FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Through out the history of man kind, there has been certain times where the norm is just overwhelmed by one shining piece of brilliance, or something so advanced is introduced to a population that was not expecting it. Inventing a new way of doing a task easier, mathematics that allow for more advanced methods of movement, all these things that made the human species what it is today.

History shines with such examples. The Wright flyer in 1903 showed the world that heavier-than-air craft could indeed take to the skies, and the years following were filled with daredevils of men making progressive bounds. A less glowing example was the concept of multiple servers talking to one another, which was dreamed up in case the Russians landed a nuke on the American defence computer. So they made all these computers that could interact with one another and bypass any computers that got clobbered by a missile. From that, we got the concept of the internet.

A more recent example, to within the 22nd century, was the holo-interface. Artificial reality had been easy, but getting a mind-controlled avatar to walk through that reality was considerably harder. Sure, the concept of multiple avatars was done centuries ago, most notably in rpg games like Second Life and World of Warcraft, but all the actual controlling was done through a mouse and a keyboard. With the holo-interface, that became unnecessary, superfluous.

Imagine, if you will, a giant thriving metropolis, a steeline and glass haven where it is never day time. Two bright moons shine down, bathing the city in an almost ethereal light. Subway stations are spread out around the massive series of structures, some of them leading out, but some of them just moving around the city, the high tech public transport. Neon lights bathe the small surrounding space with bright yellow light, and the hovering cars slowly swish through the light paths, casting interesting patterns and shadows across the walls of the buildings. This is the world they called V-life. The computer world.

I seem to be getting ahead of myself, and a story like this should really be told at the beginning, rather than in the middle. So, let's start with the basics. My name is Tony. It's not a particularly interesting name, but not a particularly bad one, and I happen to like it. Tony Razhia, a twenty three year old male European fresh out of studies in advanced programming and holo-tech. Graduated about 4th in my year, but given the class consisted of about 900 pupils, this was a reasonable achievement.

If you had a picture of me attached, you would see a slightly geeky looking blond male, with spiked short hair helped into place by gel. A pair of slightly polarised sunglasses cover my blue eyes, and while I appreciate the attempts at humour, I'm not a German Aryan, I was born of English/Irish parentage just south of Luton, in a town called St Albans. Now I've nipped that joke in the bud, I often wear a pair of plain black pants and often a dark T-shirt emblazoned with popular musicians names, like a Silan shirt, or D.V.T.

Now, at the time, I was young and somewhat cynical about our world. We seemed to be progressing backwards, blearily staring at our past achievements with almost a kind of sentimental pride when really the world should have considered it's march on technology and to better our space craft. There had to be something out there, if there wasn't, that would be such a waste of all that space. But I'm deviating from the point of this memoir. This isn't about our technology advancement. This story is about a game.

It was the 12th of June midway through the 22nd century, a day that would be marked in slight infamy and awe. A new game was announced, called V-life, and it would revolutionise the way we thought about gaming. At the time, I was fairly bemused about that statement, it seemed we couldn't go anywhere without a new release revolutionising something, and so I originally took a pinch of salt with the news, and made a brief note to look at it later, but something stopped me from turning the computer page.

This game claimed to utilise a new kind of technology, the holo-interface. If a player stepped into the seven foot tall cylinder while wearing a holo-suit, he could plug himself into the game, and actually walk around virtual reality, actually being the player, feeling everything that the avatar was feeling. It was, without wishing to encroach on the original title, Second Life but with a VR twist. Naturally this caught the attention of most of the forums and blogs on the world wide web, and all these rumours about the population being able to interact with one another in almost every concievable way circulated.

Another point being heralded was the way you could customise your character in the game. As you logged in to the game, you could change your avatar to one of a thousand different "races" ranging from popular culture to the more furry to the standard human. You could play yourself, yourself with wings, creatures from literature, movies, the possibilities were very, very unlimited, to within reason.

