FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

It was the bottom of the fourth quarter in the sixth game of the college basketball finals and Frankie's team had just landed a beautiful layup to put them in a one-point lead with minutes left before the game ended. While his line had just switched off of the court, the stocky hyena was literally at the edge of his seat as he watched his teammates play. Winning a championship had been the one thing he wanted since joining the college team in freshman year and he was so close to achieving that now.

His vision blurred as he kept his eye on the ball, the people on the court becoming indistinct shapes only serving to get the ball in the net. Adrenaline raced through every one of his veins as sweat not only dripped down his forehead from exertion, but also from the anticipation that they were going to win. His hands were shaking as he clasped them together between his knees, which in turn shuddered at the prospect of a victory. He was a bundle of nerves, and his nervousness was palpable.

The other players had been reduced to a smear of colours racing down the court, but the basketball remained crystal clear. Frankie saw its every move, from getting fumbled around someone's legs to getting passed overhead. He could see it get ever so close to the basket, only to be swatted away at every chance. His fingers involuntarily drummed on his legs as his heart beat a mile a minute. This was it - this was his best chance of achieving his current goal and it was within his grasp.

Then the horn sounded to signal that the quarter was finished, only to be followed by the swish of a basket and the sudden roaring cheer of the crowd behind him. The yeen had to rub his eyes and blink profusely to regain his bearings after finding himself in a trance like that. Once lucid, he looked up to see what just happened.

His net was scored on. The other team nailed a buzzer beater. His team lost for the third time in a row and was now set to play game seven.

Frankie felt the world fade away as the realization hit him. His mouth fell agape, and he couldn't move -his fingers twitched in disbelief. While nearly beating out of his chest before, his heart started heading to the other extreme and almost stopped entirely. He couldn't believe what just happened; they were right there, this was their year!

The locker room was silent save for the coach offering his condolences to the team. Normally the bull would've been annoyed and discussed the mistakes he saw on the court, but he couldn't do it after he saw how broken his players were after losing such a close game. He knew his team worked hard and it wouldn't feel right to chew them out knowing that they were already doing it to themselves.

Frankie sat in the bleachers after cleaning himself off and changing into his street clothes. The shower he took did little to soothe the ache of the loss. His feet were propped up by the next bench just below him, allowing for his head to rest on them with his arms acting as a softer buffer. He couldn't help but feel like he was responsible for the game. Sure, he wasn't on the court when his team lost, but he still felt like he could've done more to secure a victory. They were that close to winning!

The hyena was the only player on either team to stay back after the game was over, but it wasn't like time was of the essence to him as he took the bus everywhere and could leave whenever he wanted. Right now, he just wanted to reflect on what he could've done differently. There were moments where he recognized that he was in the wrong position or that he didn't have to pass to one of his teammates and could've taken a shot at the basket instead. The events he'd just experienced replayed over and over in his head, drowning out all other stimuli in the basketball gymnasium. He couldn't even hear someone making their way up the bleachers towards him.

"Hey man." A German shepherd sat down beside him and gingerly rubbed the yeen's shoulder. Hunter was Frankie's roommate and went to every single one of his games, so he knew how badly he'd be hurting right now. "You played great out there."

Frankie only just realized that he was being talked to, tilting his head up to see the gentle visage of the dog. "It wasn't good enough." He sighed defeatedly. "I wasn't good enough."

"Hey, it's a team game." Hunter reminded the hyena, giving his shoulder a good squeeze. "You're not the only one making mistakes out there. I saw the rest of the guys messing stuff up that they shouldn't."

Frankie could only look at the canine with hurt in his eyes. "You're not helping."

Hunter grimaced and backed off, clenching his fist as he brought it back to his chest. "Sorry."

"Don't be. It's not your fault." Frankie mumbled through his furry arms. His fingers traced over the scars he'd received years earlier, some splitting up a few of his dark spots.

Hunter took a few moments to smooth over the words in his head before he opened his mouth again. "I know how much this means to you. I just wish there was something that I could do to help you."

"I don't even think there's anything I can do to help myself." Tears welled up in the corners of Frankie's eyes. "I don't know what anyone else could possibly do for me."

"Is there anything that can be done during practice?" Hunter offered. "I'm sure other people can think of things they're lacking in and need to work on."

With an exhausted huff, Frankie leaned back and let his arms rest on the bench behind him. "I don't know if anything's gonna help, man. The atmosphere in the locker room was not positive." He wiped away the tears that had begun to fall down his face, his fingers pushing up his glasses. "We're getting reverse swept in the finals. We've only needed a single win for the past three games, and we just can't do it. I don't know what's wrong with us!"

"I don't think there's anything wrong with you. You're clearly facing good opponents." The gears in Hunter's head turned as he tried to think of something to say that could alleviate some of the pain the yeen was feeling right now. "I think that all you guys need to do is just mentally reset before the next game. It's three days away, so you have plenty of time."

"Yeah, I guess." Frankie rubbed his hands down his face. "I'm just at the point where I'd do anything to win."

Hunter quirked a brow in suspicion. "What does that mean?"

"You know," Frankie sat straight up and looked at the German shepherd, "like, wishing for a miracle or something. If I had a genie in a bottle right now, I'd totally use it!"

