FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

If humans were good at one thing in particular, it was using the elements of their world to find new ways to make money, and when those elements were willing to help, there was no ceiling to what kind of financial gain could be accomplished.

To say that the owners of the Fiery Delights Day Spa were making money hand over fist might have been a bit of an understatement, but finding a place where humans and Pokemon could interact with such perfect harmony was a rare blessing.

"Seriously? Just ten bucks for an hour in the sauna?"

It was a fairly common reaction from an uncommon fellow, as Firr eagerly threw his money down on the smooth wood of the counter. A heated towel was passed across the counter to him, and he beamed as he ran down the hallway, completely taking the intricate and impressive design of the manmade caverns for granted in the process.

Blending with the rugged, hand carved tunnels were doors of pleasantly stained wood and glass panels, each one acid washed with a particular character to signify the importance of the room, rather than letters and words to simply spell out what it was. The design became unnecessary when Firr skidded to a stop in front of a door that was plumed over with rolling steam, but he took a moment to snicker at the sight of a lazy, grinning Snorlax emblazoned in the glass.

Fortune was smiling on Firr at every turn as he pulled the door open with an easy tug ,and found the room completely empty inside. He wasn't much in the mood to make small talk; he was there to relax, and he did just that as he shrugged away the worries of the outside world, wrapped a towel around his waist, and plopped down on one of the bench seats.

The design of the entire day spa was ingenious, but the sauna was especially clever: the heating mechanism for the chamber wasn't a typical heater with wood or coals to douse, but instead, the sleeping chambers of the fire type Pokemon were placed on the other side of the wall, providing a natural heat to the borders of the room itself. Simply splashing some fluid on the side of the sauna would provide endless plumes of steam, and a plethora of scents were made available so that each experience would be unique.

Firr didn't pay any mind to which scent he grabbed...he simply tossed a ladleful at the wall and leaned back against the ingeniously heated rocks with a deep, soothing breath. Sweet, floral aromas filled his nostrils, and steam enveloped his body as his eyelids became heavy in an instant, and he had no gumption to resist them.

"There's no better way to spend a day than this," he said, sucking in another deep breath and releasing it with a wide, leisurely smile...and a brief puff of smoke.

One brow cocked all on its own as he sniffed at the air, the smell of roasting carbon tainting the otherwise perfect bouquet of sweet, floral notes. He couldn't imagine where something like that would have come from in a sealed cavern, but just before he closed his eyes again, he saw the source of it, as a quick huff of frustration left a brief plume of smoke in front of his stare.

"That...probably... isn't good," he tried to make heads or tails of how smoky tendrils were drifting up from his lips and nostrils, but keeping his panic in order became a greater struggle when the pleasant warmth in his lungs became a painful heat, as if he was trying to draw air from the surface of the sun.

Trying to stand only made matters worse, as one problem revealed itself right after the other: his feet that once sat cozy against the smooth, comfortable wood of the floor were growing thick and clumsy in his distraction, and nails sprung from his toes to such a length that they reached the flood before he could rise to the balls of his feet.

Thrown by the feeling of chitin scraping on wood, he fell back to the bench seat, his face riddled with panic. "Hope it's not t-t-too late to ask for a refund!"

Worrying about the refund policy of the day spa was probably the last thing that should have crossed Firr's mind as tall, sharp horns poked up into the fabric of his trademark hat and tossed it from his head, leaving it on the floor and forcing him to decide if he was going to reach up to the top of his skull to feel if there were actually two pillars of flesh sticking up from it.

It was a terrifying prospect, but there was no better time than the present to determine if he was truly losing his mind or not. Trembling palms came to rest on his head as fingertips brushed at the base of two thin stalks of flesh.

A quick, turning rub around the base of each one only left his jaw to drop and stay gaping as touching one part of the transformation only served to spread it, turning his short, manicured nails into long, thick claws before he was able to pull them away from his skull. He looked down at them disbelieving eyes, but the sight of his middle and ring fingers melting together didn't help him to accept his reality anymore than anything else that was happening.

A quick clench of his digits revealed that his hands, now more like talons, still worked the way that he was used to, but only seeing three fingers and a thumb was enough of a trip to make him slump from the bench, settling on the naturally carved rocks that made up the floor of sauna.

"Y...yup, I think I'd better go ask for that refund..."

