Fringe Science - Fringe Worlds (Patreon)

The story of a, shall we say, 'eccentric' scientist who finds himself on the receiving end of an exile. Facing survival and appeal on a strange planet, what is a genius skunk to do? 

Amazing story written by Rabidbadger 

Skythik belongs to Triprat 

Story contains: weight gain, unwilling body modification, plenty of gas, a surprise twist (not gory or anything kinda cute I guess) 

- - - 

  A jarring impact rocked the seat Skythik was resting in, jolting the skunk awake from an amusing dream he'd been having. Something to do with watching six-legged mutants with giant racks scurry about in a panic and over their transformations, even the memory of it left Skythik chuckling and told him precisely why there was a sticky patch between his legs. That moment was brief though, another shake jolted the skunk out of his pleasant reverie and snapped his eyes open.

Skythik would've brought his arms up to shield his face if he could have, there was a small window in front of him and all he could see through it was a strange landscape approaching very quickly, but when he tried he found his wrists and ankles restrained. He was held upright, like someone had strapped him to a surgical bed and stood it up, but he wasn't in a surgical theater. The room was round-ish and looked reinforced.

“...Escape pod. Those simpering little imbecilic bureaucrats think they can just ditch me!? I will show them what SCIENCE can do when I-”

Wrapping the vast expanse of his tail around his body and the bed he was lashed to was an instinctive thing. Skythik tended to do it on instinct when surprised, which was substantially comforting but not terribly dignified or intimidating. Given that he seemed to be alone it was probably as safe a time to do it as any, and Skythik considered his fear as the pod began grinding violently across the ground of whatever backwater celestial body he was being exiled to justified. Luckily with about three body-lengths worth of tail Skythik could hug himself quite effectively as the crash enacted its loud, shaky, nightmarish play.

A short time after the grinding and screeching of metal stopped, Skythik was still yelling inside the pod. He had also begun yanking against his restraints by then, which was what led to the embarrassing fall he took as they released without warning. The skunk tumbled to the still intact and lightly padded floor of the pod, finally able to properly take stock of things as he heard the pod's systems spring to life around him.

“Well at least this piece of junk held together. Now, where are my-”

Sitting up, willing his tail to unwrap itself from the table as he did, Skythik found very little around him in the pod. It seemed well reinforced and otherwise barren. No supplies, no tools, nothing. He wasn't even wearing pants. Granted, he hadn't been wearing pants when the soulless minions of orthodoxy had spoiled his latest experiment, so that part wasn't noteworthy. Still, Skythik was certain there were laws regarding exile and supplies.

“Ship! Where are my tools and supplies, I-”

A harsh buzzer battering Skythik's ears left him twitching and acutely aware of a soreness in his neck. As machinery began moving inside the pod's walls a familiar voice filled the small space while Skythik rubbed his neck. An act that alerted him to the presence of a large lump on the side of it, squishy and numb and unfamiliar.

'Doctor' Skythik, for high crimes against society and the medical profession alike you have been sentenced to exile, forced research, and community service. After this recorded message finishes your pod will open and a forty-eight hour countdown will begin, after which the communications array will activate itself and you may appeal your sentence precisely once. The pod's systems will self-destruct afterward, and any attempt to tamper with the pod before that will trigger this fail safe early and forfeit you your appeal.

True to the recording's word, as it finished a soft hiss sounded behind Skythik that he twisted around for. In the process a sharp jab of pain shot through him from that bulge on his neck, and Skythik felt it shrink in his fingers from roughly billiard-ball size to golf-ball or so before he sucked in a half-gasp of rancid, salty air and passed out.

***

Things smelled a bit better when Skythik woke, at least. The skunk groaned and found himself outside of the now sealed pod, whose doors sported a glowing countdown which had about one day and twenty-three hours left on it. Skythik tried to ignore how sore he felt as he got to his feet but that proved largely impossible, everything ached at least a little - especially his neck though, and his stomach. The latter was oddly delayed about letting him know but it wasted no time quickly registering itself as the most pressing problem. Skythik doubled over when the hunger pang really hit, gasping quietly and looking around himself.

“W-where - supplies. You vicious bastards are supposed to leave me supplies!”

