A New Age

Story by Luther-Bat on SoFurry

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Written for JamesFoxes on FA :3


A New Age

By Luther

Time immemorial has given rise to and seen the fall of countless pantheons and singular deities, most of which have been long forgotten by those that worshiped them as they outlive their followers. In fact, all of these beings were held in common reverence. All of the world's gods are and always have been references to the same handful of beings. Their names always changed, of course. When you've been around so long a name stops holding meaning after a while and you simply adopt a new one.

How they went about doing things -did- change over time, though. The memory of "Zeus's" escapades on Earth alone were still burned into relatively recent memory, much to these divines' embarrassment. Ever since then they vowed to be a little more professional, at least until they next forgot. That also happened.

Their images changed too: they always moved with the day and age to reflect the current times. There were even plans on appearances for when the trends gave way to a more highly technological world. As one could imagine there was some heated competition over who would get to adopt the title of patron deity of giant robots. Being the god of gratuitous amounts of lasers was a close second. But, for now, wearing a tailored suit here and driving an SUV there helped to make them fit in when they wanted to visit Earth.

Some even went so far as to adopt guises as man's best friend. Alright, so appearing as animals wasn't exactly a new thing but it worked. Barring those who think themselves clever by noting that "dog" is god spelled backwards, nobody would ever suspect an empyreal being to take the role of so subservient a creature.

One in particular insinuated himself into human society in this seamless fashion to better observe. He even came to like his "master". Every once in a while a powerful being could enjoy not having to worry about anything beyond chasing squirrels across the backyard. But as the gods change with the times, often they dictate how the times change, not to mention when. Today was one of those times.

Nick was awoken by the shrill sound of his dog barking elsewhere in the house. He shook off the sleep and staggered his way out of bed, wondering what the hell all this was about. He has never heard Rocky, his German Shepherd, bark quite like this before. It sounded urgent. Maybe there was danger or an intruder outside? He thought to quickly grab his baseball bat from the closet on the way to the front room, just in case.

But Nick found no intruder and could see no danger. All he found was Rocky standing in the middle of the room, wagging his little tail, and looking up at him. There were no lurking strangers, no fire, and no flood; nothing was out of the ordinary here.

"We need to talk, Nick."

That was an eye-opener. He was supposed to be the only one in the house. Oh god, was someone else in here?! He spun around quickly, scanning everywhere he could with his eyes, searching. Maybe there was a trespasser after all.

"It's me, Nick."

There was no way he just heard that correctly. Now that he had the chance to hear it again, that voice came from below him. It was coming from Rocky. Now Nick was a man of about 26 years of age. He had seen gorillas use sign language and dolphins communicate with rubber balls with messages written on them. But he had never heard a dog talk. Well, there was one internet video where the dog was howling along with a song and it really sounded like the words -but that was purely phonetics, trained by the owner.

"We should go outside," said Rocky.

There it was again. He thought to open his mouth to protest or argue but then stopped at the absurdity of it all. He had to be hearing things. Maybe it was his stressful job that finally got to him or maybe he had just been living on his own for so damn long he's started hearing his dog talk.

But Rocky moved to the sliding glass door and Nick followed to let him out, as was his strongly programmed habit. Rocky said nothing more as he crossed the threshold and the grass. Maybe he was just hearing things. Maybe that was just a little snatch of dream that bled over to the real world, banished now. Maybe it an illusion, brought on by the adrenaline and the hysterical thought of an emergency he had.

Then Rocky stopped and turned around. "Are you coming?" he said.

Damn.

Nick didn't know why he followed. He just did. Perhaps he was still sleeping and this was a dream. Yeah, that helped. This was just a dream that he became aware of. While some might try to control the dream, that just wasn't the kind of guy he was. Besides, this was a little interesting and he wanted to see where it went.

Rocky just sat there in the middle of the lawn, blinking up at him, still for the moment. He sort of shook a bit as if he were cold and shivering.

Then Rocky stood up on his hind legs. Yep. This had to a dream.

