and beckoned them inside. The room was sparsely decorated with the gaming console mounted to the left wall, headsets hanging next to the console and a water cooler with paper cups on the far wall. The rest of the room was predominantly empty. "Now, as you can see, your headsets are over there," she pointed to the left wall, "and any bugs you find can be reported in-game through the testing panel. This is a private room so that you can focus on thoroughly testing the game, you will not be bothered. We only ask that you remember to use the panel next to the door to shut off the overhead lights here," she pointed to a white button. She clasped her paws in front of her as she turned to look at them both. "Any questions?"

Bucky and Silver glanced at each other before shaking their heads and answering in unison, "No, ma'am."

The fox smiled warmly and nodded her head, "Great! I'll let you two get started." She turned on her heel and bounced out of the room, carefully closing the door behind her.

Silver rushed over to the wall with the headsets, his hand hovering over the blue one. "Do you think I can put this on over my helmet?" he asked as his fingers closed over it.

Bucky shrugged, "I don't see why not, they look pretty big." He reached forward and grabbed the red headset. He picked it up and turned it over in his hands. "These look... really odd. Nintendo went with a weird design." He raised it overhead, lined up the straps between his antlers and let it drop over his forehead. "Whoa," he exclaimed as the straps automatically began to tighten to fit snug around his head. "Cool."

Silver dropped his headset down over his helmet. "So, is it on?"

With a sudden musical fanfare the screens lit up before their eyes. 3D versions of their favorite Super Smash Bros characters spun around them, showing off their special moves as the music began to die down.

"This might be the coolest thing I have EVER seen," gasped Silver as he spun in a circle.

"The play button is over here, are you ready?" asked Bucky as his hand hovered over the menu board.

"Go for it." A selection board flashed in front of each of them, prompting them to choose their characters. Silver quickly chose Mega Man. His generic character's arms instantly morphed into the iconic blue gauntlets to match his real life costume. He watched in amazement as Mega Man's fingers clenched and opened in sync with his own. A quick twist of his wrist caused his gauntlet to transform into the Mega Buster. Silver grinned, "You don't stand a chance, Bucky."

Bucky stood before him as Mario, arms crossed across his chest, a smirk showing under his mustache. "Bring it on then."

The scene around them immediately began to shift, the floor beneath them changing into wooden planks. Palm trees sprang up around the edge of the room effectively blocking them in. Barrels popped in, scattered haphazardly around. A count down began, echoing through their ears. 3....2.....1 START!

Silver sprang into action, firing his Buster repeatedly at Bucky as Bucky quickly closed the gap between them. It was all over in a matter of minutes with Silver sprawled upon the ground. Bucky wiped a bit of sweat from his forehead and smiled, "Rematch?"

Silver pushed himself up off the ground, "Rematch."

As the day grew long Silver smiled a lot less. His body was beginning to ache, he was tired, he was hungry, and worst of all, he had lost every single match against Bucky. Bucky smiled as he finally pulled off his headset, his Mario hat becoming dislodged in the process. Bucky turned to Silver with a lopsided grin, "That was so much fun, I can't believe we're getting paid for this!"

Silver nodded. "Yeah," he grumbled.

Bucky clapped him on the shoulder. "Hey, you put up a good fight. Today just wasn't your day. How about some ice cream? That new shop down the street should still be open."

Silver perked up, he never could remain grumpy when ice cream was involved. "Yeah, sure, that sounds good." He hung their headsets back onto the wall and made for the door. "Oh, make sure you turn the light off," he called back to Bucky.

Bucky groped along the control panel, bumping several buttons in the process before finally shutting the lights off and closing the door behind him.

