FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Earth, that little planet in the Milky Way. Life on this world, particularly this version of Earth with its many anthro inhabitants, was quite peaceful--especially for one little wasp-canid living in an apartment two-thirds of the way up in one of the world's beautiful skyscrapers in a city near a lake. He was just waking up, stretching and yawning as he rubbed his belly, vaguely remembering a dream he'd been having about helping to rescue an orphaned fox. He wasn't yet wondering what he might do this fine day, much less realizing at that today, thus his whole life, would be changing forever.

Outside, reflected on the silver glass of the skyscraper, a gigantic fifteen-hundred-foot tall Charizard with a fat-padded figure, golden eyes, an outie belly button was standing up from where he'd been asleep on the grass of an island in the lake, his signature flaming tail sputtering up into the morning air. Quite naked, the 'zard bellowed a long yawn and stretched, then pulled on a snug, silky, grape-purple Speedo. He made it a point to try to be decent around folks.

Through the window of his apartment, the wasp-canid blinked at the sight. It wasn't every day that you saw an enormous charizard waking up on the island. In fact, he'd never seen such a thing before, not on that island or anywhere. Most days, the island was just a grassy park where people liked to hang out or play Frisbee-football.

Feeling his stinger extending some warily, the wasp-canid cocked an ear and watched as the charizard sighed, for all the world looking like he too was trying to decide what to do with this fine day. It made the wasp-canid curious, and he tilted his head.

And then, after a few moments, the charizard seemed to reach a decision. And with a snap of his left hand's fingers, he made a fiery portal appear over the island. With a bounce in his step that sent earth flying up high over his feet, he leapt through the portal.

"Weird," the wasp-canid said to himself with a small, approving smile, pulling on a pair of green gym shorts and a Godzilla T-shirt before and he half-leapt from bed, buzzing his wings to flit toward his balcony's sliding glass door. Hovering before it, he paused as his paw touched the cool glass, uncertain about the curiosity now making his belly tingle, and then slid it open, stepping out onto the balcony and its sweet, fresh morning air.

He stood and watched as the sun rose more over the city, gradually turning the sky from its many yellows and oranges and purples on its way to becoming blue. By then, a few citizens had crossed the bridge to the lake to check out the enormous fire-ring of the portal. It was strange and beautiful but not unusual; magical things happened in the world all the time, and most of them were spectacular but harmless. Occasionally, there'd be a dust-up threatening to destroy the world, but the wizards always kept things cool in the end. Down on the island, a few other winged canids were working out how to play catch under the portal, but most of the denizens of the city looked on with varying degrees of curiosity, then went on with their day. It was mid-morning by then and sunny, with a few errant wisps of smoke coming out of the portal.

When suddenly, a gigantic fire dragon leered through the portal, its great shadow cast from his form over the city as he slipped through. With a snap, the portal closed behind him, and the dragon moves with thooming footfalls across the island toward the lake. Slowly, like in a horror movie, the behemoth moved toward the city, its great wings unfurled. For the tiny inhabitants on the ground, their view of the horizon went from morning blue to a sea of orange fatty scales and expansive orange and green wings. From his balcony, the wasp-dog could see the dragon's form reflected on several of the city's skyscrapers as he approached, as if there were several, all sunset and emerald colored. Panic ensued, and the tiny Earthlings began scrambling, scattering away from a humongous male they had never known to exist before coming toward them. All down the streets and alleyways, into doorways and archways of the subway system, they fled like streams of ants. And as the giant drew closer, his head cocked, as if catching the shouts of alarm becoming louder. From his balcony, the wasp-canid looked on, amazed. Soon, every last one of the citizens would have ducked inside various structures, into cars, underground into the subway, or huddled up inside the foyers of the towering behemothian metal and steel skyscrapers. Meanwhile, the towering, living creature pushed through the water of the lake like it was a puddle, pushing a wall of water before his shins. In two steps, he'd already made landfall on the lake's beach, the great spray of water before him raining down on the pavement and buildings and vehicles, only wetting and not catastrophically damaging anything. As if a hard rain had fallen for a few minutes then blustered away.

