FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

"This place is so cool, can't wait to show you!" The raccoon practically bounced with excitement as he waved his ID card over the sensor, the door unlocking.

"Are you sure this is fine?" Atimist asked, the yellow furred fox looking around, eying a nearby security camera blinking it's little red light at them.

"Oh yeah, I'm sure it's fine. Dr. Ridgecrest is out of town, so no worries."

The fox's big ears perked. "Geo, you don't have permission?"

Geo scoffed, the raccoon pushing Atimist through the door. "I'm a lab assistant. I'm sure one of the stipulations of working in a fancy top secret lab is that you get to bring friends in to visit, right?" He repositioned his red newsboy cap and gave a wink.

Atimist figured that was definitely not one of the stipulations, but decided to let it slide. He wanted to see the famous Dr. Brighton Ridgecrest's lab. On occasion a news story would pop up about some revolutionary finding that the dingo had uncovered, with the words "unconventional" and "controversial" and "weird" scattered about around the story. On occasion a rumor would come up involving the high turnover rate of employees working at the dingo's company, however the fox wasn't one to listen to gossip.

After a disconcerting amount of security doors, the raccoon and fox entered the lab, mostly hidden in shadows. Geo hit a light switch, and Atimist gasped at the variety of devices filling the expansive room. The room contained enough shiny things that Atimist could understand why Geo was so happy to be working here.

The raccoon bounced up and down. "Isn't it cool, Ati?"

The fox looked around, almost getting lost just standing there in all the wires, tubes of multicolored liquid, and general details of science. "Yeah, this is really cool. What does all this do?"

"I have no idea. Let's go look at more stuff." The raccoon dragged the fox through the lab, between tables, work areas, and a few places covered with huge orange quarantine tents. "I mostly just get coffee for people, so I don't get to do much of the fun stuff."

Ati's ears perked. "I thought you were a lab assistant."

"Yep! I assist lab assistant's interns. It's really cool. But I really really wanna be a test subject at some point. They get paid a whole $2 an hour!"

The fox opened his mouth to say something about how much the raccoon was being paid now, but the raccoon seemed so happy, and...they seemed to be walking over a lot of yellow tape on the floor. The fox looked around and saw lots of DANGER labels, then he saw the rays they were walking past on the left, and all the targets and items on the right, and various timers counting down. He pried his paw from the raccoon's and stopped. "Hey, Geo, are we supposed to be..."

A beep sounded as one of the timers hit 0:00 and a ray activated, and suddenly Atimist's world was filled with purple light.

O O O

"Sorry, sorry, sorry!" Geo's frantic voice brought the fox back to consciousness. "There was glowy things I wanted to show you and I went off the path down the firing range thingamagum as a shortcut. My fault. Really."

Atimist sat up, rubbing his face, noticing they were no longer next to the series of devices pointing at them. Geo must have moved him while he was out. He looked at his paws. Not tentacles. Good. "What happened? Did...did that ray do anything?"

The raccoon evaluated Atimist with a discerning look. "You always were a fox, right?"

Atimist glowered at the raccoon and Geo patted the fox. "I'm joking! You look fine. That was kinda cool! You were all glowy and purple a moment, then you fell over."

The fox felt himself over, his face, his limbs, his tail, his big ears, kicked, twitched and wagged everything to make sure. Everything seemed normal. Maybe he was fine? He felt a slight tingle go down his back.

"Do you wanna see more stuff?" Geo helped the fox to his feet, his ringtail swishing. Atimist couldn't shake that something was off, but he wasn't certain what. Maybe he'd had enough lab adventures for one day.

"Could we get lunch?"

"Sure! We can do that."

As Atimist followed the raccoon out of the lab, his t-shirt fell off his shoulder, as if the collar had gotten stretched or something. The fox figured maybe Geo had dragged him by his shirt, so didn't think anything of it, his mind turning to where to go for lunch.

O O O

The tingling continued at lunch.

Atimist tried to focus on eating the burger in front of him. The tingling kept bugging him. On occasion a pulse of pleasing warmth radiated through his form, which increased in intensity each time. As he took a drink of water, he gave a yip as the next weird pulse rippled through him.

His t-shirt slipped off his shoulder again. The fox tried to pull it back up. When he straighted his shirt, it fell off again. He took another bite of his burger, trying to focus on the flavors instead of worrying about the tingling and his shirt, and looked across at Geo, who cheerfully nommed his grilled cheese sandwich.