Hunter had to breathe a sigh of relief now knowing that his friend wasn't genuinely thinking about sabotaging the enemy team in some way. "Here I thought you were going to do something you'd immediately regret."

"No!" Frankie aggressively refuted the dog's concerns, but he couldn't help but laugh at the thought.

"Well, I think there's a meteor shower happening some time soon in the near future. You could try that." Hunter rubbed his chin. "Though I can't say that wishing upon space dust is really gonna help your predicament."

"True." Frankie snickered. "Shame that the nearest lucky fountain is in the next city over. I'm way too lazy to visit just for that."

"Not only that but think of the bus fares!" Hunter exclaimed. "They don't use the same system we use so you'd need to make sure you've got some cash on hand."

Frankie put his hands behind his head and leaned back against the bleacher behind him again. "Yeah, that would suck."

Hunter flicked his gaze over to the yeen. "You could try carrying around a lucky charm, like a rabbit's foot or something."

"I already talked to Sam about it. He said no." Frankie's eyes looked back at the canine.

"I imagine he would." Hunter chuckled. "Seeing as he's the fastest member of the team, he definitely makes a very good case as to why he should get to keep both of his feet."

"Yeah." Feeling a wave of tiredness overcome him, Frankie shut his eyes. "There really isn't anything I can do, is there?"

Hunter stared up at the ceiling - it was the thing his body automatically did when he was deep in thought. "Just about the only thing else there is left to do is make a deal with the devil or something."

"The devil?" Frankie's eyes popped open as he guffawed. "Really, dude?"

Hunter shrugged his shoulders. "Eh, he's probably super busy at this point so you'd likely end up with some kind of demon underling."

Frankie's mood had picked up considerably over the last several minutes. He couldn't stop his grin from worming its way onto his face. "What, is he too busy to hear my plight? The bastard."

"He's probably got an army of demons at his command." Hunter leaned on the bench behind him on one arm. "Though I can't imagine that they have any money down there, so I'd wager that they're paid in sex or something."

"God, that'd be the dream right there!" Frankie straightened himself up as he felt himself laugh hysterically, like his species is wont to do. "You'd get to put people like us in unfavourable deals and then reap the rewards not only from them, but from your boss too."

A mischievous look overtook Hunter's face. "You think the devil puts out?"

"Oh, dude," Frankie slapped his hands against his legs, "he's probably got a dick that hangs down to his knees and is thicker than a wine bottle."

Hunter slid himself over slightly so that he could nudge the yeen. "I wouldn't say that too loudly. You wouldn't want your family hearing you speak good things about the devil, right?"

"I'm lucky that my folks don't care too much about that stuff, but man," Frankie rubbed the bridge of his nose, "their parents' generation would absolutely lock me in a room that's filled to the brim with crosses."

"They're really that bad about it?" Hunter cocked his head - it was something all canines did on the regular and were quite proficient in. "I always thought you were exaggerating what they're like."

Frankie sighed. "I mean, they love me and the rest of my family and everything," he felt his fingers twitch as he held them in front of his torso, "but man, do they ever go heavy into the religious stuff."

"I should consider myself lucky then." Hunter mused to himself.

"Yeah." Frankie ruminated on the conversation that the pair of them just had, thinking about everything they said. It all ran through his head at a breakneck pace, but there was still one thing that stuck out to him above all others. "I'm gonna do it."

Hunter perked up at the hyena's words. "Do what?"

"Make a deal with a demon!" Frankie beamed as he stood up.

Hunter felt himself go speechless for a few moments - his mouth was wide open, but nothing was coming out of it. "You know that I was joking, right?" He stated his rhetorical question in a very pointed manner.

"But just imagine if I could do it." The smile on Frankie's face stretched from ear to ear. "You know how I studied the bible, right?"

Hunter's face took on an incredulous look. "Yeah, you always told me how much you hated it and wished that you 'never had to look at the damn book again'." He couldn't understand what his roommate was getting at. "Those are literally your words."

"Yeah, but," excitement ran through Frankie like he was getting electrically shocked, "imagine if there was some truth to it. Imagine if demons really did exist and we could interact with them."

Hunter buried his face in hands. "You're considering it. I made a joke and you're taking it seriously." He looked back up at the yeen, though he wore a more humourless expression. "You do understand that there's no possible way that demons could actually exist, right? We'd have heard about encounters with them backed by physical, tangible evidence by now." He couldn't believe that he was genuinely having this conversation right now. "Look, all that you need to do is just practice really hard and make sure that you have the fundamentals down pat. You'll easily win the game that way."

"I know, I know, but," Frankie protested, clearly more interested in the idea that had formed in his head, "wouldn't you wanna see if we could do it? Just think what'd it'd be like if we pulled this off!"

"Frankie," Hunter whined, his tone one of sympathy, "I know you wanna win the game really badly, but you're not gonna have it happen like this."

"Come on, man," Frankie pleaded, "I know that something like this could basically never happen, but it'd still be fun to try. Please?"

Hunter sighed and dropped his head; he wasn't about to win this war, so he might as well relent. "Alright, fine. I'll help you look and try to figure this out even though I think this whole thing is abjectly ludicrous."