This was a chance for people to redesign themselves on a much more intimate level. Before, you could control characters that were quadruped with a keyboard, but the game would allow you to actually become four legged in the game, and stalk around as a black panther or a lion. Same for flying creatures, using advanced studies of biological specimens, any creatures with wings would have these said replications of nature. It was understood immediately, of course, that this would not come easily to humanity, given none of them had ever had wings, but there was an innate thrill, waiting for the game to release, so we could try our hand at all these new abilities.

I was one of those with a relatively disposable income, and so I bought the game the moment it came out on pre-release. The starting number of holo-platforms was a round 10 million, and they were all sold out by the end of the week, with the promise of more coming. I lived in a flat with two others, and they were quite envious when they heard I had bought it the next morning. "Hey, Razhia, when you've finished having a go, mind if I do?" "Hey Tony, I'll make you some cookies if I can have a turn..."

I chuckled. My flatmates were a Middle Eastern female called Ada, and a Russian male called Kiselev. Kiselev talked to me on a last name basis, I think he just liked it more. I waved down their mild pleading with a disarming smile. "Now now, everyone will get a turn, but let's not get ahead of ourselves. This is not your Xbox 720, or a PS8. We'll do things by the book, read the manual, because none of us know how it works. When we've done that, THEN, and only then do we discuss using it." "Yes, Daddy." Ada gave me that mild pouting look to show she was rather amused by the parently way I was behaving. Kiselev rolled his eyes.

"With you all the way, Raz. Don't want to break it on our first go, da?" the Russian stretched his arms as he finished his breakfast, and got up. "Well, I have to go work and save up for my own. Das va danya." he politely nodded to us, and got up. "Das va danya, Kiselev." both me and Ada replied, and Kiselev left. Ada didn't work, and as a "fresh out of study", neither did I, so we discussed the prospect of the game as we cleaned up.

Needless to say, there was a great hype building up to the release date, and two weeks before the Uni-lateral holiday ( it was considered unpolitically correct to say Christmas regardless of nation, but what the hell), a truck pulled up outside, and unloaded one of the cylindrical pods, still in it's crate. Both me and Ada were there, as usual, and after I signed for our new game, he drove off, leaving the two of us to carry it inside. It wasn't that heavy, but it was somewhat cumbersome to move into our little gaming room and set up next to the television and computer. The box stood there, towering over us, and we opened up the box.

There it stood. A glittering, glass, cylinder with a sliding door, and several fingertip control panels.I almost felt ashamed of revealing it without wearing formal wear, it was just so amazing to see this device here. And at the bottom, sellotaped to the floor of the cylinder was another, smaller box. It contained the instructions, and the dozen or so cables that had to be plugged in. The high speed internet connection, the optional television cable that could be plugged in so your friends could see from your perspective, and several other cords that needed to be inserted in the right places.

Before I go any further with the game, a word on the holo-suit. The original holo-suit was designed by the military to allow soldiers to get instant feedback from the suit he was wearing, and get feedback from others, including enclosed gps, flex sensors that would deliver pain and certain enviromental sensations during training, and allow freedom of movement. The civilian version came out a few years later, and it allowed the wearer to effectively feel things as though he was naked in simulation. It was fairly cheap nowadays to get a standard holo-suit.

Ada and I quickly got to work on trying to sort out where everything hooked up to everything else. 23rd century aside, Internetti Spaghetti was still a mild frustration of wires and powerpoints. Fortunately that's why the 6 plug was born, and soon everything seemed to be connected in the accepted fashion. Ada, typically, had gone for the instruction book straight off, where as I had gone for "It looks like it fits there, it should go there." Together we got it sorted.

A hum from the game engine in the base of the computer proved to us we had achieved power, and a few seconds later a display started running across one of the screens inside the game cylinder. Immediately I stepped inside, ready the message as it scrolled.

"Boot-up sequence launched.....Initializing primary set-up...Initializing holo-suit compatibility software... Launching AST's... Master Driver launched...Secondary driver launched... Connecting to worldwide server....." Then the screen went blank, except for a message running across the very middle of the screen.