Marching up to the edge of the pod, Skythik heel kicked it out of sheer frustration. Apart from a dull 'thunk' sound nothing happened. Not apart from a rampant gurgling in Skythik's stomach and a cold sweat creeping over him. Looking about, the skunk saw little to feel better about. Pools of brackish yellow-green liquid, an expanse of rolling rocky hills covered in scrubby grass and moss, dotted here and there with mushrooms but no signs of anything more complex than that. Just a gentle breeze that still had an undercurrent of bad eggs and burnt onions to it.

“...They love their rules, the soulless minions of orthodoxy. If they didn't send supplies and there is indeed to be an appeal then as unsavory as this place looks it can't be more than a class three cradle variant.”

Sneering, Skythik paced up toward one of the large rocks with the patches of bluish green moss on it and picked at it. The stuff was soft and yielding, peeling free effortlessly and - when he held it up by his face - actually a little fragrant. Brightly colored, though - the whole place was. On worlds with animal life that typically meant toxic, but without animals too...

“Or someone wants me dead of 'natural causes' before the appeal.”

Considerations flew through Skythik's head about the matter, but when all was said and done he had to survive and either this place was safe or it wasn't. The skunk would have to trust that his augmented body could just 'handle' things. Easing the little morsel onto his tongue, Skythik was wincing in advance expecting it to be awful. He wasn't prepared to find the little rough-textured wad of plant matter curiously sweet and spicy, and generally pleasant. Glancing once more at the pod and re-evaluating his chances and the plans of those who sent him here, Skythik let himself slide down to the ground and began peeling away more to silence his howling gut. There was, at least, plenty of it to last one person.

“Still going to ruin them all for this.”

Grunting, Skythik began pulling away larger chunks. As soon as he had something in his stomach his hunger began demanding more in earnest. The moss clung to the curiously smooth textured stones with sticky, pale tendrils that tickled a bit on the way down. It wasn't difficult to pull free though, there was an oddly satisfying tug to it that just lent itself more to tearing off hand-sized chunks and stuffing them into his needy muzzle. The fact that it was quickly quieting his raging gut was just a bonus at that point, its roiling and gurgling no longer came paired with pangs of discomfort.

At no point did said gut quiet down, though. Skythik squinted a bit over that, grunting as he chewed more of the slightly gooey moss and looked at his rebellious middle. Finding oddities on or about his body wasn't that strange for the skunk, but generally he could point to something he did that caused it. Watching his belly churn and roil so aggressively it looked like it was a thing alive was thus not as shocking as it could be, but that didn't mean the skunk scientist was comfortable. His belly was twisting and undulating, and it felt softer than it should. Skythik gave it a squeeze.

“This - this isn't my work! I should know! It wouldn't be so...”

A second squeeze later Skythik squirmed, there was a queer kind of greasy sensation under his skin in that particular spot and it set off a rampant tingling to massage at it. A warm sort that pooled in his nerves and left him stiffening steadily. Skythik grimaced as he let go of his belly, watching the fuzz sprawl back out into a little pillowy mound and reaching up to that bulge on his neck after. The skunk held two fingers to it, rubbing them there, then brought them around to his lips only to realize he was still eating. Disconcerting as that was Skythik could ignore it for the moment, swallowing quickly and then licking at the other two digits he'd held to the growth on his neck.

“...Mutagenic cyst, time-delay collapse. Rampancy, metabolic augmentation, no mental or hormonal adjustments. Amateur work.”

Skythik scowled and worked himself up from the ground, though not without peeling another handful of that moss loose in the process. His stomach was still writhing and the taste was a bizarre but pleasant experience, and not eating would just be a form of surrender. No, Skythik was going to be there when that pod opened. He-

“...They left a loophole. I can just uwprhhbb - oof. Cripes, that was ripe.”

With his nose burning from the fumes of his own belch, Skythik stopped to look at the pod again. It didn't have obvious panels to pry loose but he had time to find them. Two days.

“Before the appeal. Idiots. I can just dig in during it and show you all what SCIENCE can do! Oh they will rue the day...”

A fresh roar from the skunk's stomach saw him haphazardly mashing the remaining handful of moss into his face and shuddering as the sweet rush hit his senses. Skythik put a hand to his stomach again as he stopped to consider his options and found it still rumbling and tangibly thicker than it had been. His fingers sunk in a good inch or so and as the skunk patted around his middle he found it spreading to his sides.

“...Metabolic, right. I might need to...”

