FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

On the top floor of the Nexus Island Resort in the Nexross the twelve creatures that had created such a place sat around the conference table, all of them looking at the rubber dragon that stood at the head of it. They had all been called there as part of their annual meeting, though for the nexus the term annual was often one that varied depending on the part of the realm and the dimensional overlap. Most of the time they just called it whenever one of them had something they needed to say and as several nibbled on the donuts that Jerkah provided they waited for Renzyl to say what he needed.

"Fellow Nexus Lords," Renzyl stated. "As I'm sure you're aware from someone that we shall not be bringing up that we've all been having a much higher than normal return rate when it comes to people we bring into the realm." The others looked at each other before nodding. "I've had a few of my minions look into the matter and ask around with our latest batch of minions returning back to see if there was a pattern."

There was a brief moment that the dragon stood there, the others looking about at each other. "Well?" Famjin asked, the muscular neoprene shark creature waving his hand in the air. "Was there?"

"I'm pausing for dramatic effect!" Renzyl shouted before quickly coughing and gesturing with his hands to the group. "It seems that with the nexus war over and our duties becoming more shepherd-like in nature rather than warlord we might have gotten a bit behind when it comes to how the general populace of most worlds are feeling." There was a grumble of confusion at the table that prompted the dragon to sigh and rub his head. "We're out of touch with reality people; we're confusing people's desire for escape with their desire for other things and missing with our recruitment more often."

"Desire for escape?" Garlan asked. "Isn't that what we offer?"

"I think Renzyl's saying that we're banking our recruitment of someone just based on that," Olavar chimed in before turning to the dragon. "What exactly is the biggest complaint?"

"Something called..." Renzyl trailed off as he squinted at the card he was holding before looking up again. "A job."

There was a look of confusion between most of them, save for Haleon who just looked at them incredulously. "Wait a second, are you telling me that none of you guys know what a job is?" Haleon asked, most of them shaking their head as he turned to Santer and Modino. "I know for a fact that you two own a business, and that Santer has one as well. What do you think the people that you pay to work them are called?"

"Pay?" Santer asked, causing the synth eagle's forehead to hit the table with a loud thud.

"Alright, well clearly we're starting to see where the disconnect is," Renzyl said as he leaned up against the podium that is at the front of the desk. "Fortunately some of my minions got together and came up with a solution to our little problem. In order to identify and properly assess the stresses that come with a job they suggested that we all get part-time employment so that we can see what it's like."

Once more the group looked at one another, Renzyl pointing to Jerkah who raised his hand. "But isn't that what we already do according to Haleon?" Jerkah asked. "Like I run my restaurant, isn't that a job?"

"My minions say that running things don't count," Renzyl replied simply.

"So we're converting people that work?" Yavini asked.

"No, we're doing these ourselves," Renzyl said. "There will be no converting, no recruiting, we are supposed to find ones specifically that are... um..." Renzyl looked back down at the card again. "...menial labor, whatever that means."

"Wow... thank god everyone thinks that you're pretty and can do things for them," Haleon said as he brought up his head once more.

Renzyl's eyes narrowed at Haleon, then as he stood back up he tossed the card behind him. "Well, it looks like we found our job recruitment board," Renzyl said as the synth eagle looked at him in question. "Since you know about this the best it seems why don't you find the rest of us this gainful employment so that we can run this little experiment."

"Oh... I'll find you work," Haleon said as he tapped his claws against the table. "On one condition; we don't use our powers at all, which means no influencing the moods of people either. I'm talking Nexus Contract level promise and no quitting or trying to get fired for at least one week, and if you do that I'll have my minions find you guys something that at least will get close to your skillsets."

"Alright, fine, but you're doing it with us," Renzyl pointed out. "Have your minions pick out a job for yourself and it better be just like the rest of us, you got that?" The eye ridge of the rubber creature rose a little as he saw the eagle swallow hard, then reluctantly nod his head. "There we go, one week of a real job, how hard could that possibly be?"

**********************

Two days later the nexus lords were all at their respective places of work; the minions of the synth eagle had not only gotten them work but all in the same mall, using a little bit of manipulation to make them temporarily available so that they could work them the same time. They all also used their suppression ability so they looked relatively normal and wouldn't accidently influence anyone with their natural aura. As Modino stared at the mirror he round himself rubbing his head as he looked in the mirror, his usual spandex face replaced with a rather normal flesh and blood one as he smoothed out the referee shirt that he had on. As he practiced giving a smile it was suddenly interrupted when a shoe came out of nowhere and hit him square in the head, his bovine muzzle turning to a frown that he quickly masked as he slowly turned towards the source.

"I'm sorry, she's a little rambunctious," the ferret mother he had been helping for the last forty-five minutes said as the younger girl kicked and screamed in the chair. "But since I have you do you think that we could look at the pink ones?"