The German shepherd's capitulation sent Frankie into a cheer. "Yeah, I knew you'd come around! Dude, this is gonna be so much fun." The yeen could hardly contain his excitement. "Let's get started now!"

"How about tomorrow?" Hunter questioned, though not as a suggestion. "I'm not sure if you noticed, but it's getting close to midnight already."

"Oh shit!" Frankie pulled out his smartphone and looked at the time. It was indeed less than an hour away from the new day. "Guess we should really head home then, huh?"

***

For the first time in a long time, Frankie had gotten up early without complaining about it. Why would he when he potentially could be doing something to help him win the upcoming championship game? He danced his way through the apartment as he got ready for the day to a song that only he could hear.

Hunter, by comparison, was less than enthused about the day's agenda. Sipping down a cup of coffee in the kitchenette, the dog wondered what he'd be getting himself into, as well as how he'd break the fact to his friend that this entire thing was one big wild goose chase. "I still think that this is dumb." He snipped.

"Ah, don't be like that." Frankie stepped out of his room with his shirt half on, pulling it over his head with minimal difficulty. "Even if we don't find anything, we can still spend some time out and look at other places. Ya know, just the two of us."

Hunter downed the last of that life-giving nectar and placed his mug in the sink. "There are actually a few shops by the library that at least looked interesting that I'd like to check out."

"See?" Frankie gave his black hair a once-through with his hand before declaring it kempt enough to leave. "We're gonna have fun regardless."

"I suppose." Hunter sighed before turning towards the yeen. He was about to mention something about the library but was caught off guard by the appearance of the spotted hyena, his face one of bewilderment. "Forgetting something?"

Confusion ran through Frankie as he tried his best to figure out what the canine was talking about. He'd just showered and freshened up, eaten, gotten changed, wearing his glasses... His phone was charging on the side table by the door, his wallet was sitting next to it as well as his keys... "Uh, what am I forgetting exactly?"

"Pants." Hunter stated matter-of-factly, thoroughly entertained by the thought of the yeen wandering into public while wearing only his underwear.

Frankie looked down and, sure enough, he was clad in his boxers with nothing covering them up. "Whoops." He muttered in his bemused state, heading back to his room to fix his mistake. Now in a state of dress that he was comfortable letting random people view him in, he was ready to leave. "Let's go!"

***

"Are you sure that you don't want to get some help finding whatever it is you're looking for?" Hunter shuffled behind the hyena down the fourth aisle in a row since entering the library.

"Oh yeah, because the librarian is totally gonna take me seriously when I ask for a grimoire that I can summon a demon with." Frankie snorted.

Hunter shrugged his shoulders as he looked at the row of books he was standing beside. "Who knows? Maybe this place has a section specifically for magical tomes that isn't open to the public."

"Nah, this place would never have something fun like that. This city's really boring." Frankie got to the end of the aisle he was in and thought where to go next.

Hunter could only fidget his lanky arms around to stave off boredom as he waited for the yeen to make a decision. "So instead of asking someone who works here if they can help narrow down your search, you're instead going to look up and down each aisle yourself in the hopes that you find what you're looking for?"

Frankie rounded the corner into another passageway lined with bookshelves, scanning each row as he went along. "Well, yeah. Every time a situation like this arose in a book or TV show or movie, the book they needed would randomly be on a shelf that they were looking at. Means that I've got a chance, right?"

"Are you forgetting that those pieces of media exist in fictional universes where everything goes right for the main characters?" Hunter clicked his tongue as he looked at the time on his phone. "We're not that lucky. We don't live in some reality where our lives are written out for us."

"Yeah, well, I still wanna try it for myself." Frankie mumbled a curse to himself as he got back to the main corridor of the library yet again without finding anything.

"You're determined, huh?" Hunter leaned against the end of one of the bookshelves.

Frankie begins to walk down another aisle before realizing that he'd been that way already, instead opting to meander down the one across from it. "That I am."

The two of them wandered for over an hour, scouring the entirety of the building. Occasionally they'd come across something that sounded interesting, but ultimately was of no use to them. A pile of books ended up on the trolley they were situated next to by the time they were finished, none of them giving them anything close to what they were looking for.

"Damn," Frankie exclaimed as he exited the building, pushing the heavy door open for the both of them, "I can't believe that this place doesn't have what we're looking for. The library has everything!"

"Really, you can't believe it?" Hunter admired his roommate's tenacity but knew how fruitless the search was from the beginning. "Dude, come on. You know that demons aren't actually a thing that exists. The most we got from here are thousand-year-old religious texts with dubious claims that no one can prove really happened." He placed his hand on the hyena's shoulder. "I'm genuinely sorry, but the whole thing was kind of a bust from the beginning."

A bit miffed from coming up empty-handed, Frankie sighed and scrunched up his face. "Yeah, I suppose." He brushed off his disappointment with a hand gesture. "Eh, at the very least I now know where all the material I need in order to study for my exams are." There was a glint in his eye as he looked up at the German shepherd. "So, you wanna have a look around some of the shops in the area? We still got a lot of daylight left!"