"Thank you sir/madam, and thank you for purchasing V-LIFE: the interactive game for the new generation. The server will start in 00d04h37m26s as now we are just finalizing the last few checks of the system before the dedicated clients come in. Please note anything strange about the system by submitting a bug report. If something glitches, speak out loud in English clearly, and say Bug report."

I chuckled at the message and spoke out loud. "Bug report: Game not working yet." A second message, this time written in handwriting, with all joined letters, appeared. "We noticed that, thank you. Don't get excited just yet." That looked suspiciously like a human's response. "Bug report: Responder to bug report looks like human." The message that followed back was in the same handwritten way.

"I'm in the game already, making sure everything works from the viewpoint it's supposed to, what did you expect? Can I get back to work now?" I paused, grinning a little, clearly the admin was a witty little bugger. "Bug report. You're doing just fine, can't wait to see it." The message responded with the same speed as before, he wrote very quickly. "Neither can the rest of the world, Tony. The first pods arrived yesterday, everyone's been popping in to see what's going down, normally in a big sparky mess." he wrote to me by name, which was kind of creepy. "I don't need to say bug report, do I?" The message shook a little bit, as though the writer was laughing. "No, I'm just one of the 50 moderators for this country, and all I'm doing is making sure that the subway train looks like it's not fritzing out as it leaves the station." "And is it working?" "Except for the last carriage, yes. That one has developed a love of waiting ten seconds, and then just disappearing on the spot."

"Well, good luck, see you in four hours." "You too." The message replied, with a very neat little underline along the period at the end of the sentence. Clearly he was a little busy. Ada was looking at the message from behind and she grinned. "Now, now, don't tease the developers while they're working." "Well," I said," we have four hours to wait before it's supposedly working completely, so maybe Kiselev will get home before it starts up. He'll be thrilled to see it work. Shall I put in the television cable so you can see what I can see?"

"First time, I'd LOVE to. Although I think everyone's entitled to their own private characters, so when it comes to all of us getting characters, we should leave it unplugged." "Agreed. I'm sure I have things that you don't want to watch, and vice versa. Got any ideas for a character yet?" Ada held up a drawing she had been working on last week. It was of a female demon like character, with pale, perfect skin, a long demonic tail with a point, and two bat like wings. It appeared to be wearing stuff somewhere between Sod and All, translated as a black bikini, and it appeared to be blowing flame. I envied her art talent.

"What about you?" "Me? Me will be me, for now. I might give myself eagle wings though, just to see what it would be like to fly in the game." "Hah, you should go with bat wings, they look so much cooler." "Squeak squeak to you too." I responded wittily. We quickly cleaned up the small amount of mess caused by the packaging and the instructions, and Ada went back to tidying her room, which she was notorious for keeping tidy. I got onto my computer, and logged onto Messenger. There seemed to be a general discussion on my Messenger when I arrived. Ash, Barrett and Zalman were online, discussing the release of the game with Sevilin and Leigh, my friends from overseas. "4 mre hours til go! I c4nt w8!" Ash texted, he was on his phone again. Ash was consider the leet one in our group, and debate whether that was a compliment or not raged.

"Try speaking American, Ash, we don't speak Gobbledegook in this country." Sevilin responded with a single period at the end," Even better, try writing English." Owch. Sevilin was a Kiwi, and he was known for his very pointed opinion, and his contempt for all things pretentious and trying to be unnecessarily hip. "Come on Sev, show a bit of emotion." Zalman sent back," This is a fairly awesome prospect." "I had my excitement gland removed, it was causing a lot of undue stress." the response seemed deadpan."I am interested, but hopping up and down like a bunny on Viagra is not going to make it come any faster."

"Leigh, what's your opinion?" "I dunno, I haven't got it yet. It sold out, and then I got hit with a power bill in the same week." There was a collective owch. To people still looking for a job and on the benefit, power bills were rather nasty. "Afternoon all." I sent. "Hey, look who showed up!" Zalman sent an XD face at me." How's your V-life cylinder?" "Hey T0ny, wazzup?" Ash asked. "Ash, embrace the 15th letter of the alphabet, trust me, it exists." Sevilin again. "It's good, I just got it set up, talked to one of the admin guys, it's all cool."