"Didn't... didn't you already try on the pink ones for her?" Modino said in slight shock. "Those were the first ones you tried..."

"Oh, yes, but now that I've seen the others I think that it might be the pink ones," the ferret replied, looking at her phone as her daughter picked up the other shoe and made the bull duck by flinging it at him. He quickly ducked back into the stock room and sighed as he couldn't even remember where he had put that box. Maybe... maybe it was near the front, that was where they had first encountered the customers as he went back out and tried to avoid eye contact with the mom while moving to the front of the store.

The shoe store that Modino had gotten relegated too was right across from the juice kiosk that Yavini had gotten employed at, and from the thousand-yard stare that the fox had as the trio of college girls rattled off their orders he guessed that he was having just as good a time. Better then yesterday when someone yelled at him for thirty minutes about not having pomegranate or whatever was supposed to be in there, Modino thought to himself. Other than the plant fox there weren't many others that were in range of his sight, though as he looked at the clock he let out a sigh of relief. It was almost lunch... that blessed time when he wouldn't have to be asked about anything shoe-related as he looked about and found the box with the pink shoes tucked away in the corner.

Fifteenth time's the charm... as Modino grabbed the box and stood back up however his jaw dropped as she saw them leaving the store. "Hey, I found the shoes!" Modino said as he held up the box. "Don't you want them?"

"Oh, I found them for cheaper on-line," the ferret mom said. "Thanks anyway!"

Modino felt his eye twitch slightly as he rubbed his hand against his face before tossing the box behind the counter. "Zane, I'm going on break!" the bull shouted to wherever his co-worker was hiding. "I'll clean up when I get back!"

Ten minutes later Modino walked down the hall of the mall sucking down a smoothie he got from Yavini. He actually didn't even have to wait for it as the three had attempted to get the fox to give them their drinks in exchange for exposure, whatever that meant as he tried to find where the others were. He knew that Jerkah was somewhere near the food court and that Santer was in a clothing store, but he had yet to find where others like Renzyl were. He actually was most curious where Garlan and Olavar ended up since even with all the time they hung out they still didn't know much about them.

But it was actually Kirdos that he had found first, hearing his voice carrying out from something called a consignment store. The leopard-tiger hybrid was with a rather shrewd looking wolf woman that was standing in front of some sort of statuary. "So how much is this one again?" The wolf asked.

"As I mentioned previously, all the garden statues are... twenty dollars each," Kirdos replied, Modino seeing a clear look of distress on his face.

"Yeah, but this one is smaller than the others," the wolf replied. "Can I get it for ten?"

"No... no you can not," Kirdos stated. "As I mentioned on the first statue that you asked about twenty dollars is the lowest that I can go."

"Hmmm... you're being awfully stingy," the wolf stated. "If I buy two could I get them for fifteen?"

"Fifteen... each?" Kirdos asked.

"No, for the two together," the wolf as she pointed to them. "I'll take those."

"You want me to give you two for less of the cost of one?" Kirdos said as he rubbed his hand on his exasperated face. "On what planet... no, you can't get two of them for fifteen. You can't get one of them for fifteen, you can get one statue for twenty-five."

"Wait, wasn't it twenty?" the wolf scoffed.

"It was," Kirdos said as he crossed his arms over his chest. "Now it's twenty-five."

"Wow, rude," the wolf said. "I'm out of here, and I'll make sure I tell everyone that you suck."

As the customer stormed out Modino and Kirdos made eye contact with the feline holding onto his head. Modino just shrugged his shoulders and then as he was about to go in and talk another customer walked up to the hybrid. As he left the area he could hear them asking if they could get one of the statues for fifteen dollars and the bull had to stifle a giggle as he continued to explore the mall.

There was still no sign of Renzyl though as he started to wander again, though as he passed by the mall's game store he noticed a familiar face. Haleon was sitting behind the counter wearing a red polo and a badge with his name on it, resting his hand against the counter as a rather large as a rather portly donkey was talking to him about something. At least his minions got him a decent enough job, Modino thought to himself, the eagle was all about games. As the minutes drifted by the man he had waited to purchase his item hadn't stepped away yet, which prompted the bull to move closer and listen in to see what was going on.

"-the hit box of the zombies in two was far superior to three," the donkey said as Modino finally caught what they were saying. "Which is why it is shocking to see that they came out with a forth one, especially considering the score of three was the lowest when it came to any sort of fantasy RPG."

"...fascinating," Haleon said. "Now, the total of the two games comes-"

"That's why I don't even bother with that franchise anymore," the donkey continued on, unabated by the eagle's attempts to stop him. "If you look at the production values of four you can clearly see that they're just attempting a cash grab in order to make sure that they can try and increase their share value before the end of the fiscal quarter and didn't even think to add in any outsider customer suggestions. I had personally written at least ten letters to the CEO saying that they should have kept the cooldown of the ranger's rapid fire ability to four seconds instead of nerfing him with five and a half, which basically makes the entire class unplayable in four and was the only reason that I even stuck with three. Now, if you wanted to talk about RPG's I found my favorite to be the crossover that another company did, let me just look it up here on my phone..."