The Shepherd seemed to lengthen, grow taller, legs straightening, footpaws spreading and shifting to look like the humanoid feet that Nick was more used to, much wider and better to stand upon. Forepaws became like hands, though with claw tips and pads still intact and the addition of those ever-useful thumbs. Shoulders moved over to allow more articulate arms to rest at his side. A muscular, toned form resolved as the rapidly transforming man-creature continued to change and stretched his neck, a smiling face crowning his new shape.

Then he grunt, not unlike the sort a man would make, though this shouldn't be surprising since he was previously talking.

"Ah! Much better," the dog said.

Rocky now strongly resembled what one would imagine a dog crossed with a person would look like, sans clothing. That much was apparent by the rather generous sheath and dangling apple-sized balls between his legs.

Right. Well if he was dreaming then this had to be some stranger part of his unconsciousness asserting itself.

But the dog wasn't done yet. Nick wasn't sure when it happened, but he was beginning to have to look up at him. He hadn't noticed it until now because the dog's height had been increasing up to that of a man but now it was going further than that.

Rocky was growing.

Not just growing to this new size, which Nick had just witnessed, but above and beyond that. Not satisfied with its current mass, the dog's body kept pushing upward. Rocky stretched as if just waking up from a long nap, visibly enjoying the feeling of every sinew in his body expanding but treating it as if it were the most natural thing in the world. If there was any doubt left that the dog was growing, it was positively obliterated when Nick found himself at eye-level with the enormous sheath. His eyes were glued to it as the package swung back and forth from the slightest movement and shift in posture, even as it rose higher and higher.

Nick shook his head, clearing himself of the spell it had over him and looked all the way up at the giant's face, looking back at him and smiling, of course. He felt a flush of embarrassment come over him as he realized he was just ogling his dog. These were extenuating circumstances, though! He couldn't help but feel insignificant when Rocky's towering form passed twenty-five feet, taller than his house now.

"Correction: now -this- is much better," the dog clarified in deep, booming voice. He seemed to slow in his growth around thirty feet, taking a long sigh of relief and folding his arms and leaning against the big maple tree in the backyard. Nick noted how the ancient wood creaked in protest and the earth tore up big furrows where the roots struggled to hold on, just barely able to support Rocky's weight.

This was a direction in which Nick did not see things going.

"Hello down there!" the giant dog said, giving a little playful wave.

Nick blinked and hesitantly waved back. It wasn't like he had any idea what to do here. He had even forgotten the premise that he might be in a dream, the awareness fading in and out. This was ridiculously real despite the impossibility happening in front of him.

"I bet you must be wondering what's going on, huh?" the giant continued. "Well, go ahead and hop on my shoulder and I'll explain everything on the way."

The offer was simple, made much easier a prospect when Rocky lowered a single massive paw down for Nick to climb into. He little man looked around hesitantly but then the logic asserted itself that asked him what might happen when you disobey such an obviously more powerful creature than you. That and, giant or not, to him this was still Rocky, man's best friend and a trusted companion. And really, what did he have going on today that was better than this?

He mantled the edge of the huge hand and rolled onto the palm. He partly stood on the rough leather pawpad as it moved through the air to deposit Nick exactly where he was told to go. With a little hop, he was on the furry rounded shoulder, nestling himself in the valley there between it and the dog's neck muscles. There was a bit of a jump as Rocky started walking. The little man steadied himself, clinging onto the shoulder of his dog. He held onto the brown fur as tightly as he could, arm braced against the giant's thick and corded muscle.

Nick didn't ask where it was they were going, he was too entranced listening to his enormous talking dog explain to him what was happening. It wasn't until they were halfway downtown that it all began to sink in for him.

"So wait, are you telling me that you're God?"

"Not exactly. More like one among several. And we're not omnipotent. Also every religion got it wrong, so deal with it. Well kinda, you can also look at it as every religion being right in a weird sort of way. So there's that." Rocky's mode of talking was odd, as if he were trying to go in multiple directions at once with what he was saying.

"But Imagined a god as- You're not very . . . I mean you -I mean you talk like my uncle does," an exasperated Nick finally managed to get it out.

