FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

I'm truly sorry it took me so long but here's chapter 3 for anyone who still wants this to continue. It's a little longer than the first two chapters but still not long enough for me to accept, so expect longer chapter with a considerably shorter time taken to upload each chapter.

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'Everyone in the entire school is here' Adam thought worriedly as his confidence dropped completely while he looked all over the humongous auditorium, seeing every teacher and student in his school sitting down getting ready to watch the contest.

"I don't think I want to do this anymore." Adam muttered quietly as his fear of messing up grew.

"What was that?" Ryan asked as he looked back and saw Adam standing completely still and looking quite afraid.

"I don't think I can do this." Adam replied as he continued to look towards the stage while visions of various possible accidents played in his head.

"Adam don't worry, as long as you focus and listen to me nothing can go wrong." Ryan said confidently, trying to motivate Adam to continue with their plan.

"Ryan you know I don't like performing in public, and it's even worse since the whole school is here." Adam said beginning to turn around and leave the building.

"One-you should've thought of that before signing up for the contest. And two-if we work together you'll win for sure." Ryan said smiling towards Adam.

"You say a lot of cheesy lines you know that right?" Adam said laughing but feeling the worry dissipate.

"Eh, they get the job done. So come on, you're doing this and that's final." Ryan said as he pulled Adam back towards the stage.

Adam and Ryan parted their ways and while Adam walked towards the side of the stage to go backstage, Ryan walked and sat down next to his friends Ignacio and Logan. Within five minutes after everyone sat down the contest started. It was immediately apparent that no one had really spent much time on preparing for the contest since each one ended with the crowd trying to hold back their laughs at the performer for messing up so much and instead giving a respectful clap.

"I'm about to achieve the first death by boredom if these guys keep performing." Logan said as the group continued to watch a two person horse costume with a fake knight attached to it, to make it look like he was riding on the "horse", while the performers in the horse just galloped around making something that resembled horse sounds while the other person talked as the knight.

"I know what you mean, but hey at least there's only one more left and then Adam's up." Ignacio said trying to look on the bright side.

While the group of friends continued to watch the tortuous performance on stage, Adam was backstage feeling a lot better about his chances of winning the contest.

"If everyone else is this bad then I actually have a chance of winning this." Adam muttered to himself as he watched the performers on stage from a tv that was backstage, continue their act.

"Hey cool costume." A voice said behind Adam.

"Huh, what." Adam said slightly flustered from being brought out of his trance from watching the tv.

He then turned around and was surprised at just who was talking to him. What Adam saw was the most beautiful girl in the school, Kate, a girl he has had a crush on, was actually talking to him. Ever since he started this school year, the day he saw her walking down the halls he was smitten with her. The only problem was that because of her beauty, she instantly became one of the popular girls, and that made her off limits for Adam's outsider caste. Normally Adam wouldn't have a problem with that and he would eventually stop liking her, but fate was a cruel mistress. Although Kate was popular she didn't conform to the rules of the "cool" crowd, such as not talking to anyone that wasn't considered "cool". Every day she would walk into school with a beaming smile and would easily talk to anyone she met in the halls with genuine interest in talking to them. No she wasn't like most popular girls, and that made it even harder for Adam to try to forget about her.

"So what are you doing for the contest?" Kate asked, bringing Adam out of his flashback.

"Uh...it's a secret." Adam replied chuckling lightly.

"I won't tell anyone, please?" She asked playfully as she tried to give her best impression of the puppy dog pout.

"Heh I wish I could tell you but the truth is I'm going to wing it." He said growing more and more nervous from talking to his crush.

"Aw ok, good luck with that then." She replied with a smile.

"Thanks *glances up and down at Kate's costume* so um what exactly are you?" Adam asked.

"Isn't it obvious *turns around in a circle to show her costume but then sees Adam's confused face* I'm the wicked witch of the west from the Wizard of Oz." She replies with a smile.

"Oh yeah now I see it. But why aren't you the good witch instead, I mean you don't have a mean bone in your body so she would have been perfect for you?" Adam asks nervously trying his hardest to flirt with her.

"Aw thanks." She replied with a genuine smile.