Okay... maybe Haleon didn't get the best job in the world, Modino thought to himself as he left with hearing the donkey rambling on while still looking at his phone. For a brief moment the bull looked back and saw that the other nexus lord made a motion as though to strangle the guy, and if he had his powers it was likely that he probably would have turned him into a synth and removed his voice modulator. Either way he only had about a half an hour left for lunch and still hadn't found the others he was looking for. He could always ask them another time or later on, though most of them went right back to their domains as soon as they could clock out.

As Modino finished with his smoothie he tossed it as he made his way towards the food court, which was where he had already heard that Jerkah was. It made sense for him to be there considering he was all about food, though even as he got close he saw that the rush hour wasn't being kind to him either. The black-scaled crocodile had a line of people that was practically back towards the door just like most of the other places as he looked like he was making Italian food. As he got close he could hear him telling a customer he didn't even know what gluten-free meant and that he wasn't sure that there was such a thing as a vegetarian pepperoni stromboli.

What surprised the bull was that Jerkah wasn't the only one working the food court as he saw a familiar dragon in the ice cream kiosk that was next to it. Strange that Haleon would find him a job there, though perhaps with the frozen treat being as popular as he was he found it ironic to put in such a position. "Hey, Jerkah, you think you can hop over here for a second and help me with this?" Renzyl called out as he served up a dish of ice cream to the cheetah waiting impatiently in front of the counter.

"Kind of have my own orders to fill at the moment!" Jerkah called back, looking over as he saw the dragon dip a cone into the chocolate syrup that caused the crocodile to groan. "Don't dip the cone! Were you even listening to the order?!"

Renzyl let out a string of what to most would sound like gibberish but to those what knew the language of the nexus would recognize as a stream of curses a mile long as the dragon tossed it away and got another one. "How are you so slow at this?" the parrot customer that had been waiting said. "It's just two scoops of chocolate in a waffle cone!"

"I am trying my hardest," Renzyl apologized as he got two scoops of ice cream into the cone. "It's my second day."

"That's dark chocolate!" the parrot practically shrieked.

"You said you wanted dark chocolate!" Renzyl shot back.

"That's it, where's your manager?! I want to speak to them immediately!"

As Renzyl threw the cone into the garbage Jerkah went over and looked at the parrot dead in the eyes. "I'm the manager for this area," Jerkah said as Renzyl looked at him. "We'll give you a refund, and you can fu-"

"Find another store that can serve you better," Renzyl said as he grabbed the crocodile's snout and held it shut. "I'll ring that up right now, my apologies."

Ah, that was why they had Renzyl with Jerkah, Modino mused while moving on. Most of the time the usually chocolate crocodile was in the back of the house dealing with his crew, which meant not a lot of time doing customer relations. Not to mention most of the customers they dealt with were people they transformed into minions anyway. On the flip side Jerkah was an exceptionally fast cook while Renzyl... not so much on the ice cream slinging.

When Modino went looked inside the furniture store that was on one end of the mall he was surprised to find Santer there writing down something on a clipboard, going inside to see the nexus horse was writing down a receipt. "At least you don't seem to be hating life," Modino said as he walked up to Santer. "I thought that you worked at the clothing store that was one floor up?"

"Shut down," Santer replied simply. "Since it wasn't my fault the contract just allowed me to get a new job here, though I feel bad for the others that were up there. I'm starting to think that we are doing people a public service abducting them from their lives."

"No kidding," Modino said. "I'm surprised they stuck us all here though, don't you think someone like Yavini would get more fulfillment out of being, I don't know, a gardener or landscaper or something?"

"From the sound of it that's why they put us here instead," Santer explained as he continued to write. "Also it doesn't sound much better out there, only difference is that you get yelled at while outside rather than in here. So... I suppose that would be better, but it's only for a week."

As Modino nodded he suddenly saw someone come up to them out of the corner of his vision, the bull stepping back as a rather small vole man came up to the muscular horse. "What are you doing?" the man said, Modino noticing that the tag on the guy's shirt said manager. "We already rang up that couch for the customer."

"Wait, what?" Modino said in shock. "I'm just finishing up the paperwork now!"

"Well apparently you just did a bunch of work for nothing," the manager stated as he pointed to the peacock woman that was laughing with a couple at the counter. "Stacy got them set up already and filled out their financing."

"That was my commission!" Santer snorted angrily.

"Well I don't know what to tell you," the manager said. "Oh, there's someone that took out all the pillows in the bedding area, since you're not doing anything you should go and put them away again."