Something felt weird, and he wasn't quite sure what. He swung his legs back and forth. Wait, he looked down under the table. Why were his paws only brushing the ground? He tried to place them on the floor. They proceeded to hover a short distance above the floor. He needed to move forward in his seat to be able to touch his footpaw digits onto the ground. Strange. He swore the paws were solidly on the ground just a short time before. He took another drink of water, trying to waylay his worries and calm down.

The pulse came again through his body, causing him to yip again. He looked down and yes, his footpaws were even higher off the ground, and he swore the chair felt bigger. "Geo. Do I look different to you?"

The raccoon perked and looked over at the fox. "Did you do something with your fur? I'm really bad at picking that kinda stuff out."

"No. I think..." Atimist didn't want to suggest what he suspected, somehow worrying that if he stated his worry, it might be true. "Do I look smaller to you?"

"I don't think so. I mean, you're always look big to me because I'm a pretty small raccoon." Geo seems to position his paws as if comparing heights. "Hey, I must be wrong. You're the same size as me. Excluding the ears. Those things are huuuuge."

"How tall are you?"

"4 feet and a half. Give or take. The hat makes me look taller. That's why I wear it, don't tell anyone."

Atimist was usually five feet tall. The fact that he was eye level with the raccoon now meant.... "Uh-oh."

Atimist, thinking maybe he was maybe hallucinating or something, picked up his glass of water to take a sip and found the cup seemed much bigger than before. As he set the glass down, another pulse of warmth rippled through him. He could actually feel the size of the room around him shift with this pulse. The raccoon cocked his head to the side, slanting his eyes at the fox. "Huh. That's weird. I could swear that something happened there."

"Geo. D-do you think that that ray did something? I feel weird." Atimist got up from his chair, disconcerted when he had to leap down, even more disconcerted when his pants fell down, and he just managed to keep his briefs from falling with them. "Crap! Geo! Something's happening!" He frantically pulled his jeans up and found that his waist and hips no longer had any chance of keeping them up, so he had to hold them. "Geo, why are you laughing?"

"Sorry! Didn't know your underwear would be pink."

Atimist's ears grew hot and his tail lowered as noticed other people staring at him. "G-Geo!"

"OK, let me pay for the stuff. Do you want a doggy bag?"

"Geo!"

"Oh, yeah, foxes are weird about being called dogs. Foxie bag then?"

Atimist scampered up and lightly swatted at the raccoon's head multiple times.

"Gah! Sorry! Sorry!"

O O O

"My apartment should be fine," Geo said, unlocking the door.

"Shouldn't we go back to the lab?" Atimist didn't like the sight squeak his panicked voice produced, unsure if it was emotion or his smaller size causing it.

Geo patted Atimist between his ears. "No one will be there until tomorrow. My place will be fine. Huh. You really are shorter." His patting transitioned to ruffling the fox's headfur, which caused Atimist's ears to go hot with embarrassment again. He swatted the raccoon's paw away.

They entered the room. Geo's apartment possessed a very raccoon aesthetic: posters on all the walls, shiny bits and baubles on all available shelf space, and a dose of chaos to the arrangement of everything. Atimist had the sense he could get lost in his apartment if he wasn't careful, as silly of a thought that was.

Geo scampered to his kitchen nook and dug through his drawers. He came back with a tape measure and unwound it next to Atimist. "Let's see. You're about 4 feet, 1 inch. Not your normal size?"

"Of course, that's not my normal size!" Atimist exclaimed, the squeakiness coming back. "Sorry. I want this to stop!"

"Well, you didn't seem to shrink anymore on the way over. You were talking about a feeling or something?"

"Yeah."

"Did you, like, feel that feeling again?"

Atimist thought. He hadn't felt the warm pulse again since the restaurant, though, the original odd tingling remained along his spine remained. "No. I guess not."

"Maybe it stopped, then! That'd be cool. How about you stay here? We can have a sleepover thingie. Then we can swing by the lab tomorrow and we can say there was something about a radioactive coffee spill and hey, you guys have a shrink ray, eh? And we just heard that about and-"

Atimist put a paw on Geo's muzzle. "We will tell them the truth."

Geo tried to protest and Atimist just put his full paw further on the raccoon's face. "Truth."

The raccoon relented and nodded.

O O O

Atimist woke up from a weird dream of finding a valley of giant Oreo cookies and nomming them until he was a happy round fox. Pretty much one of his favorite usual dreams. He wondered when he'd hung the Rocket Raccoon poster on the ceiling over his bed before he remembered the previous night. Geo's apartment, right. The raccoon had insisted he take his bed.