The skunk hesitated as he turned from the ship to survey the landing site again. It remained surrounded by scrappy forms of plant life and that ugly liquid but not much else. Not as far as he could see anyway. Certainly nothing that looked like shelter, or like useful material to address his problems with. Unless there was something miraculous in those mushrooms anyway.

“More likely to kill me - or send me into a hallucinogenic frenzy. Which could be a fun way to pass two days.”

Letting out a frustrated sigh, Skythik began approaching the nearest hill sporting the rampant fungal growth. Beds of oblong pink and green capped mushrooms waited while Skythik tried to ignore how odd he felt. It wasn't working, not given how hot he was under his skin, how every stray nerve in his body was singing and muscles felt greasy for lack of a better word. Most distracting of all was the erection, with his lab coat being the only clothing Skythik had his steadily stiffening cock was bobbing about in the breeze and it was growing harder by the moment to ignore it.

“Nngh, stupid - stop it! This is beneath you! It's one thing to get hard when sporting our own work, but this is just pathetic.”

Skythik found his arousal largely immune to his own indignation. At best it served to distract him while he walked, leaving him with one hand wrapped around his member and a string of muttered gripes bubbling out of his narrow chest.

“First thing I'm going to do is turn all of them into moss and fungus and then eat them for presuming to judge me just because they can't understand the value of my Science.”

There wasn't much thought that went into the first snatching of a mushroom. Skythik's indignation spared him little room for other considerations so it wasn't until after he was tearing into a meaty multi-colored cap the size of his hand that he realized what he was doing - and that the texture felt all wrong. It felt silky and heavy, not light and crisp. More like biting into fudge than fungus - with a taste that... well, no it mostly tasted like fungus. Slightly sour, slightly bitter, not a lot else. The morsel hit his stomach like a brick as Skythik chewed on the rest.

“Odd texture. Resemblance to normal fungus superficial, maybe? Feels extremely dense and kind of bland, might go better if it was in chicken stock or... Hrm, getting distracted.”

Turning about, Skythik eased down to the ground and reached up to touch his neck again in thought. The cyst was still shrinking but it wasn't gone yet, there was more to come. Patience was not the skunk scientist's strong suit, but he had little choice it seemed. Sprawling back on the hill, finding the scrub grass at least more comfortable than a rock would be, Skythik tightened his grip on his dick and let his thoughts wander further onto revenge and the details of acquiring it.

“Turn them all into writhing ass-beasts, maybe absorb them - then go out for Mexican, and then Chinese and bourbon as a chaser.”

Grumbling louder, Skythik stopped briefly to try and center himself only to realize the noise wasn't coming from his throat. It was a little lower, and getting louder. A rampant roiling sound bubbled from Skythik's belly moments before a violent clench inside of it left the skunk crying out in surprise from the sharp onset of hunger pains. Snatching up the next mushroom was more instinct than deliberate action, Skythik had its bulky mass in his teeth in a half second and it wasn't soon enough.

Feeling his stomach clench and grind was a unique experience even for the mad-scientist of a skunk, one he almost appreciated. The only things standing in the way of it were how ravenous he was feeling and that lingering fury about this not having been his idea. As he crawled for the densest patch of the fungal bounty Skythik was at least relieved to find they were helping quite rapidly, the pain subsided considerably with each swallow, but it promptly threatened to return if he didn't keep at it. While the skunk didn't much like temporary solutions (permanence was much more fun) he couldn't think on an empty, traitorous stomach. Skythik rolled onto his side by the mushrooms and dug in.

“Mnph... overload, cellular regeneration mrnphggg - tasting.. better?”

Some of what Skythik began feeling was increasingly familiar, the skunk realized. The wild tingling and itching of rapid cellular death and growth that was often required in amateur transformative science. Though there were other things at play, the greasy sensation under his skin returned in force before it graduated into something else entirely. A hot, squelching crawl through his body that reminded him of sticking his hand into a full tub of margarine and clenching his fist but with his entire body as the fist. Skythik was almost too caught up in the experience to notice the consequences of it - almost. 

It was when the first circle of mushrooms ran dry that Skythik had the luxury of realizing what was happening, he started to haphazardly crawl toward the next bunch of them and felt something about himself, all of himself. Mostly, there was more of it than there should be - and all of it was moving.

“Idiots! Mnfgh - No caloric mass considerations!”