Hunter smiled at the yeen's enthusiastic disposition, happy that he didn't let things get him down for too long. "Yeah, actually, there was an antique shop that caught my eye earlier when we were on the bus. I thought that there may be something interesting in there that I could get my mom for her birthday."

Frankie gasped. "Oh man, that's perfect!"

"W-What is?" Hunter stammered.

"Antique stores have all sorts of old stuff." Frankie's grin spanned his face.

Hunter's mouth was slightly agape, but he was having trouble putting his confusion into words. "Um, yes, that's the whole point of it."

"Yeah! So that means there'd be a good chance that we could find some kinda book that could help me there." Frankie's excitement was obvious.

Hunter chuckled as he rubbed his eyes with his fingers. "You're really not going to give this up, are you?"

"Not a chance." Frankie pushed up his glasses with a single digit. "Now, let's go!"

***

The pair of them got off the bus and walked over to the antique shop before opening the door and making their way inside. Their first impressions were exactly what they were expecting - everything lining the shelves had the look of being older than the dinosaurs despite some of the items actually being made within the last fifty or so years. A thin layer of dust coated most of the objects, but none of them caught the eye of either of them so they didn't care.

Hunter had nudged his friend and pointed him in the direction of the store clerk at the front desk with the intention of asking for help locating what they wanted. They saw how the elderly fox man was busy polishing a discernibly ancient vase, no doubt older than the combined ages of all their living relatives.

Frankie put on a cheery smile as he ambled on up to the counter. "Hey there. So my friend and I are looking for a book and-"

"All the books that I have are in the back of the shop." The elderly cashier interrupted without even looking up from what he was doing.

"But we haven't even told you what we're looking for yet." For a second, Hunter could've sworn that the fox had multiple tails, but they all seemed to vanish when he blinked his eyes. He wasn't about to bring it up as it would've seemed rude, and he couldn't really prove what he just saw anyway.

The fox shot his gaze to both of his visitors before nodding. "I can guarantee that you will find whatever it is you are looking for back there." He gave the two of them a genuine smile.

"Um, thank you." Frankie did his best to be polite. He turned around and walked towards the back of the shop with the canine right behind him. "So that was weird."

"Yeah..." Hunter still wasn't sure if what he saw earlier was real or just imagined. "But I will concede - if there's any place that you'll find the book you want, it'll be here."

"Oh?" Frankie's grin returned in full force. "Why the sudden change of heart?"

Hunter's eyes darted from wall to wall, noting how all the different knick-knacks seemed to have come from many different parts of the world. "This place just has a magical vibe. That's all."

"Alright, well, he wasn't lying. The entire wall here is a bookshelf." Frankie turned to look at the dog. "Shall we get started?"

"We're gonna be here a while if we have to search through each and every book." Hunter groaned, not exactly thrilled to be spending his day choking on dust while searching for something he doesn't even think exists. "Huh, there's a lot of stuff here about different world religions. Shintoism, Hinduism, Buddhism..." He traced over the spines of the various codices that he was looking at.

Frankie had to crane his neck to read some of the book titles. "Something tells me that these aren't your traditional religious texts."

"Yeah, I'm finding a lot of pieces on djinns and ghouls and stuff over here." Hunter examined all the assorted manuals and pamphlets in front of his face. "There's a surprising amount of material related to monsters of folklore the world over."

That gave Frankie pause. "Disturbing, but also a bit promising." He perused all the books as closely as he could, trying to see if any of them came close to what he wanted. Not finding anything on the top shelves, the hyena bent down on one knee to have a look at the bottom shelves. A seemingly gold trimmed book immediately caught his eye and he picked it up to see what it was about. Sure enough, it was the grimoire he was searching for. "Oh hey, I actually found a tome on summoning here!"

"For real?" Hunter stepped over to the yeen. "What's it say?"

Frankie flipped it open until he got to the initial account. "Um..." He paused when he read the page; he expected it to be simplistic as was literally the first spell the user sees when they look through the book, but he wasn't expecting this. "The first entry is about summoning a pair of shoes..." Flipping the page over revealed that there wasn't anything else to the entry and it really was that straightforward.

"Are they some kind of magical pair of shoes?" Hunter peered over the hyena's shoulder.

Frankie read each line as thoroughly as he could, using his finger as a pointer to make sure that he didn't miss anything. "Uh, nope. Just an ordinary pair of shoes."

Hunter had difficulty in trying to find the words to express his puzzlement. "Is it a joke book?"

"Hang on, it's got an index." Frankie jerked the book so that it was open to the first page. "Let me see..." Frustratingly, the entries weren't listed alphabetically so it took him a hot second to make sense of the page. "Wait, it says there's something about a demon!" Using his thumb, he rapidly made his way to the right entry. "Yeah, check it out!"

"Really?" Hunter took a look at the book that was suddenly thrust in his direction. "Well I'll be damned, you're not lying."

Frankie relinquished control of the book. "I'll be honest, I'm just as surprised as you are that we actually found this."

"Hmm..." Hunter took a moment to pore over the entry in its entirety, noting the necessary equipment they'd need to complete the ritual. "I think we actually have everything we need for this back home." He closed the book with one hand and handed it back to his roommate. "Yeah, we should be all set then."