"Wait, you've talked to an admin?" Zalman asked. "No doubt when he wasn't supposed to." Sevilin interrupted. "Yeah, I realised the bug report function was being hosted by an actual guy who was trying to fix one of the subways." "Wait, they have Subway in the game? I could murder a Spicy Italian." Zalman sounded enthused. "I'm pretty sure they call it the Underground where you're from." Leigh responded. "Oh, trains, right..." Zalman's three dots suggested he was deflated by the direction this had gone.

"Hey Barrett, what's going on, you're fairly quiet?" I asked in message. "He's got a date with Rosie Palms." Sevilin suggested. "Barrett, leave that hand alone, you'll go blind! 8D" Zalman added. There was a pause. "Sorry guys, was trying to keep my young brother away from the cylinder." "0nly child here." Ash commented. "Erect an electric fence." Leigh suggested.

"So, Tony, what was the admin like?" "Well, judging by the way he was writing, reasonably funny, somewhat busy. You know, human." "The game might be as good as the hype then, if it has actual human moderators. Listening to robots going "State the nature of the bug." is so bleak and uncaring." Sevilin admitted. "Yeah, it'z gona B awsum." Ash texted. "Dear Ash, stop raping me, signed, The English Language." Sevilin wrote like a shot.

"Guys, could you get a room?" Barrett suggested. "Have you guys accessed the "Find friend" function? I found Sev and Ash, waiting on replies." "Oh, right, friending." Zalman went "Away", and I told them to just searched for Razhia. Once that was done, I logged off and went back to the cylinder, stepping half way in and activating one of the wall keyboards. The screen lit up again.

"Don't tell me you're back already." the message popped up within seconds. "How are you following me, admin?" "Name is Casimir, and we're in the same locale. I can see when people of my area log on, and I like talking to interesting people." "Nice to meet you too, Casimir. But no, I've just been befriended by some of my friends, want to accept the invites." "Menu, Friend, Recent." the message responded. By following the appropriate submenu, I found that ten people had already befriended me, 9 of them I knew, and the last was Casimir himself. I accepted all of them.

"Oh, we got the train working. So 3 hours to log in. By the way, when everyone gets in, you all will find on your person something like a cellphone. by pressing "friends" in the menu on the phone, you will be able to see where all your friends are in the map. Makes it easier to find people. Just a heads up." "Cheers, you're a pal." "I try." I logged off again, and got back onto my computer, logging on and informing the others. Ash wasn't there, he had gotten off the bus and was making his way home.

I was personally very interested in what characters everyone would go with, and also slightly curious of this admin guy called Casimir. All I had seen of him was his handwriting and some somewhat endearing wit coupled with a rather helpful and nice personality. I hoped when I met him in the game he'd also be like that. I also wondered what he had chosen as his form, given how he was already in the map.

The general consensus around those I knew who were getting the game was that they didn't want to be 100% human, just to try something different. Well, correction. Those I know didn't want to be themselves, because there were a few who were showing interest in being famous humans from the movies, or the d-comics, or just standard television. One wanted to model himself as a Time Lord, complete with coat, tie and sonic screwdriver.

That was the other thing. One of the other things it mentioned was an item system, where you could buy, trade and customise your own items. This wasn't so handy in the mini-games, the 1st person shooters, or driving games, but more just adding a touch of personality to your character. The afore mentioned Doctor, for example, his first item was the sonic, any others would just be a bonus. I didn't quite know what I would choose, I guess I'd choose when I saw what I could have.

Kiselev arrived home half an hour before the system was supposed to log on, and he grinned when he saw the cylinder standing there. Ada insisted that we have dinner before we did anything with it, but then she had already made it for us, so we all finished with ten minutes to spare. Kiselev looked at me, and I looked at him, sitting around the table having just finished our plates. Ada looked at both of us. "Oh, alright, we can do the dishes afterwards."