Even a quick look was disconcerting, at best. Skythik saw a dangling gut that was crunching and quivering as it grew thicker quickly enough for him to watch himself thicken. Intellectually Skythik knew what was going on, other changes were happening under the hood and it required fuel, but the idiots hadn't accounted for how much and had just dialed everything up to 'eleven' and called it good. That was why, sprawled on his side by more food demanding he eat it as fast as his face could manage, Skythik was able to watch as he fattened in real time. His belly now looked like a proper beer gut (he recognized those - some of his hobo test subjects had them) and his thighs had thickened to what he was told qualified as 'thicc' - explicitly with two C's.

Worse yet, it seemed to be getting faster as things progressed. Skythik's hands appeared to know what to do about feeding him and required little thought, leaving the scientist more than enough spare attention to observe the squishy thickness around his middle bloom. His belly sprawled like a lava flow drifting outward, undulating and squelching, growing briefly taut as he gorged himself and then loosening again in waves. Skythik's lab coat slid off his side at one point in the process, showing off the ebon fur covered globe of his ass and assuring him that too was growing. It resembled a set of fuzzy basketballs and was alarmingly sensitive when he gave it a squeeze.

Trying to ignore the growth didn't do any good. Skythik couldn't seem to stop himself from gorging and all those calories (he made a mental note about how dense the mushrooms must be for later) had to go somewhere. The skunk's body was feeling hotter by the minute as he thickened, developed rolls of flesh folding in on themselves, clinging to more heat under his fur. Every time Skythik brought his hands up to feed himself his fingers were a bit thicker, his arms rubbed against his chest a little more, and he'd started developing fluffy dangling moobs to boot.

It was a small miracle when Skythik started to feel full. That battle had gone on a good while, leaving the skunk's jaw tired and his limbs sore from crawling - it had also exhausted most of the hillside's mushrooms. There were plenty more scattered about, sure, but not in quite such a dense grouping. Skythik shuddered as he nibbled his way through the last one, not bothering to try and stop anymore, just relieved to not feel the need to keep reaching for more.

“Cannot - hwurphhhbb - believe these people caught me.”

As he swallowed the last morsel, Skythik rolled onto his back again to stare up at the sky. He hadn't really noticed the color before, the brilliant shade of teal mixed with striations of purple. It would've been a beautiful sight if he didn't want to set it on fire, and if his body wasn't still twitching and squelching greasily. Also, possibly, if he was just less overheated. Part of Skythik considered getting up to go find shade by the pod, but it seemed like too much effort.

“Me. Skythik! Scientist extraordin-”

A sharp shifting of pressure inside the skunk interrupted his budding monlogue with a humid, billowing bwvurUMPHHHbbbtt setting his lab coat fluttering and leaving Skythik wide-eyed and blushing. He'd felt the bubble of gas move through him, and then he'd felt his body go limp right around the ass and just let it loose whether he wanted to or not. Sure, he was alone, but the mere idea that he - Skythik - Master Scientist of the Transformative Arts would suffere a moment of not being in control of his body? The skunk reached down and clutched at his middle again, finding it more than ample enough to lose both of his hands in as he felt his stuffed gut writhe inside.

Even that little bit of disturbance caused a fresh outburst of growth. Skythik shivered as his arms bloated first, the upper half bloating into a pillowy mass that looked like something children used to avoid drowning in pools. They were thick enough that, as his chest swelled visibly outward as well, it prevented him from laying them flat against it. There was a horizon of black and white flesh getting in the way of him even seeing things properly, two bulky mounds of lard covered in increasingly sweaty fur that seemed to be tightening up as much as they were growing. Reaching pat the half-filled basketball man-tits on him, Skythik groped around at his thighs - or the rolls of blubber that rested atop them - before trying to dive deeper. It took far too much effort for him to find his cock again.

When he did Skythik found it nestled in a mound of soft flesh, half the flaccid length of it hidden in a pillowy sheath that was more intoxicating to squeeze and stroke at than he wanted to admit.

“Bastards. Might... have to crib some of this work after all. I-”

Skythik winced as his innards roiled and shifted again. His breath catching in his throat, the skunk wiggled on his back and set his body quivering, sloshing in waves. A fresh, searing phwwwrmpphBBBbbbrrrt bubbled out of him and added a hot flush of embarrassment to his already burning skin. He had tried to clench back on it but all that came of the attempt was a shiver in his hips, Skythik half expected if he'd been walking he would've fallen.