"Well, you were 'made in our image', right? That included all the quirks and shortcomings too because we're not perfect by any means. And it sure as hell doesn't mean visual likeness since we can just change our shape at will."

"So what are you doing here then? Why are you telling me all this?" asked the boy, genuinely curious if he were in a dream at this point, the idea resurfacing.

"It all comes down to this: we're gonna reboot the world again. It'll be just like how we did with the dinosaurs."

"But I thought the dinosaurs were all wiped out by giant meteor or something."

"They were, it was Chuck who did that. He was actually aiming for Venus and I couldn't blame him, it's a really smug planet," Rocky explained. "Still, we saw an opportunity in his mistake and thought to start over. Jacob's dinosaur idea wasn't really going anywhere so we gave Lisa's human idea try."

Nick didn't answer, his lips pursed and brow furrowed as if he were looking for some kind of proper response to all this. He couldn't find one for how to react or even question why all these supposedly godly beings had common names.

"For the longest while it worked," Rocky continued. "Looked to be one of the more sustainable models until Richard had to go and ruin it . . . he's had a few names. You might know him as Susanoo or Anansi or Loki. Oh, and also Prometheus. He never could stand the status quo, impatient bastard."

"So -so what now?" the man finally found his voice again.

"Now we go wake up the new inheritors of this Earth, or at least what's left of it. I suspect a facelift is in order for the old gal. Far too many buildings and roads everywhere mucking up the place. Next up: animalkind, a concept by Rachel. Of course, mankind has already gotten a sneak peak. We sort of put in an early alpha version alongside humans just to see what would happen. Now I'm here to implement the full version."

Finally one of the more important questions came to Nick's mind, one that was really quite obvious when one thinks about it. "Hold on. So if the last time you . . . rebooted the world ended with the dinosaurs being wiped out . . . will that happen to us?

"No, that was an accident, like I said. This one should be a lot more graceful. More of a gradual transition. In fact we're considering allowing a handful of humans to carry over, in a fashion. We'll find a new place for the rest, probably a new secondary installation."

Nick didn't know what this meant, he didn't want to know what it meant at the moment. He didn't want to guess at the logistics of plans made by beings he wasn't even aware of until this morning. So he just kept his mouth shut in contemplation and, before he even noticed it, they were standing in front of the gates of the city zoo. This must have been their destination.

But wait, the zoo was miles away from his house. How did they get here so quickly? They had just entered the downtown area but it was clear on the other side. Did Rocky have something to do with this incredible leap in space?

"Oh and my name isn't Rocky, not that I ever mind being called that," the dog said as if able to read Nick's mind. He probably could. "You can just call me Virgil."

Then another thing finally came to Nick's notice: there was nobody at the zoo. In fact, they didn't run into anyone on the way there, either. While any other time he might chide himself for not realizing that before, in this case it was easy to miss a lot of things when you can't stop staring at the giant that was once your dog.

To this line of thought the giant dog just shrugged his shoulders, an action that had much more implication to Nick, who had to hold on dearly to keep from tumbling. "I prefer to work without distractions," Virgil explained. "All that yelling and screaming and running around and calling authorities: it can get annoying after a while."

A fair enough point. By the time Rocky -er . . . Virgil came upon a large enclosure Nick had gotten rather good at balancing himself up there.

"You like big cats, Nick?" Virgil asked.

He wasn't sure how to answer that, it was the way he asked it. He watched as the lion ran around his enclosure for a time, as if scared or confused but then quickly stopped. Before he could respond, he heard the dog snap his fingers. While it was safe to assume that Virgil already had the lion's attention before, now he held a new level of focus. The lion cocked his head a little and looked up at Virgil as if he understood something unsaid, then sat down.

First the lion's legs sort of kicked out a bit as they straightened into more human-like structures just like Virgil's did, leaving him rocking backwards. His spine elongated and shoulders widened to the point where the lion looked rather silly indeed with his still-animal forearms hanging in front of a humanoid chest. Thankfully those soon sorted themselves out as well and gifted the lion with a pair of well built extremities. It was a little less surprising this time to find that the lion was also growing while he altered shape. He shifted backwards onto his butt, now that he had a proper one, which expanded over the rocky ground and pushed it aside under his ever-increasing weight. That mane of his grew longer and fuller and more vibrant, turning to a richer color as Nick watched.