Standing up was going to be difficult enough when Firr was struggling to come to terms with such a dramatic shift in his reality, but massive claws that grew out from his toes continued scraping up tiny chunks of stone as he tried to scramble back up to the bench. Individual toes were melting together all along, but it was only when he tried to stand upright that he noticed what a wide footprint he now carried, and much to his surprise and delight, they were easy enough to balance on.

Human legs wouldn't be able to lift them, but that wasn't going to be an issue much longer, much as Firr was about to learn.

"Looks like someone dipped me in a vat of cheese or something," his face wrinkled the best that it could as the orange shade spread up from his feet and discolored his ankles, but that wasn't the most startling part of the change.

More striking was the bulge of flesh that made his ankles every bit as wide as his thighs, turning his legs into tree trunks, at least for a moment. It was unusual enough to see, forcing a paw to cup the front of his face and stifle a frightened shout, but the sound that came out wasn't a human scream. Something abnormal was happening to his words, keeping him from registering a complain in the first place as his thighs slowly doubled in size, as if someone was inflating them like a pair of balloons.

When his whimper of concern and confusion was just the sound of him repeating a name that he'd never been called before, he found it impossible to deny the change any longer.

"Ch...Charizard?" he shook his head rapidly in the hopes that he just had to shake out some cobwebs, but whatever had happened to him, some part of his mind had already accepted that it was too late to stop what had begun. Across the whole of his back and the majority of his torso, orange color was already soaking his flesh, and though a stark contrast of black remained thanks to his shorts, his tummy was now a proper underbelly, shaded soft cream and standing out from the rest of his thin scales.

New thickness was spreading all over his flesh, boosting every part of his body to a new level of strength, save for arms that stayed fairly true to the human body that they came from. They pushed forward without explanation, at least...at first.

The growth of two small nubs of flesh from just above his shoulders was all the explanation that he needed, but as the minutes passed, Firr wasn't as concerned with the fact that wings were growing out from his back, as much as he was wondering what was taking them so long.

Their discoloration took place almost immediately, as any emerging flesh was tainted with the same brilliant coat of orange scales that covered the rest of his form, until a stark contrast of teal and oasis spread across the inside of the growing lumps.

Wiggling as they expanded out to the sides, Firr jumped in place and tried to get the beginning of his wings to do anything more than irritate him. He leaned into the natural rockface that was the retaining wall of the sauna and brushed his scales over it, but he couldn't stay as close as he wanted...at least, not for very long.

Another lump burst through the back of his shorts as yet more expansions of flesh came to life, pulverizing fabric that was never meant to handle something so thick and powerful. A tiny spear on the end of a large mound, the growing tail was just the right size to push Firr off the wall slightly and arch his itchy shoulders into the natural, jagged architecture of the rocks, and fitting of the species he was becoming, that growing tip was adorned with a small, flickering ember as it swished from side to side with new life and purpose.

Speaking to himself still felt rather silly when he was afraid of being able to verbally articulate his thoughts, but even then, a curious "Charizard" escaped his lips as they, too, finally became entrenched by the wave of orange that covered his skin. With his muzzle complete and his eyes growing sharper to fit the shape of a draconic head, Firr could hardly remember what he was so upset about in the first place, thinking only of the fact that he truly enjoyed the warmth of the sauna around him, as if it were feeding an energy that was always deep within his person, but only recently revealed itself.

If anything, the sauna was just a little bit chilly for the newly formed dragon, but he could sense greater heat coming from the other side of the wall; his only thought was reaching that place, even if it meant he had to follow the stranger in the funny looking uniform.

**

"So how do you guys keep labor costs so low here, anyway? This kind of operation has to incur a lot of heating and electrical bills..."

"That's a very common question! You'll find, however, that a majority of our work is done by the very pokemon that live with us here in the resort," a tour guide was showing off the grounds to a fresh batch of tourists, revealing the inner workings of the famous destination. "We find them in the worst places: being abused in underground fighting rings, abandoned in alleyways and simply forgotten by their owners, and in exchange for a safe and comforting place to live, we give them new purpose...for example, you can see the heating element that drives our sauna in this room, where a host of Charizard now sleep peacefully. Their natural warmth keeps the rock wall of the sauna heated beyond what we could produce with coal or wood, and doesn't harm the environment at all!"

Each Charizard had a small token sitting next to their bed, a call back to who they used to be before they were forced into servitude by the corrupted staff of the resort.

Next to the most recent addition was a small, black hat, forgotten by its owner...