As he lay there, feeling his body bloat and spread, Skythik tried to argue with himself about how to feel about it - working himself into a snarling fit while messily stroking his sweat-slick dick in the process. He couldn't seem to stop befouling the air around him in the process, which was starting to take on a faint purple haze and smelled of yeast and sour onions.

“Dammit! I am not enjoying this! I just need to get some stress worked off, do you hear me?! I know you're listening!”

Limply, Skythik slammed his free hand's fist into the ground and felt the impact send tremors across his body. It also split a seam in the arm of his lab coat, leaving it hanging limply by a few threads after a little tugging - and leaving him reaching to pull at the other sleeve when it started growing tight enough for his arm to get numb. It only took a little digging at with his claws, which was odd in itself - unless the trip here took longer than he expected, or the atmosphere was weakening the fabric. Something about that thought that left Skythik a bit concerned as he recalled that first whiff of air he'd gotten in the pod and the relatively benign aroma of the world around him now. Well, apart from the cloud of fumes his butt was producing. That purplish-green vapor had started forming a slowly spreading fog cloud above him during his messy, blustery jerkoff.

Skythik only eventually let himself shut his eyes and ride the pleasure he was feeling out. Inside he felt the meal he'd had being worked through relentlessly, but it was taking time and he was still growing with each heaving, sloshing breath. Interrupting a cellular refresh was dangerous, so he didn't dare purge either. All there really was to do was try to savor the way his belly formed a plush cushion to ram his cock up against while his legs spread slowly further apart, his thighs growing too thick to prevent it.

When the outburst finally came Skythik half growled, half moaned into a musty patch of air he was now thoroughly soaked in his own tacky, damp fur inside of. The air around him was humid and heavy while he sucked it in in desperate breaths, nerves flaring pink and hazy and taking him out of the world for just a few moments. All except for the touch of it, the sticky smear against the underside of his belly and the fresh whiff of musk in the dense air. That clung to Skythik's mind even as he finished off, gently swaying and rocking like a waterbed that had been jumped on.

That long, breathy groan extended well past one breath as Skythik lie still on the tall grass, slowly digesting the last bits of his feast. A murky bwurpfhbb floated up through him that tasted oddly savory, better than they had on the way down, while he gathered his thoughts. Skythik tried to roll over only for it to fail on his first attempt, so much weight clung to his body that gravity was mercilessly pinning him to the ground. It took three more tries, sloshing his giant cauldron of a gut to and fro to build momentum, to make it actually happen. To get his center of gravity to move, making his bulk flow to the side until he could get on his hands and knees.

“In... bwurphhh - dignity! Won't... stand for it. Shit, I'm not hungry again am I?”

It was no small task from that point, even on his knees, to get to his feet. Skythik had some help from being at an angle on the hill but that posed its own problems with standing upright. Within moments of being up on his feet he was stumbling downhill, body quaking and wobbling, every step knocking loose little vwurrrmpht sounds from his bloated ass. Even after reaching the bottom Skythik took quite a bit of space to come to a stop, by which point he was dripping sweat and his knees were complaining loudly about the effort. Everything about him felt wet after that, especially his feet for some reason. While Skythik wasn't able to actually see them when he looked down the answer was still there anyway.

Skythik hadn't meant to stumble straight into one of the pools of unsightly liquid, but momentum had done its dark work upon his gigantic body. He was, briefly, worried he'd start sinking or feel his feet melt out from under him. No such thing happened, but his presence did seem to have started something. While he stood still, dripping with sweat and panting heavily, Skythik watched as the fluid around him congealed and boiled into different hues - a deep scarlet, then burnt orange, and finally something mostly clear but with a faint silvery purple sheen to it. It looked clean, maybe even drinkable - it was also quite reflective.

It took that breathless, silent moment for Skythik to really grasp the expanse of what had happened to him. His arms hung out at wide angles from his body, floppy swaddlings of lard around them that dimpled up by his elbows. What had started as lazy, dangling moobs were now quite clearly tits. Still soft and loose, but a bit more defined - still basketball sized but more completely filled. Everything got exponentially worse below that - his gut looked fit to hold two of his former lanky self inside of it, dangling down near his knees and sporting a cavernous belly button he almost instinctively wanted to modify a giant toothed maw into. It obscured everything below it, an all-encompassing horizon of flesh and fur, one that extended in every direction as Skythik tried to turn his head around the resistance his own bulbous lack of a neck provided. He could just about see his hips and the edge of his colossal rear, but his own puffed round cheeks got in the way of some of it and he certainly couldn't reach most of his own body. Not with his arms anyway, the huge serpentine tail behind him was a bit more successful - painting a picture for him of furry beach balls full of pudding glued to his rump.