He expected the rapidly changing feline to show some signs of pain or at least discomfort. But there was none he could see or hear: no snapping bones or roars of alarm. It was almost like the lion knew to expect all this beforehand. Nick guessed the gods knew what they were doing . . . most of the time, at least. Accept no substitutions on quality shape-changing!

Even while still sitting, the lion had to be over two to three times the human's height by now. Okay maybe, four. Er- now it was five and that was rising by the moment at a rather frightening pace. He would be more scared if he wasn't on the shoulder of a deity. It turns out there's quite a lot of comfort in that. Nick's unique perch gave him the advantage of watching the cat grow from above . . . for a time, at least. This was soon changing as the relatively tiny human found himself at the same height as the lion's beaming face. Can't fault him for enjoying it.

"We're probably going to give lions domain over Florida and thereabouts, just to mix things up a bit," Virgil went on in the middle of all this as if nothing out of the ordinary were happening.

The lion's eyes opened wide as he shook, only having a scant second to look over his shoulder at the source before a loud cracking sound filled the air. His rump had expanded over a fallen log placed in his enclosure and snapped it like a twig. It was nothing but a tiny speed bump to him under his weight. Since nothing else came of it, he seemed to shrug it off and went back to inspecting himself, his new paws-turned-hands.

"Oh don't worry, he's plenty self-aware," Virgil explained. "He just can't talk right now. Last thing I need is for all of them to be criticizing my work. You better believe they'd all be asking for special treatment for their kind. It gets old quick," he answered the question before Nick even knew to ask it.

As if to prove that he could hear and understand, the lion made a bit of a scowl at that remark and crossed his arms. However, the fact that it was true and he had been so generally gifted with size softened it slightly until a knowing smile emerged at last.

"There. Done. This one will form the basic template from which all other new anthro lions will come from, like a prototype." The German Shepherd smiled when he saw how the lion used his newfound sentience to explore his new body. Predictably, he soon found his way between his own legs to which Virgil laughed.

"It's only been a few moments and you're already playing with yourself? Good job," he said.

Nick noticed that Virgil was looking the lion over just as much as he was, if not more intently. He felt a rumble under him as the enormous dog sighed in satisfaction . . . but there was more to it than that. He looked almost directly down, something he had avoided until now given how high he was above the ground, and saw that the dog was sporting a massive erection. It must have snuck from its sheath sometime during the feline's ascension and stood there, bobbing in front of him and dripping fist-sized globules of precum onto the paved walkways. While not flared, the sides of his knot were huge and red. The dog idly occupied himself by groping his balls, each the size of a rain barrel, before snapping out of it.

"What? I can't enjoy my work?" said Virgil, sensing the question before it bubbled awkwardly to the surface. Between watching the lion and looking at the giant German Shepherd, he couldn't say his own cock wasn't straining against the fabric of his jeans.

However, there was still work to be done and Virgil nodded to the lion. He came back to his senses and rose to a staggering height somewhere between thirty and forty feet. With a simple hop, the lion cleared the gap over the man-made chasm surrounding the enclosure to prevent him from escaping, a previously insurmountable obstacle made trivial by his enormity.

Virgil turned to find another exhibit, with Nick along for the ride and the lion following behind in tow. The dog scanned his environs for the next creature to earn his fancy while the human couldn't stop glancing behind him at the massive feline towering over the two of them, smiling up at the huge fellow -and he smiled back.

Just as quickly as they began their walk did they abruptly stop, with Nick having to brace himself to keep from tumbling off the shoulder, not that the dog would let him fall. Virgil had spied his next subject: a zebra bending its neck to eat some grass, either oblivious or nonchalant towards the giants. Yes, this one would do nicely.