The wasp-canid's heart was beating faster now. He could see the gigantic dragon straight on now as he made his way into the sprawling metropolitan area before him. He rumbled delightfully, the roar sending a ripple through the city's buildings, and the wasp-dog could see the giant creature getting rock hard from towering amongst the city's structures. The dragon emitted a soft moan of pleasure that echoed all over the urban area, not minding this display of arousal as he walked proudly with his gut rippling and his ass jiggling straight toward the wasp-dog's building. To his surprise, he saw that the dragon's tail, which was clearly aflame, wasn't burning or igniting anything, but rather was very carefully avoiding anything flammable. The dragon was clearly very powerful and the wasp-dog assumed he could make everything go up in flame if he wanted to, but seemed to have control of fire as his element. Even so, all of the tinies remained safely in hiding as the great beast walked along the wide downtown street toward the wasp-dog's building. But even the giant's treads were falling carefully onto the pavement, his wings keeping him slightly aloft, and taking care not to crush lamp-posts or the many now-abandoned vehicles and buses. Nor was his rump, which swayed handsomely, smacking hard into buildings. There were a few collisions, to be sure, and an awning here, a balcony there got knocked loose from a building, but in general, it was remarkable how little property damage was caused by the huge dragon's progress. Seeing this display of care made the tiny hybrid on his building balcony even more curious about the alien titan. Unconsciously, his tongue flicked over his lips as he leaned against the balcony railing, waiting breathlessly. And then suddenly his heart leapt into his throat as the great golden disks of the giant's eyes turned and focused on him, like two blazing suns. Letting out a gulp, inadvertently he took a half-step back as the giant approached more quickly now, the heavy rumbling of the giant's footfalls like the excited beating of the wasp-dog's heart. And then suddenly, there the giant was right at the edge of his balcony, the huge eye alone--golden and blazing with fire--looking intent at him as he stood in his green gym shorts and Godzilla T-shirt.

"You," the giant spoke, his breath covering the whole front of the scintillating building's glass with breath-fog down one side. "I need your help." "Mine?" gulped the wasp-dog, his stinger flexing nervously, excitedly, as he looked up to see himself reflected vividly in the slitted pupil of the dragon's great eye. "How can I help?" he asked bravely, straightening up, and feeling glad to help. "Your world is beautiful I see," the dragon replied, "but this is not where I am from. I want to go home." The wasp-dog nodded sympathetically. He knew what it was like to be in the wrong world. "What do you need me to do?" he asked. It never crossed his mind to wonder: why me?

"You saw that portal earlier?" the giant asked, and by now, several of the city's denizens were creeping out from their places of hiding. Like other magical "disasters," this one was turning out not a crisis after all. "My home is on the other side. But when I awoke this morning, I saw its likeness open up over the canyon-nest where I slept. And suddenly through it stepped another, almost like myself, and I was pulled to this place, but then the portal closed. Now I'm lost."

The giant's voice shimmered across the whole of the city, and at his plaintive words, a collective groan of sympathy for his misfortune rose up to mingle with the echoes of his voice. "I'll help you find your way home," the wasp-dog promised firmly, pulling down the hem of his Godzilla T-shirt to flatten its wrinkles and tilting back his ears with determination. "We all will."

"Only you can," the giant said sadly, hopefully, his great eye blinking painfully shut and then opening again, the massive shudder of his eyelid ruffling the wasp-dog's soft fur. "Only you."

"Okay, then," the wasp-dog repeated, still more firmly, scampering into his apartment to grab his backpack. Outside, at ground level, several denizens of the city had moved up to sympathetically pat the giant's foot and to admire both his claws and the great tower stretching out his purple Speedo. "I'm ready," the wasp-dog said, standing on the rail of his balcony. "Let's go."

With a flex of his enormous muscles, his wings flaring behind him as he did, the giant lifted up his hand, palm up. Fearlessly, the wasp-dog stepped onto the muscled smoothness of the giant's palm, looking out at the expanse of the horizon stretching away to fore. And then the giant stepped carefully away from the building, holding his palm gently up to keep his new friend steady upon it, and gave a pump of his wings, lifting up into the air, blotting out the sun in an enormous orange and green eclipse.

On the dragon's palm, the wasp-canid stood, with his snout pointed straight into the crisp wind flowing coolly over his soft fur. He didn't know where they were doing, but it didn't matter.

He'd been asked to help, and he was glad to.