"Then let's pay and get out of here!" Frankie excitedly grabbed the book and rushed to the front desk.

The elderly fox at the counter had since switched over to reading a novel. "Ah, so I see you have found exactly what you are looking for." He dogeared the page he was at and set the book aside.

"Yeah, I'm honestly surprised at how easy that was." Frankie couldn't help but notice that the book the cashier was reading looked incredibly modern, like it was one printed within the last couple of years.

"You would be surprised at just how many people find what they need here." The fox rang up the purchase on a fairly old-looking register, then accepted the cash that the yeen handed up. "You have a nice day now, Frankie."

Frankie froze dead in his tracks. "H-How do you know my name?"

The elderly man chuckled and picked up his book again. "You two were pretty loud back there."

"Right..." Hunter suddenly felt a blush come on. "Um, thank you." He pushed his way out the door with his friend following right behind him.

"Huh, well I guess specialty shops really are important after all." Frankie clutched the book in his hands, now regretting not bringing his backpack with him.

Hunter side-eyed the hyena, a look of concern on his face. "You found that whole experience to be really weird, right?"

Frankie shrugged his shoulders. "Yeah, but," he held the tome out in front of him, the biggest grin on his face, "I did find exactly what I wanted going in there." It took him a second to notice that the German shepherd came out empty-handed. "Oh hey, you didn't pick up anything for your mom while we were in there."

"Yeah," Hunter rubbed the back of his neck, "I sort of decided that I'd look elsewhere for a gift. I kinda don't want to get her something that may or may not be cursed."

"That's fair." Frankie adjusted his glasses with a hand.

A thought struck Hunter, making him quickly look at his phone. "Oh, the bus will be here shortly. We oughta get to the stop."

"Right, yeah." The pair of them made their way back to where they were dropped off, but Frankie couldn't help but replay the last conversation they had with the clerk repeatedly in his head. "You know, I don't remember either of us saying my name while we were in there."

***

"Let me get the door open first." Hunter barely got out of the doorway before his roommate bounded past him to the couch, still clutching the book.

Frankie was so excited that he could barely control himself. "Oh man, this is gonna be great!"

"You couldn't even have taken off your shoes first?" Hunter sighed as he shut the door behind him.

"Ah, it's not that big a deal." Frankie waved off the dog's concern. "Besides, we've got more important things at hand."

"More like you do." Hunter reminded as he kicked off his shoes onto the mat by the door. "And I take it by your willingness to track dirt everywhere in our apartment that you want to sweep and vacuum up everything next, right?"

Hunter pursed his lips, closing his eyes as he finally relented. "Alright, alright, fine." He slipped off his shoes and carried them over to the mat beside his roommate's. "Happy now?"

"Dude," Hunter could only palm his face, "that's just common courtesy. Like, come on, man."

That made Frankie pause for a moment and sharply inhale, his hands covering his eyes under his glasses. "Yeah, okay, I'm sorry." He turned to look at the canine. "I guess I'm just getting ahead of myself here."

Hunter gave the hyena a consolidating pat on the shoulder. "It's fine. I get why you're excited."

"Good." Frankie gave the dog a cheeky grin. "Now let's get into it!" He rushed back to the tome and started flipping through the pages at a rapid rate. "Heh, this is gonna be awesome!"

As much as he wanted to be supportive of his friend, Hunter felt uneasy about diving right into what was likely a pretty difficult ritual. "Are you sure that you wouldn't want to try something smaller first? Maybe we should start with conjuring up those shoes."

"But that's boring. I wanna get straight to the demon already." Frankie responded without even looking up.

Hunter sighed, but then reached out and grabbed the yeen by the wrist. "You literally know nothing about any of this. You jumping straight there will only spell disaster for the both of us."

An internal battle broke out inside Frankie - on one hand, this was his ticket to finally achieving his goal and vindicating himself, but on the other hand, the German shepherd was absolutely correct in saying that he didn't have a clue about what he was doing and that he should start smaller. "Yeah, okay, you're right. Let's start from the top."

"Excellent." Hunter let out a relieved sigh, then took his place beside the hyena.

Frankie instantly made his way to the beginning of the grimoire to where the first entry was but stopped when he actually read the page. "Aw jeez, I think the incantation is in Latin."

Hunter could see how this could be a problem, but also thought it was one that could be dealt with. "Well, you kinda speak some Spanish, and I know that was derived from Latin."

"Oh yes, because that's gonna help me pronounce words in a language that I've never seen before that doesn't have any current speakers." Frankie rubbed his eyes with his fingers.

"All I'm saying is that I don't think that you're as hopeless as you think you are." Hunter craned his neck to view the page. "It means that you have common ground with the language. Plus, I don't think the spell looks all too difficult in the grand scheme of things."

"True." Frankie's face took on an expression of determination. "Alright, let's do this." His tongue stuck out the side of his mouth as he thoroughly read the page, then he did his best to phonetically verbalize the written incantation.

Hunter wasn't sure what to expect, but then looked around the room in sudden confusion as he felt the air around him grow colder. Then, in a brilliant flash of light, there appeared a pair of shoes on the carpet in front of the couch. "Holy shit!" He exclaimed as he bent down to pick them up. "I can't believe it actually worked!"