Trying to maintain our dignity, both me and Kiselev got up and strode into the living room. I went over to the wardrobe in one corner, getting out my holo-suit. The holo- suit was a one piece clothing, like a wet suit or one of those full body suits that you could practically drink through, a dark silver colour that covered everything from the neck down, bar hands. They had a cable connector in one wrist that could be plugged in to a standard port, and as I stepped into the cylinder and shut it, I opened up the little patch and pulled out the cord.

Under the watchful gaze of Kiselev and Ada, I plugged in the cord, and put on my v-glasses.

INSTANTLY, I was no longer in the cylinder, but standing in front of a black screen. In front of me was the timer, announcing that there was still five minutes to go, but with an additional message suggesting people checked their options before the game started.

With a verbal command, I brought out the options menu. There were a lot of these, most of them asking to be left in the default position, but there were a few I could change without risk of the game complaining. I flicked on the TV-connection, meaning that Kiselev and Ada could watch me surfing the options, and slightly sharpened the brightness.

I closed the menus as the timer ticked into the last minute. As the seconds wound down, the tension for me, understandably, shot up. I kept on wondering it was going to be like, what this world would be, what I would look like, and how I could choose.

Finally, the seconds ticked over to nought, and the timer disappeared, leaving three glowing silver boxes standing in front of me. Each one of them read "Create New Character" in large friendly font. I clicked the first box, and it pulsed. I was taken to another screen, this one extending 360 degrees around me and about 7 feet tall. In front of me was a large box, currently empty. This said "current character" Right next to of it was a handy hint box pointing at a character creation box. "Welcome to V-life. Please make your character." Under the options was a simple set of options. One said "Scan self." The second said "Randomize." and the third was a text box which allowed you to type in what ever you wanted. I chose the scan self button, and watched as my own almost naked body appeared in 3d inside the box, revolving on an invisible plinth. I turned as the hint box appeared again.

It was pointing to my right 90 degrees. From here, using the same text options, I could fill in types of clothing, skin tones, eye and hair colour. I figured I was going to be topless because of the wings, and went with a pair of black pants and proper khaki combat boots. These were promptly added to my character, and I gave myself black fingerless gloves.

The next box, directly behind the big box showing myself gave me more options of adding hybridised features. A rather nice touch was despite the box facing the other way, looking up an option would give you a preview of what it would look like in a little box next to the highlighted option, after a second's pause. Also a lot of the options had variable slider bars, so the dragon wings I eventually went with could have been tiny little red wings, or giant blue ones with silver specks. The customisation was incredible. I went with 4 metre long dark green (again keeping with the combat/ khaki theme) dragon wings, and I turned around to see the full character. At no point right now did I feel I had wings, though.

The last option screen was the famed "Item" selection. The game deemed that item was anything smaller than the character carrying it, and there was a "general search" function. It also informed me that currently I was allowed to have three items on my person. An interesting little note. Glasses was a clothing option, but glasses with binocular function (aka zoom) counted as an item. Eventually I chose a set of red polarized glasses with night vision lenses, rocked out the music world with an old (about 2,100 AD) wrist top computer with my favourite music playlists, and a black Swiss Army Knife. The weapon categories remained mostly untouched, although I did linger temporarily over a particular assault rifle I fancied.

Once all this was done, I turned back to the main box, and saw my character completely kitted out with everything. The swiss army knife had a little pouch that clipped onto the belt, and the wrist top computer was strapped around the entire lower arm. I clicked the button that said "Create." For obvious reasons, a text box came up and said "Are you sure?" (Yes/No), and I clicked yes.

Instantly, everything went black. I felt a bizarre tingling behind the shoulder blades, as if something was trying to force it's way out of my shoulder blades, and tingles around my eyes, wrist and legs as my items and clothing were created. These tingles disappeared after 10 seconds, and a message appeared in front of me. "Prepare for arrival."