He sat up and looked himself over. His limbs, his tail, his ears, and found himself to be not back to normal, though not any smaller either. At least he didn't think so. This over-sized Ranger Rick t-shirt Geo had given him to sleep in didn't really help with perspective. He didn't think it was more over-sized than the night before. Only one way to find out.

He slipped out of bed, feeling strange at how he had to drop down to the floor, and tip-toed out of the bedroom, to the kitchen nook, smirking at the snoring raccoon on the couch, sprawled out at a limb-flailing angle. The fox measured himself out. He now stood at a height of 4 feet, minus the inch from yesterday. So he had shrank, just at a much slower rate. He hoped the lab would be able to fix this, his tail still twitched nervously at the thought if they couldn't.

After a failed attempt to find Oreos in the kitchen area, sniffing every nook and cranny just to be sure the raccoon hadn't hidden them, Atimist decided a shower might be the next best attempt at stress relief while he waited for Geo to rouse from his slumber.

As he turned on the shower, he continued to notice how losing a foot in height made everything surreal, a strange bigness to his surrounding that he couldn't quite articulate. Angle and perspective kept messing with him, causing a weird wave of vertigo whenever he looked around. Maybe the shower would help him clear his head.

After removing the t-shirt, Atimist tested the heat with his paw, then stepped into the shower, closing the glass door behind him. The fox let the hot water soak into his fur, turning his face upward, eyes-closed, letting the heat radiate through his form, relaxing. With the sensation of hot water, he almost didn't notice the pulse ripple through him. He opened his eyes. Had the shower handle moved? Another pulse, and Atimist could see the world pulse around him, the shower moving outward as his body pulsed inwards, and the shower handle totally did move up before his eyes. "Crap!" he exclaimed. He needed to get Geo. The pulse came again, the decreases in height happening faster. He swore he'd already had lost a foot with just those three pulses.

Atimist was having trouble opening the door, trying to focus through the tingling sensation after the pulse, the steam, the shower. He threw his body against the shower door and it opened, his body falling out onto the bathroom floor. The pulsing continued, happening faster than it had before. His whole body tingled, his limbs twitching, as he scrambled to his feet, the entire room blurring around him with each pulse, growing larger, looming.

He made it to the door, and to his horror, the door handle was already above his head. He scrabbled at it with his paws, trying to gain purchase on the wet metal surface, and with another pulse, the handle pulled away, raising away from his reach. He tried to leap for it, another pulse. His paw just brushed the knob as he fell back further than he had leapt, landing on the linoleum, right onto his back, the wind knocked out of the fox.

The pulses had diminished by the time Atimist got up, catching his breath, however the world had already changed. "Crap," he said in a hushed tone, looking at what the bathroom had become. In the space of few moments, Geo's bathroom had become a damned National Park, the shower had become a thundering waterfall, complete with majestic steam from the hot water, the toilet could be viewed a porcelain monument, the sink set above a fake wooden frame and a massive doorway, half open to reveal the wonders of toilet paper and various cleaning supplies inside. The t-shirt lay nearby, Ranger Rick's huge raccoon face smiling at Ati.

Atimist shivered at viewing this new massive world, and tried to judge his size. If he were going to guess, from his position to the door knob, he now stood roughly at a foot tall, about four feet shorter than Atimist was comfortable with. What had happened to cause this sudden change? The pulses had begun soon after the shower had begun. Had it been the heat? The water? Atimist thought back to the restaurant. He had been drinking water then. Could that be-

The door suddenly swung open and hit Atimist, throwing him forward through the air, landing face first into the Ranger Rick t-shirt. The door closed and Atimist could see the figure of Geo towering over him. His limbs were limp, and his steps were heavy. Heavy steps. Step. Atimist suddenly realized why he'd stuck on this verb as the massive raccoon paw swung at him and above, the raccoon's black underpaw seen in terrifying detail before Atimist reacted, frantically rolling out of the way, the fabric of the t-shirt tangling about him. The raccoon paw stepped down, mere inches from the small fox's body, and continued on towards the raccoon's path to the shower.

The small fox managed to get out of the t-shirt and get up, and start running towards the raccoon before a shadow cast over him, and fabric flopped over him, knocking him over.

The shower door clicked closed just as the fox pushed the fabric off himself. He gave a terrified yip, realizing the fabric was Geo's blue boxers, throwing them to the side as best he could. He looked up, seeing the form of the raccoon through the clouded glass, standing in the shower, not really moving much. Was he sleeping in there?