"But you don't know for sure, I could have a wild side when no one is around." She added with a wink and then laughed at her joke, which Adam quickly joined in.

"Thanks I really needed a good laugh. I'm so nervous about my performance." She said after they stopped laughing.

"Why are you nervous, I'm certain you'll do great out there, probably even win too." Adam said trying to make her feel even better.

"Thank you, but I really just don't like doing things in front of a large group of people, and this is as large as it gets." She said nervously, remembering that her turn to go on stage was coming up soon.

"Yeah...but you're popular though, wouldn't you be used to being around large groups?" Adam asked wondering why Kate was so nervous.

"I may be popular, but it's not because I wanted to be. People just assume that just because you look good you're automatically apart of the "cool group"; honestly though, I would rather a few close friends, like what you have." Kate confided in Adam.

"I thought you liked being popular, I mean why else would people try so hard to be cool in the first place." Adam said after being surprised that Kate actually sort of envied him.

"You really don't know that much about me do you?" Kate asked rhetorically with a smirk.

"I don't know why people try to be popular, all I know is I don't want to be one of them and someday I won't be popular anymore and will have real friends, I hope." She added with a hint of sadness in her voice.

"Don't worry, you'll have real friends in no time, you already have a head start by having one while you're still popular." Adam replied with a smile hoping that his assumption of him being one of her real friends wasn't wrong.

"You don't know how much that means to me, thank you Adam." Kate said with a beaming smile as she moved close to Adam and gave him a hug.

"No prob...oh" Adam started to say, that is until Kate hugged him, surprising Adam once again.

At first Adam was too surprised to do anything, especially return the hug. But as the seconds ticked by, eventually he brought his dragon arms up and wrapped them around Kate's body and returned the hug.

'I can't believe this is happening to me, first I turn into a dragon, which was pretty strange at first but is actually amazingly cool, and now the most beautiful girl in the school, a girl I like, is actually hugging me; this day can't get any better.' Adam thought as he and Kate continued to hug.

'The skin on this costume is so warm, it's almost as if it's real skin. I wonder.....no he couldn't possibly be one of them, the chances of that happening are one in a million and I'm not that lucky.' Kate thought as she kept on hugging Adam.

Soon Adam started hearing a voice and before he even thought about what the voice was saying he echoed it and asked what the voice was asking.

"After the contest is over, would you like to hang out or maybe go somewhere and get something to eat?" Adam asked, not thinking about what he just said.

Immediately after asking the question, a wave of apprehension washed over Adam after he realized what he had just asked.

'I cannot believe I just asked that, what was that voice that I was hearing.' Adam thought as he began to pull away from Kate after feeling her let go from the hug as well. Once they were apart again, Kate looked into Adam's skittish eyes, seeing that he was massively nervous about what he asked her. After a few seconds had passed, which to Adam felt like an hour, Kate smiled an even happier smile towards Adam, making him feel even more nervous.

"I'm sorry, it just came out, I don't know what I was thinking." Adam began to say, about to go into a long speech filled with various excuses of why he accidentally asked that life-changing question.

"I'd love to." Kate replied happily, stopping Adam from going into his speech.

"Wait really?" Adam asked, trying to recover from his mini heart attack after hearing her say yes.

"Of course I would, you have a way with words Adam." Kate said, making Adam smile a little.

"When you're not so nervous that is." She added giggling which made Adam blush and give a light chuckle.

"Thanks, so..." Adam started to say until the stage manager walked up to both of them.

"Ms. Foster, you're up." The stage manager said to Kate and then walked away.

"Wait if you're up, and you're the second to last person then that means... I'm next." Adam said, feeling a tsunami of apprehension begin to wash over him this time after finding out that he would have to perform very soon.

"Look at it like this, it just means that we get to go on that date soon." Kate said trying to calm Adam down.

"Yeah that's one way to look at it" Adam replied feeling a little better but still feeling massively nervous.

"See you soon then." Kate said as she started walking towards the curtains, but not before looking back and giving Adam a playful wink.

Once Adam was completely alone and Kate had gone on stage to perform, Adam started talking to himself.

"I can't believe I asked her out, why in the world would I do that, she's way out of my league." Adam said.