I landed, and immediately started falling backwards under the unexpected weight of my new wings. New muscles flapped desperately, and I stumbled, counter-stumbled, and finally remained up right. This final achievement of balance allowed me to look around. Very few gamers had gotten in so far, most were probably still customising, so I had a clear view of the landscape. In front of me was a massive, sprawling metropolis, spreading out for miles. Tall high rise buildings loomed over me, monuments to glass and steel, which eerily reflected the black night sky. There were no clouds, and the streetlights didn't come this far out of the city. The stars, all the hundred thousand stars glittered iridescently in the heavens, while the glow of the city hazed out all those around the towers somewhat.

As I arrived, a device in my trouser pocket started beeping, and I pulled it out. This was the device Casimir had told me about. It looked like an ancient PSP, and had "map" buttons on one side, and friend buttons on the other. I clicked the button on the bottom underneath the screen, and a digital map of the city from above flickered into life. In the centre of the city was an arrow, labelled with the single description. "Assemble here." In the map option buttons, one of them was listed fast travel.

"Fast travel to this location?" (Yes/No) I hit yes. I teleported instantly, arriving in the city centre. It was a testament to New York in a way, it had a large green area of trees and foliage, with a few paths running through it, and vast green acres. Around me 360 degrees was the tall spires of the city, and in front of me was a raised (6 feet tall) dais made out of white material, but reflected gold by the lights.

Around me, more "Lifers" were beginning to emerge from space, a few hundred at least. One landed rather close next to me, and I realised it was Sevilin. The New Zealander was dressed head to toe in mountaineering equipment, and he grinned at me. "A tribute to the Late SIR Edmund Hillary, the first climber of Everest, with Sherpa Tenzing." He waved his pick axe in welcome, looking from behind a Katmandu jacket, ice glasses and a bandanna wrapped around his mouth. Literally there was barely a piece of skin showing, so when I say grinned, the bandanna moved slightly.

"Very nice, you look like you're about to climb it yourself." "That's the general idea. You look like you intend to film an aerial version of Mission Impossible. Got the music on that wrist computer?" I grinned weakly. " Yes, I hadn't thought of that." "That's the spirit, go break into a vault. I wonder why we've been called here." he asked. "Probably going to be an announcement of some kind." Barrett walked on over, looking like a jungle commando, complete with war paint, AK-47 and also strapped to the waist.

"Vietnam war, Barrett? Interesting choice." Sevilin nodded to Barrett, who merely grinned behind his face paint. Alex arrived as a blue and silver version of Iron Man, minus the cool helm, instead he had gotten the EVE helmet from the Halo series, allowing him greater vision, and surprise, surprise, was carrying around an assault rifle and a bubble shield. He used neither right now. Zalman, being of an internet, high tech sort of guy, arrived in a camo suit that almost made him completely invisible.

The place filled up fast. Hundreds of gamers, in a variety of guises. A massive blue feral dragon appeared and promptly had to lie down, unused to being a quadruped, and instead got used to the tail and long neck. A lookalike of David Bowie ala Labyrinth was standing next to me, wearing a magnificent outfit, he looked so much like a goblin King. I lost track after the first hundred, just kept very close to my friends. We were very close to the dais, and a small black cat gingerly walked between my legs. The dais was roped off for about 5 feet around it, and it looked up at me.

I noticed, still holding the psp device, that it had a scan function, and as I pressed it, a blue light washed briefly over the cat. This was a gamer from Brazil, who liked to be known as Noah, and the stats for his race/species, nationality and internet name came up on my device. "Nice to meet you, Noah." I bent down and helped the cat onto my shoulder. It spoke back in perfect English. "Nice to meet you too, Razhia."

We didn't have long to wait. With the area quite well covered with creatures and humans of all sorts and types, a bell tolled somewhere, and a comet appeared in the sky, heading straight towards us. There was a shout of panic, a large proportion of confusion, and the streak of fire came down and landed on the dais. The stone dais cracked like an egg, but did not break, the flame washing off it's surfaces and onto the roped off area, and as the light trails of smoke and steam rose, we saw what had appeared.