Before the striped equine even knew it, he was on his feet (still hooves, really) and sprouting opposable thumbs, along with the rest that came with his new form. But the real event was what came after, as Nick had quickly learned, and soon the zebra was less focused on his new form and more on the fact that there was more and more of it. The huge male shifted his hips, testing how they moved, not even realizing those massive hooves of his were grinding rocks beneath them to dust. He also didn't know that his jostling movements were sending the more pendulous of his assets swinging between his legs. Those low hanging, bloated ebon testicles resembled wrecking balls more and more as they grew. With their mass, Nick had no doubt they could do some damage. In the amount of time it took him to pry his eyes away from the equine's growing endowments, the zebra had soared past a forty foot height and was not slowing in the least.

The zebra watched his enclosure dwindle around him, growing unstoppably and helpless to do anything but ride it out. A curious thought formed and he gave a kick to the fence that kept him penned in before. Much to his delight it buckled easily. Never before did he feel this big and strong. The zebra felt less and less to fear or worry about. With all the power he felt rushing through him, he felt like he was unstoppable.

He proudly puffed out his barrel chest, freshly chiseled to a more human-like definition, his pectorals like thick slabs and broad shoulders arching over them, swelling as well. The zebra developed and then overdeveloped as more and more meat was packed onto him. He was going from a gentle African plains-dweller to an immensely intimidating beast, even compared to Virgil and the lion. The zebra was becoming a mountainous example of maleness that dwarfed both giants here.

"Some will be gifted more than others," Virgil said, smiling and beckoning for the gigantic, sixty foot tall zebra to come over. The height difference between him and the equine was made more apparent with every step he took towards them. Virgil looked up, the zebra's monumental package swelling out in front of him, and reached out to grab and squeeze the massive black sheath. "Honk! Honk!" he said as he did so and laughed.

Oh yeah, that was classy godly behavior right there.

Nick couldn't suppress a giggle and the zebra's whitish cheeks turned a bright pink color, though he dare not shy away. Even the gods had to enjoy the little things in life -though there was nothing little about this zebra.

With his newest eye candy in lockstep behind him, Virgil decided it was time to get away from the African exhibit for a time and move to the rest. He continued going about things in this way, raising up the creatures of his choosing: a wolf here, a mountain goat there, a red panda and water buffalo from the Asian exhibit, a kangaroo from the Australian side, and so on.

The whole time Nick just watched with glazed over eyed and tended pants. He watched each grow, change, and grow even further in some cases, all subject to the dog's whim. Some took their newfound self-awareness as a chance to see the world from a new perspective . . . or simply fondle themselves for a time. But whatever else they did, they invariably they got up and followed Virgil when he made it clear it was time to move on.

While he was still an imposing beast, the lion following them was significantly smaller than the zebra. At some point during all this, Nick took note. The wolf was on the smaller side as well. Odd.

"So why did you make some of the prey animals bigger than their predators?" Nick asked.

"To shake things up a bit. And because there are no more prey and predators anymore, not among anthrokind," the dog calmly explained. "At least there shouldn't be in a civilized world. Alternative forms of sustenance will surface, trust me."

"Anthrokind? Wait, doesn't 'anthro' just mean 'man'?" asked Nick.

"It most certainly does. And the definition of 'man' will change as well."

Virgil was about to expound further when he spied something peculiar. It was an animal outside of an enclosure, not meant to be in one. A floppy-eared bunny was sitting in the middle of the walkway, paying no heed to the parade of titans approaching it. Its round, fuzzy body wiggling as it twitched its whiskers back and forth in curiosity.

"Oh, what's this?" Virgil stopped in his tracks and held out his arm to halt the others. His eyes locked on the adorable ball of fluff. "Oh yes. Yes, yes!" The dog giggled and outstretched a finger towards it.

In a few swift moments, the little snow-colored rabbit was blessed with a bipedal form. It was almost comical how its rapidly shifting shape unbalanced it, tipping it onto one side only to catch balance on newly formed legs and wide bunny feet.

His long ears wiggled in confusion, one draping over an eye with the other standing straight up. He took a deep breath and blew up a puff of air to knock it out of the way so he could see with an expression that said 'what now?'