"Yeah she may be out of your league, but she still said yes." Said a familiar voice coming from Adam's ear.

"Who said that?" Adam asked to the empty air.

"Your headset brother." Ryan said laughing.

"But how, I don't remember turning the headset on?" Adam asked after recognizing Ryan's voice over the headset.

"Well all I know is one minute I'm watching a horrible performance, bored out of my mind, and the next I'm hearing you talk to Kate, which was definitely more exciting to listen to." Ryan replied.

"How much did you hear?" Adam asked nervously, hoping that Ryan didn't hear too much.

"Oh not too much, just everything after she said what her costume was." Ryan said.

"But that's the whole conversation." Adam blurted out, hearing that Ryan had heard everything.

"I know." Ryan laughed out.

After a few seconds had passed and Adam successfully fought the urge to face palm himself for being such an idiot, he realized something.

"Wait a minute, were you the voice I heard that caused me to ask Kate out?" Adam asked.

"Yep." Ryan replied, feeling pride over what he accomplished.

"How did that work? And more importantly why did you do that to me, I can make decisions myself you know?" Adam asked starting to get angry at Ryan tricking him into asking Kate out.

"The magic of subliminal messaging my friend. And while I know you're capable of making decisions for yourself, Logan, Ignacio, and I know how you feel about Kate, and I felt compelled to get you to finally ask her out." Ryan said trying to calm Adam down before he had another rage incident.

"Yeah I like her and I'm glad that I finally asked her out, it's just...*sigh*...just don't do that again ok? Next time give me suggestions on what I should do, don't just tell me what to do like I can't think for myself" Adam said hoping that Ryan saw the error in what he had done.

"I know, I didn't plan on telling you what to do all the time, just sometimes there's moments you can't pass up and that was one of them. But from now on I'll only give you suggestions, they may be very specific suggestions, but suggestions nonetheless." Ryan answered smiling.

"Ugh you're incorrigible sometimes, but ok thanks Ryan." Adam said understanding that Ryan was only helping him out because he cared.

"Why fix what's already working." Ryan said laughing.

"And no problem, that's what I'm here for." He added.

After a few minutes of silence had passed, while Kate was still on stage performing, and judging from the lack of laughter was doing quite well, Adam decided to break the silence.

"So what am I going to do about this date later today?" Adam asked hoping that Ryan would give him one of his 'suggestions' again.

"Well you could take her to your house and eat and watch a movie there." Ryan answered.

"That is a definite no, my sister would tease me about her for years if she saw I was on a date." Adam replied cringing at what he imagined his sister would say to him.

"Understandable, well you could take her to the movies?" Ryan said quickly running out of ideas.

"Also a no, I don't have enough money to even take myself to the movies let alone both of us." Adam answered, quickly shooting down another suggestion.

"From now on save your money instead of spending it the first chance you get. And I can't think of anything else, it's not like I'm a dating genius or anything." Ryan replied.

"Maybe I could take her over to your house?" Adam asked hoping that he would say yes.

"Uh, why exactly? And where would I be while you're on your date?" Ryan asked feeling nervous being put on the spot by Adam's question.

"I would feel more like myself if I was in a familiar environment and I'm at your house nearly all the time. And I was hoping...maybe you could be there, just in case if I need any more help?" Adam answered beginning to worry that Ryan would say no to everything Adam was asking from him.

"Wouldn't it feel a little too strange for you two if I was there like a shadow on your date?" Ryan countered, thinking that Adam's idea wouldn't work.

"I'll think of an excuse when the time comes, I know I'm going to fail somehow if you're not around to help me though, I can feel it." Adam pleaded to Ryan.

"Alright you two can have it at my house, you're just lucky my parents are away for the week on their anniversary." Ryan replied, giving up on changing Adam's mind.

"Thank you, but are you going to be there too?" Adam asked eager to hear another yes.

"Yes I'll be there too, but this is a one time thing." Ryan answered.

"Oh thank you thank yo..." Adam began to say.

"But along with your dragon training we are also going to teach you how to have more confidence in yourself." Ryan added cutting Adam off.