In the darkened room a red light blinked on the control panel briefly, then extinguished with an ominous beep. A faint green light could be seen coming from the headsets' screens. The graphics trembled for a moment as a vibrant green pixelated specter materialized in. As the ghostly visage opened its eyes upon the character select screen, the light dimmed. The swirling mass grinned grotesquely as it slithered its way between the characters' 3D models. Swaying side to side, it stared intently into the eyes of Wolf O'Donnell, then turned away as though it had found the character lacking. Ganondorf's cloak rustled as the entity snaked its way around his ankles. Still unsatisfied, it made its rounds among all of the characters before coming to stop in front of King K. Rool. There it sat, enraptured by the large magnificence of the fierce, caped, crocodile. A toothy grin spread across it's face as it reared back and then dove forward. It struck K. Rool in the center of his sizable, golden gut, then wriggled and writhed it's way into the character. The light of the screen grew suddenly bright, and then the console shut off.

~~~~~~~~~ Later that night the door to the VR testing room creaked open ever so slightly as Silver slid his way into the room. He let out the breath that he had been holding as he pushed the button to turn on the lights.

"A bit of practice is all I need," he mumbled to himself, hoping to ease his nerves as he picked up his headset from earlier. "Bucky won't know what hit him." He placed the headset over his horns and gave a contented sigh as the intro for his favorite game series spun around him again. Intent on mastering Mega Man before morning, he navigated through the menu to the character select screen and hovered over his usual favorite. "Alright, I've got this," he whispered to himself, pushing the select button. Instead of the screen changing to the arena select as was normal, the character select screen began to spin. It spun rapidly through the different characters, glimpses of Link and Yoshi flew by before it came to a sudden and abrupt halt on King K. Rool.

"Hey, that's not what I selected. Is this some kind of glitch or something?" he wondered out loud, his voice echoing through the empty room.

"Oh it's something, alright," called a distorted voice.

Silver tore off his headset and whipped his head around. Heart hammering, he looked everywhere to find the source of the voice.

"I'm not fond of being called a glitch though. I much prefer the term... Virus," the voice called with a chuckle.

Silver's face fell, he knew he was alone in that room and the VR audio couldn't be heard without the headsets. That meant that the voice had to be coming from inside his own head. "I must be much more tired than I thought," he mumbled.

"Oh no, you're quite awake and I am so very glad that you are," came the voice again. "You see, someone disabled the firewall earlier and I was finally able to hack into the system."

Silver felt a tingling in his arms. Clenching his fists to try to stanch the feeling, he glanced down. Vibrant green pixelated lights were swirling around his hands, dancing inbetween his fingers as his skin changed hue from a pale silvery sheen to a deep swamp green. His hands swelled and long golden claws sprouted from his finger tips. It quickly spread up his arms, enlargening and distorting his body into massively muscled proportions. A sense of dread washed over the dragon, freezing his blood cold in his veins. "What's happening to me?!" he cried.

"I'm simply getting you into character. I had quite the trouble deciding upon which character to take over, there were so many choices afterall. But when I saw this big, magnificent, scaly boy I fell instantly in love and knew that this had to be the one."

Realization washed over Silver as he recalled the odd behavior of the character select screen. Who had it selected? He thought frantically as his stomach began to expand. Think, think! He stared at his new,large, green claws as his memory zero'd in on King K. Rool. "No..." he whispered. He grabbed for the discarded headset and turned it over in his hands, searching for any sign of a button. Finding none, he turned to the console itself. There has to be a way to eject it or to shut it off or something! As he hammered away frantically at the device his memory became murkier.

There has to be a button... every console has a power button somewhere. I need to press it to summon the Kremlings!

No, no! I need to shut this off... focus!

The Kongs are coming closer, we'll get them for sure this time! Just need more explosives...

As his thoughts gave way, his body distorted faster. His clothes began to tear as his newly acquired muscles bulged. His shirt soon gave way to his ever expanding golden gut. With one large clawed hand he tossed aside his red jacket, the tatters of his white shirt falling to the ground. The button on his jeans gave up it's valiant fight and ricocheted across the room, surrendering his pants to a rapidly losing battle.

As the transformation came to an end he gave a wide stretch. Where once stood Silver the dragon, now stood the magnificent green scaled, golden bellied form of King K. Rool. He clutched his ample stomach, leaned back and gave a hearty laugh.

"I love it!" he exclaimed loudly to the empty room.

"I'm quite glad that you're enjoying our new form," said the virus inside of his head, "But we are still missing something..."

K. Rool looked around the room, his eyes coming to rest upon the discarded remains of the red jacket. He bent low, snatching it up with one of his golden claws. Green, glowing pixels oozed forth from his hand, down over the jacket, swirling and contorting until the jacket gave way to reveal a long, flowing red cape fit for a king. K. Rool gave a toothy grin as he spun the newly created cloak around and hastily fastened it to his neck.

"Much better, you truly look like royalty now. Such a fierce and handsome Kremling, it's no wonder the other Kremlings bow before you!" K. Rool puffed his chest out. "But now," whispered the voice, "it's time to get down to business."

~~~~~~~~~~~ Bucky stood outside the Nintendo headquarters at Dawn, gazing upwards at the large clock across the street. He was supposed to meet Silver here 25 minutes ago, at this rate they were going to be late. Shaking his head, he made his way into the building. He glanced at the front desk where the little golden fox sat. He opened his mouth, intent on asking if Silver had, perchance, already come in, but the phone rang and the fox hastened to answer it. Maybe he's already in the room, he thought, wouldn't surprise me if that sneaky dragon decided to get some extra practice in. He glanced up as he pushed open the door to the VR room and came to an abrupt halt. "What? Silver? What's going on, why do you look like that?" Bucky asked as his eyes scanned over the large green crocodile before him.

"Oh, the developers activated a new feature for us to... test out." replied K. Rool as he swept his green scaled arm towards the console.

"No kidding? That's amazing!" Bucky said as he closed the door behind him. "It looks so lifelike!" he gasped as he walked around the Kremling. "Oh man, I can't wait to try this out." He reached for his own headset.

K. Rool grinned widely, "Indeed, I think you'll find that it's positively life-changing."