Casimir. Oh my god. Even now I can still visualise that first anything-but-perfect moment. The light shifted, and from the ground of the damaged dais rose a tall creature. It was half wolf, half eagle, half muscular bad-ass, and it was stripped to the waist, wearing a pair of black jeans. It's human like hands had razor sharp black claws, and it's dark red and black pattern sent chills down my spine. It looked like it was literally on fire for a few seconds as the light caught the creature at weird angles. I had every reason to be terrified, and the little cat occupying my shoulder hunkered down closer to me in panic. Apparently it thought so too.

It's black and red eagle wings flared magnificently before furling up slight, it's wolven head catching the light at a bad angle, the eyes glaring supernova blue, like it intended to laser someone. Across it's back was a massive, 7 foot long katana, and it wore a small backpack which purpose was immediately made clear. "Good afternoon, Good Evening, Good Morning, ladies, gentleman, members of non-disclosed genders in between. My name is Casimir, and it is my privilege to welcome you to this game V-life. As you may have already seen around your friends and even just people you see next to you, there are very few limits to where you can go with customer creation, the creators of this game decided that within certain extremist bounds, you are entitled to do what ever you want."

He paused, for a moment, and the silence could have been cut with a spoon. "I just wish to take up one minute of your time, because there are certain rules that must be adhered to when playing this game." He paused again, grinning slightly in a private joke. "The first rule is, the city law does apply here. In the games, you can shoot one another, crash into one another in big fancy cars, practice martial arts on others, or just work as a team to dismember the entire Left 4 Dead's zombie population. You cannot do that kind of thing here. That's what the games are FOR." the extra spin on this last word caused it to bounce like iron plating, ringing across the room." I catch anyone shooting up the main street with a rocket launcher because he thinks it's fun to annoy others will come to regret the time he spends banned."

"This leads into the second rule. Have fun, do cool stuff, enjoy what you can get up to in your forms. But do not actively try and spoil it for others. If you do not LIKE My Little Pony, then do NOT go over there with a flamethrower. They respect your likes, you respect theirs. If someone is causing you grief, you are entitled to complain to one of the mods who hang around the city."

There was a lone cheer from someone behind Casimir, and quickly petered out when no one was joining in. Casimir pretended not to notice. "That's all I wished to halt the fun for. At all four corners of these parks is a subway station that will take you to all the mini-games, or just to certain like minded areas of the city. Enjoy yourself. For those winged creatures who wish to learn how to fly, I shall be teaching a small class at the top of that tower over there." Casimir pointed at a particularly tall skyscraper, and nodded. "That is all."

He took off rapidly, ascending in a blur of red and black, and I nodded at my friends. "Right, flight time. Have fun you guys, I'll catch up after I learn how to use these." "He'll tear you apart!" Alex replied. "He is certainly very disquieting." Sevilin commented." But he uses his intimidation well. Do have fun, Tony." "See you in the first person shooters!" Barrett nodded cheerfully, and disappeared through the crowd. I turned and headed towards the tower in question, and then stopped, pulling out my device. I selected Casimir's location with the friend option, and clicked join after Casimir landed on the tower. I was instantly teleported, a sensation I will never get used to, given it's a whole body tingle, and Casimir turned.

He grinned wickedly. "So keen, are we?" "Yes, Casimir, I am Tony." "Ahh, my little bug reporter. Luton?" "St Albans, actually. You a Luton guy?" "Just north of it, actually. Like the little speech I gave?" "Very stirring." I chuckled, and the wolf laughed, rubbing his fur, sleeking it down. "Got to let them know who is the boss around here. I'm all for having fun, but even I have standards." "So did you actually make the game?"

"Nah, I just helped with some of the designs, and when they saw me acting like Cave Wolf over there, the actual creators were like, "Hey, he's perfect as a mod!"So my job is to make everyone behave if they're not, and I do so by being a rough brigand." "You do it well." "Thanks. I'd point out you are the only person who's friended me so far." "That was before you showed me Cave Wolf." Casimir laughed, and took a seat.