The question was answered in short order by predictable expansion. But there was something special about this one, some look in Virgil's eyes, the rate at which the rabbit rose -far faster than any of the others. The assembled massive masses all watched intently, their attention shifted entirely to their newest comrade. Virgil patted the cute fellow on the back as he reached his own size of thirty-odd feet, a gesture returned with a blushing smile. The not-so-little guy's sense of embarrassment only heightened when he realized all eyes were on him and, like it or not, he was starting to rise above them all.

Up and up the bunny went. Each animal that Virgil worked his magic on seemed to pick up where the last left off and, true to the pattern, the rabbit was growing greater than his immediate predecessor. Virgil was hell bent on having each outdo the last. With divine will driving its ascension, there was nothing that could stop the leporine's earth-shaking growth. Power beyond its reckoning bolstered the bunny again and again past fifty feet, past sixty, seventy, eighty!

Power like that tends to have ways of going to one's head. In this case, it was the head between his legs. All of that delicious new size was affecting the rabbit's libido and soon that curious, twitching nose was turned downwards as he looked at himself and the onlooking crowd below. His sheath ballooned outward as the pink tip of his cock swelled and overflowed from it, hanging above their heads in its half-flaccid state. Even Virgil was impressed, both with the size and his own work as the huge cock slowly stood to attention, was grasped by the bunny's paws, its owner stroking it to life. The dog sidestepped a falling drop of precum -though what was a drop to them was a bucket's worth to the human.

Nick felt his eyes grow as wide as dinner plates from staring at the ever-swelling creature. The size that the bunny was reaching was starting to get alarming. He looked frantically up to Virgil.

"I like rabbits," was all the dog said.

There was an audible groaning sound coming from the increasingly muscled flop-eared fellow redoubled his burgeoning pace. All those gathered around began to back up, yielding ground to the behemoth. Empty cages were crushed accidentally beneath his feet and his ankles collapsed zoo structures just by grazing them. The forced sized was coming in great waves that sent his long ears towering above the cityscape.

Nick shot the dog an exasperated look but Virgil was too busy ogling the rabbit's rump, cute cottontail swishing atop it.

"I -really- like rabbits," he repeated.

So it would seem.

The poor white bunny had to use both of his hands to hold down his immense cock to prevent it from otherwise springing up and pointing directly at his face. At the rate it was still growing, it might soon be jabbing him there otherwise! Looking up at him, almost straight up, and judging by the way those titanic balls lurched in their sac and how his stomach muscles clenched, the whole ordeal was too much for him. Even with their distance from him, both Nick and Virgil could hear the beast's nuts churning towards something huge.

The biggest one yet was not about to disappoint, so much expansive pleasure coursed through his brain that he stood hardly a chance in resisting it -as if he wanted to. The end of his cock, several times over the size of a city bus now, danced and quaked as the bunny was forced over the edge.

There was a timeless moment of absolute silence as Virgil and Nick could actually see its colossal length bulging as the load travelled along it. Then it erupted from him and onto a nearby office tower. A torrent of white slammed into the side of the building. The windows shattered instantly and the steel beams crumpled like tissue paper under such force. Nick was sure he saw the whole thing pitch and sway, threatening to fall but never actually doing it. It left a huge collapsed hole in the side of the facade, though.

The rabbit moaned, an echoing sound that vibrated their entire bodies, and turned as he came. Cum flew, rocketing onto the landscape and painting it white as he thrust madly into the air. From a distance it looked like the hills were covered in snow but dripping and flowing like thick molasses. The impossibly large leporine finally sputtered out, the last of it catapulting across the treetops as he fell to his knees, quaking the earth and sending up a great splash of his own seed. He just barely had the power to keep himself up, such a contented look across his face and lightly shivering in satisfaction.

At last Virgil quit staring and glanced back down at the little human who quite obviously demanded an explanation. "What? They're my favorite so they get to be the biggest. The rest of anthrokind will just have to deal with that for the next however many millennia. I might even make them bigger before I'm done. How'd you like that: a whole bunny race looming above the rest?"

Hell, it could certainly be worse.