Santer's ire grew more intense and after the manager left he snapped the clipboard over his knee and stomped off towards the bedding department. Seems that Santer was still as competitive as ever, Modino mused as he walked off while hearing the horse muttering still about Stacy. Seemed like the Stables of Fun was going to have a new peacock plushie at that rate, but that still left a few of the nexus lords to check in on.

With fifteen minutes left to go on his break Modino made his way up to the second floor of the mall, a place that he hadn't really had a chance to check out on this first day. When he got there he saw something that made him grin and headed over to the build-a-bear workshop that Garlan was working at. "Well, I guess I shouldn't be surprised to see you in a place that involves stuffing," Modino said as Garlan looked up and gave the bull a sheepish grin. "How are you holding up?"

"Oh, not bad," Garlan replied. "Children are a bit of a nightmare."

"Yeah, they're the worst," Modino agreed. "So glad we don't deal with them. I'm kind of surprised that Olavar isn't with you, you know where he's at?"

"Uhhh... something called a Hot Topic," Garlan stated, prompting Modino to ask if he heard about the others he hadn't found yet. "Athear is at a wine bar as a server and they got Famjin doing boat sales at one of those kiosk things. Oh, and Tarien is at a Spencer's Gifts, though he's not quite sure why."

As Modino was about to ask what they sold in a store called that they both heard a commotion, but as the two stepped out to see what it was Garlan was suddenly stopped by a crying kid and an ocelot dad shouting about their bear being overstuffed. The bull decided to go it alone and as he looked out over the balcony he saw both Jerkah and Renzyl being pulled by security towards the door. It didn't take long to see why as Renzyl continued to shout about dipping something there was a man that was completely enveloped in rubber, though another one had actually been turned into ice cream that he guessed was the crocodile's work. How they got so mad that they managed to break a nexus contract after two days was beyond him, at least until he looked over at the gaming store and saw a mechanized creature that looked awfully familiar on display.

"Well... this went off the rails rather quick," Modino said as both Yavini and Kirdos also seemed to have noticed that the contract was already gone, a fruit tree growing in front of the juice kiosk that had the outline of several creatures in it while Kirdos had just put out a statue of someone that was marked as twenty dollars or best offer. As he was about to head down though he felt something brush up against his shoulders and turned just in time to see the ocelot dad rolling down the aisle, his body practically a sphere as Garlan just gave a shrug while the kid was off in the corner playing with a different stuffed toy. "I think it's pretty safe to say that we're all fired."

Just as he saw Santer rolling out a peacock-patterned leather recliner Modino suddenly felt a tap on his shoulder, turning to see the ferret mom from before staring at him. "Actually, I changed my mind," the mom said. "Could you get us the blue shoes?"

Modino found his jaw clenching before he glanced at the mayhem the others were causing, then cracked his neck. "Of course, even though I'm on break," Modino stated as he felt his nexus power welling up inside of him. "Let me just get those for you right now, I'm sure I can find something to change into..."

*****************

The next day at the top floor of the Nexus Island Resort all the nexus lords didn't even make eye contact with one another, all of them either looking down at the table or had their head in their hands as Renzyl once more leaned on the podium. "Okay, I think it's safe to say that was a complete and total disaster," Renzyl said. "The takeaway from this is that jobs are awful and that we're not cut out for it."

"At least we know what it feels like so we can more properly attune our sensing abilities," Tarien spoke up. "I know I learned a valuable lesson."

"How, you just sat in the back with the manager and smoked weed for two days straight," Olavar snapped. "If I hear one more person call me edgy I'm going to stuff them so full of parasites they won't be able to move, and not in the fun way."

The others began to speak up until finally Renzyl cleared his throat and got their attention once more. "Regardless I say that we all learned something here..." Renzyl said, the others looking at him as they waited for the dragon to finish. "Oh, this wasn't a pause for dramatic effect, I have no idea what it was. But I'm sure we learned it, and as long as gets our numbers back to rights and satisfies him then I think we can call this a win. Now who wants to go and convert an entire planet to see how many minions we can get?"

"Oh yes, please," Kirdos said as the others all got up and warped out of the room, leaving a stone cheetah and silver rubber raptor standing there.

"So... think they actually learned something?" the cheetah asked as they walked out of the conference room as the raptor sighed.

"I think at the very least we won't have as many people that we need to return now that they know what to look for," the raptor stated. "Plus maybe they did learn that not everything can be solved by their powers, sometimes it takes a little patience and a cool head in order to find the best solution."

As the two nodded at each other they stopped and looked back at the conference room. "You know what I think..." the cheetah started to say as a frown formed on his face."

"...that the planet they're looking to take over is the one with the mall they had to work at?" the raptor asked.

"Yep."

"We should probably go stop them, especially since the mall has a trespass order out on all of them."

"Probably..."