"There will be a couple of aspiring flyers, however, because they're aspiring, they'll be taking the lift or the stairs, or climbing up the side of the building, so we have two minutes or so." I sat down, listening to the crowd dispersing below. We were in the middle of the flat roof top, so I couldn't see it happening, but it was. As it turned out, we got more aerials than expected. Several angels, a couple of devils, several dragons, both of the anthro and feral nature, several bats, several birds, a couple of "transformers" who had plane forms, and after ten minutes and a crowd of about 70, Casimir stood up, flexing his whole body somewhat.

"Ok, my little human children, welcome to flight 101. I don't care what you look like, right now you're just humans inside different shapes. What you've got to learn is how to use those wings you gave yourself, so to start, work out what muscles cause them to work, and practice moving them voluntarily." he flexed his wings experimentally to prove his point, and came over to me. "It helps if someone else gently grabs your wings and moves them from the base, you will feel the muscle working against them."

The group began to pair up as Casimir suggested, but I had the monster himself, and I felt his hand around the base of my left wing, pulling firmly. My new muscles tried to pull back by instinct, and Casimir chuckled. "You feel that?" "Ow." I said pointedly, and he let go. I concentrated, trying to move the reptilian wing by myself. "Definite signs of wiggling, keep trying both, you'll get the hang of it." Casimir replied encouragingly, grabbing the other wing and putting more stress on it. I winced, staggering back against the hybrid slightly.

He was certainly not gentle, but he definitely knew what he was going on about. I soon worked out the muscles to furl and unfurl, to angle the wings and have them fully flared, and Casimir nodded. "Keep working on that, you're going to be first to jump off the tower." "But what if I fall?" "You'll have learnt a valuable lesson about not hitting the ground." Casimir moved on to a anthro bat and an angel, gruffly helping out. Due to the angel's obvious look of pain, he was not as gentle to them as he was to me, and I kept practicing hurriedly, not wishing to fall a few thousand feet or glide into a building.

After about ten minutes of everyone getting the hang of their new wings, Casimir turned to me. "Razhia here is going to demonstrate his prowess, or lack of, first. Pay close attention, I'll explain what to learn from his example." Gulp. I walked to the edge overlooking the park, and looked down at the street. Casimir walked up behind me. I spread my wings tentatively, and felt the push against my buttocks, falling down off the side of the building.

Instantly, I broke out into a falling spread eagled position, before my wings flared out to the maximum, and I began to glide downwards. With a firm muscle movement, I banked both wings upwards, and pulled out of the dive, swooping along horizontally, my heart doing about 210 beats per minute. I panicked for a few seconds, losing some height as I came towards the park at a fast rate, and realised that try as I may, beating my wings for more height only made me lose height.

Those who were still in the park would have been slightly startled to see me swoop, and probably even more startled as I ended up tangled amongst the branches of a pine tree, some 40 feet off the ground. I held onto the trunk like it was my lifeboat, my heart still beating like a drummer on overtime. Breath heaving, wings still flapping gently by themselves, I looked back up at the top of the tower. "That wasn't at all bad for a first attempt, Rahzia. You didn't even break anything." Casimir commented over my device. I saw it had a speaker grille in one corner. "Come back up here, I'll show you how to improve."

"Now he decides to show me." I muttered, still breathing heavily. I teleported back up to the roof of the building next to Casimir, and he began to demonstrate with his own wings how to control a glide, and how to beat the wings hard enough to get actual lift. This wasn't an easy thing, but it soon became recognised that because humans had never flown before, any flight was a good flight, something to aspire to and get better at. I noticed how easy he made it look, hovering mere feet off the floor of the roof top while everyone struggled even to get off the ground.

"Ada and Kiselev must be having a right old giggle at this." "Friends watching on the TV?" Casimir overheard this and queried. "Yeah, they want to play too, but because it's mine I got first go." "Well, I'd make a suggestion for all three of you, make a password for your individual accounts, just so nobody logs in as anyone else. That can be quite a problem for a person, having someone else playing as you. Not saying that your friends are nasty people, but it's just a recommendation for anyone sharing."

I nodded, and the lessons continued.