He debated trying to knock on the shower door, then thought better of it, considering what had just happened. Another pulse rippled through him, and the room shifted in size once again. If indeed the shrinking was activated by water and the shower had made the shrinking speed up, being in a bathroom with steam most likely didn't help the process slow down.

Still, to get Geo's attention he needed elevation. Atimist looked at the sink towering above him. He needed to get up there when he still had the size. How though? He looked at the t-shirt and boxers laying at his feet, an idea forming in his head.

As Geo continued to stand motionless in the shower, Atimist swearing he could hear some snoring over the water, the fox got moving. He shimmed up the stick of the plunger and pulled himself onto the, thankfully shut, toilet seat. This alone might be prominent enough, but Atimist didn't want to take any chances. He looked over at the sink, next to the toilet, but just far enough away and high enough he couldn't make a jump at it. He needed to work fast before another pulse hit. He took the boxers and t-shirt, which he'd tied together, swung the boxers over his head and threw them at the sink.

The boxers hooked onto a handle of the sink. Atimist pulled, and it felt solid. Another pulse hit him, the room grew, and even the tank of the toilet higher than him. He took a breath, readying himself to put his weight on the t-shirt and hopefully not fall back to the ground.

He jumped and the t-shirt went taunt. Atimist held his breath, holding onto the fabric. Nothing happened. He didn't fall. He climbed, paw over paw, up to the t-shirt, then managed to pull himself, panting, over the edge, and flopped by the side of the sink.

The shower turned off. Atimist looked towards the shower and the door slowly opened. Geo emerged through the steam, his eyes appeared to be closed, and his paw blindly grabbing at the towel. The raccoon eventually found it and started rubbing his fur down.

Atimist yelled. "Geo! I'm over here! Geo!" He bounced up and down, waving his arms wide, trying to get the attention of the sleepy raccoon, who just kept rubbing himself down. Geo finished rubbing himself with the towel, dropped it to the floor, then stepped zombie-like, towards he door.

"GEO!" Atimist yelled, bouncing up and down. He ran to the boxers, still hanging from the cold water handle, and untied them from the t-shirt. He waved them to flag down the raccoon.

Geo stopped, and slowly turned his masked face at Atimist, and walked towards the fox.

He stopped in front of Atimist. The fox looked him over, and for the first time since realized that both he and the raccoon were naked. Atimist covered his front with the boxers. Geo murmured and pulled the boxers away from Atimist. and the fox almost fell off the sink as it was pulled from his tiny paws.

Geo pulled the boxers on, a slow laborious action, then looked down at the tiny fox with his half-opened sleepy gaze. Atimist still couldn't be sure the raccoon saw him, though still covered himself the best he could with his paws.

"Geo? Can you see me?"

Geo gave a sleepy grin, and a big paw reached down towards the fox. Atimist's first inclination was to run away. He only got a step before the raccoon's giant black paw enclosed him, lifted him up and...

Atimist couldn't quite tell what was happening at first. Geo had wrapped his gray furred arms around the fox and was holding him close, giving a chirr that Atimist could feel the vibrations of through the fluff. For being so big, and currently oblivious, the raccoon gave some gentle hugs.

Geo exited the bathroom, trotted past the bedroom, out into the living room, and flopped on his back onto the couch, snuggling the wee fox the entire way, continuing to give chirrs until they intermingled with snores.

Atimist considered his position, snuggled in the raccoon's arms, limbs pretty immobile in the grasp, unless he shrank further. He waited for the pulse to make an ironic strike. Nothing happened, and he released his breath. Though still stressed and twitchy, the warmth and the chirring snores vibrating through him lured his small body to sleep.

O O O

"5 inches. Wow." After Geo had woken and had been been given a colorful tale of the fox's adventures, he'd gotten a ruler to measure the fox's current size. Geo leaned down and his massive nose sniffed at the fox, who batted the inquisitive raccoon with his tiny paws.

"Stop thaaaaaat!" he whined, pulling up the shorts Geo had found for him from a Ranger Rick action figure. "I just hope I don't get any smaller. This is weird. Can we go to the lab now?"

"Sure. We can go." Geo pulled out a fanny pack from his closet. "For transport, and oh! I have a treat!" He pulled out a small metal garbage can from behind the couch and opened it. "I have this for my Secret Snack Stash for special raiding purposes." He pulled out a familiar blue package, and from it pulled an even more familiar round disk of cookie goodness. Atimist found himself gaping, and drooling a bit. He took the Oreo in his arms and gave it a hug, his tail wagging wildly as he sniffed, then nibbled at the chocolate cookie.

Maybe they could wait to go to the lab, just a little while.