"Dude, those look old." Frankie couldn't help but feel a tinge of disappointment begin to overtake his body.

"What do you mean?" Hunter was still incredulous over the fact that the footwear appeared out of thin air. "I can tell you right away that these are brand spanking new!" He passed them to his roommate.

Frankie accepts the shoes from the canine. "No, I mean these are really old-fashioned." He flipped them over to really inspect them. "See? The bottoms are made of wood! These are clogs."

"Well, isn't that what the book said will appear?" Hunter cocked his head.

As much as Frankie wanted to protest, a simple glance at the open tome revealed that the shoes matched the surprisingly detailed illustration placed at the top of the page. "I mean, I guess. I was just hoping for something I'd want to actually wear. Instead, I've got something I can go tap-dancing in."

"Then we'll just have to try it one day." Hunter reassured the yeen that everything was fine. "What's the next spell?"

Frankie flipped the book to the next page, happy that he wasn't about to conjure up another piece of clothing. "Oh, we've got old-timey bread here."

Hunter's eyes lit up - he always got excited for food like other dogs. "That sounds exciting."

Frankie gave a quick read of the page to make sure that he wasn't about to miss anything important. "Seems just as easy as the last one. All I gotta do is say some words, though they look different this time. Hang on." It took a moment for him to fully internalize what was written on the page and how he should go about pronouncing it before giving it a shot. Like before, light spontaneously appeared in the room and left just as quickly, leaving behind an entire loaf of bread on the carpet.

"Oh, five second rule!" Hunter lunged at the bread, pulling it up so that it barely had any time to sit on the ground. He kinda looked at it before eyeing his friend. "So, should I?"

"Yeah, go for it." Frankie nodded.

Hunter smirked and then gently chomped down, only for his demeanour to completely flip when he couldn't even sink his canine tooth into the exterior of the bread. "Oh fuck!" He growled as he bit even harder, struggling to get his jaw to close.

Frankie could only sit there and watch the dog gradually lose the fight against a piece of food. "What, is it stale?"

Hunter acquiesced to the fact that he wasn't about to bite through the loaf as it was. "No, it definitely tastes fresh. It's just rock hard." It took a little bit of strength, but he was able to rip the slab in two and passed the unsoiled half to the yeen. "Goddamn, if this is what the Europeans eat on a daily basis, then I fully understand why they say our bread feels like cake." He then pulled at the bread with his mouth, finally able to break a piece off now that he had access to the softer interior.

"Fuck." Frankie blurted out when he tried to eat his half of the bread. "I totally see what you mean now."

Hunter rocked his head to one side as he chewed, taking a lot longer than he usually would to finally down a single bite. "Okay, it takes a little bit of work, but you can eventually get it down." His jaw radiated pain and he felt compelled to hold it with both hands. "Now that's a workout if I've ever felt one."

"Yup, that was awful." Frankie leaned his head against the back cushion after finishing his bite. "I think I'm ready to move on now."

The pair of them spent the next hour working their way up through the different spells, eventually coming across ones that required two pages of instructions. This was because they needed to start doing other things to accompany the incantations such as perform hand gestures. While they were successful in conjuring up other items that the grimoire offered, they weren't perfect. Three more loaves of bread were accidentally summoned when they were trying to do other rituals, much to their chagrin. They willingly left those on their kitchen counter so that they could figure out what to do with them later.

"Honestly, dude," Frankie wiped his brow with the back of his forearm, "we've been doing this for a while now and I think I'm ready." He looked up at his friend with excitement in his eyes: "I'm in the zone, man."

Hunter wanted to say something, but their success rate so far had been pretty good, all things considered. "If you think you're good to go, then let's do this."

Frankie's face lit up with glee. "I was waiting for you to say that! Oh, Abuelita would not be happy with me right now."

"Ah, I wouldn't worry about here." Hunter waved off the thought. "She'll never find out that we're doing this."

"Dude, she's crazy religious." Frankie mentioned between bouts of giggling. "I wouldn't be surprised if she could smell this magic on me the next time that I see her."

Hunter raised an eyebrow. "So, does that mean that you wanna stop?"

"Hell no!" Frankie cackled out loud. "I wanna keep going." He slid the pages across his thumb until he finally made his way to the entry for summoning demons. "Here it is!"

Hunter noted how much of the tome was still remaining. "How is summoning a demon not one of the most difficult things you can do with this book?"

"Uh," Frankie kept one finger in place so as to not lose his spot and then turned the pages with his other hand, reaching a particularly difficult spell, "well, you can control a demon." He thoroughly read the page and then flipped it over. "Oh my god, this just keeps going." He didn't even bother reading this page before turning it, seeing how it still extended onto the next page. "I don't even know where the hell we'd get these necessary materials."

Hunter tried to peer over the hyena's shoulder to see what was written down. "What does it say that we need?"