Said rump then promptly disturbed the water around him with another eruption.

“Th-this... so fast. So much of it. Ugh, why can't I keep these in!”

A frustrated yell bubbled up from inside Skythik as he stomped a foot into the liquid, shaking more sweat out of his fur and causing more spots in the smell fluid to start clearing themselves. A moment later Skythik let himself drop down to sit in the... water? Whatever it was. As he landed a thick wave spread out in every direction from him and spread the clearing reaction through most of the swimming pool sized body of liquid he occupied. Scowling, Skythik leaned a little more, finding that if nothing else the profound bulk he'd built up around himself was exceedingly buoyant.

Drifting idly, Skythik made an effort to keep scowling despite the otherwise relaxing state he was in. This was helped along by the realization that yes, he was getting hungry again - his gut was fluttering constantly and he felt distinctly moody about the whole affair. To make matters worse he still couldn't get his butt to stop trumpeting to the purple heavens every few moments and the idea of either having to monologue to an accompaniment by his own ass or wandering around plugged tight was humiliating. Skythik could just see them laughing... right until he smote them out of anything recognizing a normal person's form.

“They are going to rue the day. I'm going to squat right on that stupid pod and when it gets working oh, oh it is on. It might take me years but civilization ends when I get back!”

Skythik smoldered as he drifted, a stable horizon of flesh on the bottom of his view and a moving one all around it. Gradually he became aware that the off-purple cloud he'd released earlier was following him - or spreading - or something. Almost like the gas bellowing out of his body was so dense it was maintaining a solid shape. It was... odd. Not something Skythik could sort out just yet, but something he resolved to keep an eye on as the next not-quite two days went by.

It wasn't as if he had much else to do.

***

Hanging around the pod proved to be wise. Skythik didn't seem to be getting tired as quickly as he expected and the distant, magenta sun in the planet's odd sky only moved a quarter of the way through its arc by the time the timer on the pod counted down its full forty-eight hours. Nothing had improved in that time frame, at least not by Skythik's assessment, apart from the cyst on his neck being gone. Probably. The heaving, greasy mound of a skunk wasn't wholly sure it hadn't just gotten lost in the bulbous ring of fat where his neck once was.

“Two minutes... Revenge.”

Under normal circumstances Skythik would never let himself be seen like this, shuffling and huffing to get up from the rock he'd designated as the best seat he could find - one with thicker moss than the rest (the stuff grew back absurdly quickly it seemed) and within spitting distance of the pod. He very much expected he'd want to spit shortly as the front of the pod began to light up with its window serving as a monitor for the moment. A familiar image, a black furred rabbit missing an eye who had sat in on his sentencing, currently wearing General's stars and scowling waited for him.

Doctor Skythik.

Hissing and shifting, Skythik's ass bellowed out its own roar of anger at the official while the skunk tried to ignore how much flesh was moving around his body from just that small gesture. In particular the confusing bloom of pleasure between his legs and the knot of fluttering pressure in his gut were confusing, leaving him blushing a bit under his sweaty grotesqueness.

“About time someone - bwurphhhb - remembered my title.”

While the fact of his enormity was bad enough, Skythik was further mortified as he released another steaming vwurmmpbbbbtt with the rabbit staring him down. The only mild mercy was that the lapine General looked disconcerted by it as well. Something Skythik opted to take advantage of, prying his thighs a little further apart and grabbing hold of his gut to give it a shake in the rabbit's general direction. He hadn't gotten much fatter since the initial rush of changes, but there'd been a bit of growth. An apron of blubber that dangled past his knees and dripped viscous sweat when agitated seemed to be all it took to make the rabbit's muzzle twitch.

All citizens of the Expanse are afforded a final plea before exile. A chance to offer your services to civilization in indefinite community service or to present new evidence exonerating yourself. Or not.

Sneering, Skythik lurched to his feet and waddled up to the pod. He'd sussed out where the best panel to break into was some hours ago and it wasn't difficult to manage. Walking up to the blasted thing was difficult, every step shook his wide-as-it-was-tall body like a bucket of pudding in an earthquake, but the panel itself peeled away effortlessly. The sight of him doing this did get the rabbit's attention though. The General looked flustered and surprised, like he was caught between the urge to stare and calling out what Skythik was doing.