"Ok deal but thank you again for helping me out so much, you really are a great friend." Adam praised to Ryan.

"Eh I try." Ryan said

Adam was about to continue the conversation but just when he was about to say something, he felt a tap on his shoulder. When Adam turned around he saw the stage manager standing behind him.

"Mr. Lanphear, you're up next. Just stand over there *points to the stage curtains* behind the curtains and wait till they open up to start your performance." The stage manager said after he got Adam's attention.

"Ok thanks." Adam said

"Oh and good luck, the other performances might have been bad but that last girl blew the judges away, so you're going to have to work your butt off if you want to win this." The stage manager added.

"I'll try." Adam said hoping to end the conversation quickly.

The stage manager gave a nod and walked away leaving Adam alone again.

'So Kate did really good, guess she didn't have to be so worried after all. She is perfect in everything she does; maybe I should mess up on purpose during my performance so she can win.' Adam thought as he remembered what the stage manager said.

"He's right though, Kate was really good." Ryan said, interrupting Adam's thought process.

"Yeah I would expect nothing less." Adam replied thinking about Kate.

"Maybe I should make a mistake during my performance on purpose so Kate wins the contest. She deserves to win more than me." Adam added hoping Ryan would help him out through this dilemma.

"Adam I know you like her and all, and maybe you being in the contest is cheating, but it's not like you went out of your way to cheat. You just wanted to perform in the contest and just happen to be a real dragon rather than a fake one like what other people would be." Ryan said worried that Adam was going to back out on the contest.

"Yeah I know I didn't choose to be a dragon but I did choose to enter the contest which still makes it cheating." Adam replied, confused at whether he should listen to Ryan or instead listen to what his brain and heart was both telling him.

"I won't force you Adam but I really think you should just continue the contest and leave it to chance on whether Kate wins or not. If she's a shoo-in to win as everyone else says she is then it doesn't matter whether you compete or not anyway so you might as well try." Ryan said trying to convince Adam to compete in the contest.

"Ok I'll compete but I still don't feel good about this Ryan." Adam replied, wishing that Ryan would agree with him and let him drop out of the contest.

'Well this is it, what I've been dreading all day is about to happen. I hope this goes good." Adam thought to himself as he walked over to the curtains and took a deep breath to calm himself down.

"Next up is Adam Lanphear. He has some serious competition after that last performance, will he be able to rise to the occasion?" Adam heard the announcer say as the curtains began to separate and reveal Adam standing there in the middle of the stage.

*Takes one more deep breath* "Here we go." Adam said to himself quietly as he looked out towards the audience about to start his performance.

"First you should show off your wings and give them a strong flap towards the audience to blow some air at them." Ryan told Adam through the headset.

Following orders, Adam turned his back to the crowd and concentrated on spreading his wings; soon he felt his wings beginning to move and spread out. After successfully spreading his wings out, he turned around and faced the crowd to show the underside of his wings as well. In reaction to seeing Adam's 'costume' wings' mobility, Adam could hear various "Ohhs" and "Ahhs" coming from people in the audience. Continuing on with the plan, Adam concentrated on moving his wings backwards. Although moving his wings backwards took more concentration than spreading them out, eventually he was able to do it. Immediately after moving his wings back far enough, he quickly concentrated on moving them forwards and pushed a massive amount of air towards the crowd. Unfortunately he didn't know how much air he had pushed and as a result the people in the front row were subjected to wind well over 90 mph. Also from flapping his wings too hard, Adam was thrown back several feet against the curtain.

'Note to self-make sure I don't flap my wings unless I want to fly.' Adam thought to himself as he picked himself up off the floor of the stage.

"I felt that breeze from all the way in the back of the room. Oh yeah I forgot to mention that since wings are designed for flying, they carry a lot of wind when you flap them, so try to hold back on your flaps unless you want to fly, or blow a house down." Ryan said into the headset.

"Why didn't you warn me about that earlier?" Adam asked quietly into the headset.

"Completely slipped my mind." Ryan answered.

"Fine so what next?" Adam asked as he got ready for the next order.

"Now...give out a deep half powerful dragon roar and then show off your strength by picking up something heavy and juggling it around." Ryan replied into the headset.