Frankie grimaced when he read off the material list. "Stuff like a chunk of limestone, a horseshoe blessed by a bishop, wine that's been aged in a cask for one-hundred years-"

"Yeah, okay, that seems nearly impossible." Hunter wagered that he'd only get a migraine if he tried to figure out where to acquire those incredibly specific components. It was only just then that he realized that there was something particularly odd about this tome as it was likely that it was created thousands of years ago. "Hey, is that book in English?"

Frankie hadn't thought about that until this very moment and hastily tore his way through the entries. "Uh, yeah. Save for the incantations themselves, everything in the tome is written in modern English."

Hunter gawked at his roommate - both of them had a really bewildered look plastered onto their faces. "Strange..." He rubbed his chin, not sure how the book somehow knew to change its text so that its current users could understand it.

"I mean, considering what we've seen already, that doesn't seem completely unnatural." Frankie only just understood the secondary meaning behind his words. "I mean, it objectively is, but-"

"I know, I know." Hunter interrupted. "So what's the demon summoning page say?"

"Oh right." Frankie used his finger-turned-bookmark to effortlessly jump back to the desired entry. "Amazingly, we don't need much else besides the incantation."

Hunter cocked his head. "Oh? What does it say we need?"

Taking a moment, Frankie read through the prerequisites carefully. "It's saying that we need to draw a pentagram, although it looks like it wants it done in a specific order." He made sure he fully understood the directions before looking up at the German shepherd. "Alright, since you're the art student, you can have the honours of doing the drawing."

"Drawing where?" Hunter felt the unease return in full force.

Frankie's face gradually scrunched up as he hadn't particularly thought that part through yet. "I guess the floor?"

"With what artistic implement?" Hunter buried his face in his hands, hoping that he wasn't about to hear the words 'hammer and chisel'. Their hardwood floor would never recover.

"Actually, it wants chalk." Frankie stated, pleasantly taken aback.

Hunter shared in the astonishment. "Oh, that should come off the kitchen tiles really easily. Gimme one second." He zipped off to his room and rummaged around a bit until he found what he needed and made his way back to the yeen. "Alright, tell me what to do." It took a little bit of meticulous work and precise instructions read aloud by Frankie, but a perfect pentagram was drawn upon the tiled floor in their kitchen. "There, I think that should do it." He looked up at his friend from his knees. "Let's not mention this to the landlord."

"My dude, that is..." Frankie admired the drawing on the floor. "That's really good!"

"Admittedly, this isn't the first pentagram that I've drawn." A bright rosy blush creeped its way onto Hunter's cheeks. "I was a pretty angsty child growing up." He pushed himself up off the ground onto his feet.

"Same here, except I just drew dicks on the bathroom stalls in permanent marker." Frankie articulated without any shame in his voice.

Hunter could only laugh and shake his head. "Of course you did. So is there anything to do next?"

Frankie took a look at the grimoire. "Actually, there is. We need candles placed and lit at every intersection between the star and the circle."

"Oh, that makes sense." Hunter really had to concentrate to think of where they might possibly have candles stored in their apartment. "Give me a moment." This time he made his way to the front closet where they stashed all their miscellaneous belongings, meaning that it would take a little bit of finessing to ensure that nothing came crashing down on top of him. Eventually he did find what he was looking for, though it wasn't quite what he was expecting. "Huh. So the only candles we've got are scented. Hope whatever demon comes out of the circle likes 'Grandma's Apple Pie' and 'Field Berry Fiesta'."

"This has to be the gayest summoning that's ever taken place." Frankie hid his face in the book.

"But it is going to take place." Hunter ambled over to the pentagram and placed the candles at every intersection. Then, grabbing a lighter, he went to each one and set its wick aflame. "Ready?"

"Ready." Frankie nodded in a resolute manner. He got to work and began reciting the incantation, taking his time as it was a particularly long one. The book's instructions also directed him to repeat the lines so long as the summoning was taking place, an act which made him nervous as he wasn't sure what would happen if he messed up at all.

Hunter watched in awe as the circle started emitting an eerie purple glow, then became a brighter beacon of light as a gust of wind swirled up from the floor. It grew stronger in intensity, yet remained completely enclosed in the circle, though that didn't stop it from affecting the items around it. Loose sheets of paper got caught in the miniature twister and ended up launched around the room, while some of the loaves of bread conjured up from earlier got blown off the counter they rested on.

A creepy, satanic sound spewed forth from the pentagram, though neither of them could exactly tell how it was being produced. Nevertheless, the noise persisted, and eventually heralded the entrance of the demon that the pair of them were hoping would show up, appearing amidst a billowing cloud of crimson smoke.

"Oh wow," Hunter could barely pick his jaw up off the ground, "it actually worked!"

"Ay, Dios Mío!" Frankie's eyes shot wide open in disbelief.

Hunter turned his head to his roommate beside him. "You know, I think this is the most Spanish that I've heard you speak in a long time."

"Of course it worked." A voice bellowed forth from the dissipating fog. "Why wouldn't it? The pentagram is a tried-and-true method of demonic summoning that has worked for millennia." The smoke faded away enough to show the imposing figure that the voice belonged to. From out of the misty fumes materialized a towering shark dressed smartly in a form-fitting two-piece suit and tie that somehow seemed to contour around his incredible musculature. His head nearly touched the ceiling. "You know, I'd have assumed that you two would've tried using our app since everyone is on their smartphones in this day and age." The demon lowered the sunglasses he wore so that the pair of young men could see his vivid red-pupiled eyes.