“The original message said I was doing 'community service' already. I assume you're sending more people out here, but not until after I've gassed and sweated the place into something habitable - hmm? I can almost respect the plan, terraforming by exile. Better than what they did in Australia at least. Do you really think it's going to just... rehabilitate me?”

A loud clang rang out as Skythik ripped the paneling free, exposing cabling - power cells - coolant and conduction packs. Everything he wanted - for a start anyway.

S-Skythik! Doctor - you - stop that! We aren't sending anyone!”

Rolling his eyes, Skythik began dismantling what he could without disconnecting the link first. He found himself oddly curious what the rabbit had to offer, but it never stopped his blubber-wreathed arms from their task. He did however want to curse a few times at how hard it was to do delicate work like this with sausage-thick greasy fingers.

“Why bother terraforming then? That hardly makes sense. You know it's only a matter of time before I get back to the core worlds and visit sweet reparations on all of you, right?”

The image wavered briefly, causing Skythik to leave the power coupling he had in his fingers alone for the moment and move on to plucking some of the three-state memory loose.

This is eventually going to be a colony, yes, but the seed population is already there.

Grunting, Skythik yanked another memory strip loose and freed another violent bwurrrrrrppphhbbt before he half collapsed to lean against the hull of the pod. Panting, sweating hard, stomach bouncing and shuddering inside him.

“What are you talking about? You can't have a seed population of one, imbecile!”

Shaking gently, Skythik found himself considering sitting down. There was a shivering weakness between his legs, nestled deep in his hips, and his back hurt. It would waste time though, the pod might actually disable itself in moments.

Quite right, unless the original subject is pregnant.

Skythik froze. All that pressure and tightness in his core, the constant hunger, the sheer colossal width of his hips - the fact that when he crunched his blubbery thighs together he wasn't sure what he felt between them anymore. All of them fit what he was hearing - what he felt.

The riot of emotion that ran through Skythik's mind was not a thing that lean itself to science, but the confidence and fury it birthed were useful just the same. He'd apply the science later.

“You idiots! You're making me a progenitor?! Hah!”

Lips peeling back in a grin, Skythik ignored his back's pleas to sit down and began more vigorously gutting the innards of his pod.

It - it is the hope of your accusers and victims that this role will temper your attitudes toward the people you have victimized and-

A screeching cackle bellowed out of Skythik into the strange air around him, shaking the giant sack of flesh hanging off his belly and the two smaller ones above it.

“Oh this is rich. Just wait! I'll get up and running and then - oh then... My brood will ensure that SCIENCE triumphs! Look to the skies for us, sooner or later, little lapine!”

Skythik put his meaty paw on a last bundle of core components and cabling, then turned to stare into the General's wide and worried eyes with his teeth bared in a manic grin. As he stared, Skythik's sweat-dripping rear let free a rank bwuruppphhbbbbbbt that set the rabbit's ears curling back and caused his nose to wrinkle out of the mere idea of the outburst.

“I'd work on a thicker skin for that kind of thing General. I promise, I'm going to do worse to every. Single. Person. I'll get myself sorted out and turn all of you into heaving helpless piles of flesh and then... Hell, I don't know, maybe stuff you full of tubing and power a city with your vile posteriors. Or I could make you produce lighter-than-air gasses and make an old-fashioned dirigible out of your family. What do you think, General?”

Staring wide-eyed, the rabbit looked spooked - but also angry and determined.

Appeal denied.

The broadcast ended abruptly and Skythik peeled out one of the main boards in the paneling as well as loosening a bit of the insulation and shock absorbing padding. He'd hoped the window would be long enough that his tampering would disable the self-destruct, and it turned out it mostly did. There was a sharp zapping sound and the smell of hot metal from somewhere inside the pod, but no fire and no system-wide overload. It meant he'd get to use most of the pod as salvage, something he could get a lab going with. It wouldn't be easy but for a Master of Science it would do.

Besides, he'd have help soon. Skythik put a hand to his belly as he felt it churn and shift, and wondered if that little fluttering had been something he'd eaten or the kick of an offspring to come. Part of him still wanted to wallow in fury and humiliation over being so altered by hands other than his own, but that wasn't going to help. Seizing the moment, though? That would get him an army of loyal assistants and minions.

And that, in turn, would get him revenge.