"And make sure you pull the breath from your throat and not from your stomach." Ryan added.

"What would happen if I were to pull the breath from my stomach?" Adam asked nervously into the headset.

"Well since your stomach contains your inner fire and if you were to pull the breath from there, then basically you would burn everyone in the first four rows alive." Ryan answered nonchalantly.

"Oh ok I'll try to not do that then." Adam replied feeling even more nervous than before.

As ready as he'll ever be, Adam opened his muzzle and sucked in a big gulp of air and blew back out half of the air towards the audience. Luckily for Adam, and the audience for that matter, only air was blown out and only made the already disheveled watchers even more disheveled than before. While everyone held onto their seats to keep themselves from being blown away, Adam quickly looked around for something to pick up to show off his strength.

"The judges' table and one of their chairs would be a good choice, they wouldn't expect that." Ryan said into the headset after he saw Adam looking around on stage.

Following his suggestion, Adam dashed over towards the judges' table and started picking it up. Throughout Adam's presentation the three judges have been watching Adam intently but when he started picking up their table, all three judges were wondering what he was planning along with a lingering feeling of worry growing within them. After Adam balanced the medium sized wooden table in his paw, he then reached out and grabbed one of the three judges' chairs with the judge still sitting on it; and in doing so, also causing that judge to look on in fear as they were being picked up, hoping Adam wasn't going to drop him.

"Mr. Lanphear what are you doing?" One of the still sitting judges asked.

"I'm just continuing my performance, this is part of it." Adam answered as he began to walk away, holding a table in his left paw and the chair with a frightened judge on it in his right paw.

"Umm Adam I really..." Ryan began to say nervously into the headset.

"Not now, I'm trying to concentrate at not dropping these things. Dragons may be known for their strength but its not like they're known for their superb balancing skills, so I have to make sure I don't drop these things." Adam quietly said into the headset cutting Ryan off.

"That's what I'm trying...." Ryan began to say again.

"Wait till I'm done with this." Adam replied into the headset becoming annoyed at Ryan's interruptions.

"I tried to warn you." Ryan muttered as he let Adam continue with what he was doing.

Once Adam was back on stage, he started lifting the table chair up and down in his paws as if they were weightless and psyching himself up to get ready to juggle the two objects. Meanwhile everyone in the audience looked on with wonder at how Adam was able to hold up such heavy objects by himself. Eventually Adam was ready to go the next step and he began to throw the table and chair with the judge still on it, gripping onto the chair with a death grip, over five feet into the air in a circular arch. This made the audience become even more amazed at Adam's strength as he effortlessly juggled the table and chair. Although it was an amazing sight to behold for everyone watching, it was less amazing and more terrifying for the judge who was also being juggled as he clutched to the chair tightly praying Adam wouldn't drop him on his head.

"This is going pretty well." Adam said into the headset.

"Yeah but don't push it. You've shown off your skills enough, let's finish this up." Ryan replied into the headset, worried that Adam might mess up and then things would really get bad.

"What could possibly go wrong?" Adam said brimming with confidence.

"Don't say that! Something always goes wrong when someone asks what could go wrong, its like tempting fate to try something." Ryan quickly said back.

As if on cue, Adam began to lose his balance and rhythm with the items he was juggling. To the audience it just looked like another part of Adam's performance but in the back row Ryan knew something was wrong but also knew he couldn't do a thing to help. Adam knew he had to get his rhythm back or else things could really go wrong; unfortunately he didn't know how and just continued juggling until the inevitable happened. Eventually Adam completely lost his rhythm and balance and the table was the first object to go flying. Luckily the table was sent only a few feet to the right of Adam on the stage, landing on all four legs and sliding a few more feet away. The chair with the judge on it unfortunately wasn't as lucky. The chair was thrown to the right of Adam, landing on top of the table but the judge being thrown directly towards the audience, who was starting to believe this actually wasn't a part of Adam's performance.

"Adam you have to catch the judge or else he's going to take a few of the audience members out." Ryan said excitedly into the headset.

'Oh crap, this isn't good.' Adam thought as he watched the judge fly through the air as if in slow motion.