"D-Does..." Frankie gulped, clearly intimidated by the presence of the demon. "Does that actually exist?"

The shark sighed and pushed his sunglasses back up against the bridge of his nose. "And here I thought that mortals had understood the concept of jokes."

"So, who are you then?" Hunter wasn't a fan of the fact that he couldn't see the demon's eyes.

"The name is Balthazar," he gestured with his hand in a slight bow, "at your service." Balthazar took a look around the room, smirking when he saw the light fixtures suspended from the ceiling. "Ah, I see that you mortals have finally figured out electricity."

Hunter cocked his head, a bit perplexed. "Um, yeah. We kinda discovered that a couple hundred years ago."

Balthazar shrugged his large shoulders. "I haven't been out much if it's not obvious."

"Not to be disrespectful or anything," Frankie finally found the courage to speak up, "but isn't this, like, or your job or something?"

"Sort of." Balthazar rubbed his sleek, bald head. "Demons actually do a lot of different work, but not everyone does the same thing at the same time. I spent a couple hundred years doing other work, so now it's my turn to make deals with the surface dwellers again." He was about to take a step forward, but stopped when he realized that his foot couldn't go past the chalk drawing that he was standing in. "Right. Well, whenever you two are ready to start, just break the circle and we can begin."

Grimacing at the thought of dealing with a literal demon, Hunter turned to his friend. "Dude, I don't know about this."

That made Balthazar lose his patience. "Listen, I'm an incredibly busy demon with thousands of potential deals that I could be making instead of being here with you two. Either you break the circle and let me into your home, or I'm leaving right now." He crossed his brawny arms along his broad chest. "The choice is yours, but the clock is ticking."

"Dude, I gotta do this." Frankie whispered to the canine.

Hunter couldn't stop himself from being nervous. "Are you sure?"

"I mean," Frankie really didn't have time to weigh the pros of the situation versus the cons, "he's already here, I might as well."

"And time's up." Balthazar looked down at the two of them with a stern expression on his face. "What's your choice going to be?"

The lack of time made Frankie panic on the inside, but he maintained his composure to the people around him. "I'm gonna do it." There was a strong tone of determination in his voice, surprising even him. He walked forward and very carefully smudged the chalk circle just enough to break it.

"Excellent." Balthazar purred, testing to see if he could leave by sticking his foot past the chalk before stepping by it entirely. At that point in time he usually had a whole speech prepared about what he was going to offer his summoners and what they had to offer in return, but a distinctly sweet aroma invaded his nostrils once the pungent stink of Hell disappeared and made him forget what he was about to say. "Is it someone's birthday today?"

Hunter felt a deep scarlet blush creep onto his cheeks. "That's... actually two of the candles."

Balthazar looked down and behind him at the circle, seeing that, in fact, all five of the candles used in the ritual were scented. "That's... different. I actually know some demons that would've loved this."

"Wait, really?" That struck Frankie as strange. "I thought all demons were supposed to be cruel and stuff."

"Not all of them." Balthazar explained. "There are plenty who are just fun-loving spirits, wanting nothing more than to play harmless pranks on the living. Though, 'harmless' is from the demon's perspective." He then fully removed his shades, closing the arms and letting them hang on the collar of his suit. "But then there are others who are absolutely cruel to mortals and want nothing more than to see them suffer. You end up with one of them, and your life will be worse off forever."

"Where do you land, then?" Hunter inquired, not nearly as scared as he was a few moments ago.

As if thinking up an answer, Balthazar quietly stared at the now-sullied tiles he stood on. "I'd like to think I'm fair. I'm pretty by-the-books when it comes to my work as I've come across some of the best and the worst that surface dwellers have to offer. Of course, it helps that I'm one of the few doing this job who was in your shoes at one point."

That fact absolutely floored Frankie. "Wait, you were like us?"

"Correct. My people and I were under the rule of a tyrannical monarch who didn't care for any of us." Balthazar shut his eyes as if he were containing a boiling rage building up inside him. "I made a pact of my own with a demon in exchange for taking him down, but the terms stated that I was required to give up my mortality in exchange. I was fully prepared to endure eternal punishment in return for 'my liege' getting what was coming to him, but the demon actually had other plans for me instead." He looked at the pair of young men in front of him and impishly smiled, his sharp, toothy grin on full display. "Took that _bastard_five hundred straight years of torture before he finally apologized for his actions. Too little, too late."

"Holy shit!" Frankie looked like he was about to break down.

Hunter placed his hands on the yeen's shoulders in an attempt to get him to relax. "Hey, it's okay. Just breathe." He looked up at the shark. "What happened after that?"

"Well, while he's not necessarily getting tortured anymore, my former king is still atoning for his sins to this very day and likely will for some time into the future." Balthazar looked pretty pleased with himself. "As for me, I'd like to say that I ended up with a pretty good deal. There's a lot that you get to do as a demon - you gain a lot of freedoms that you'd never expect to ever have."

"So, are you going to make me do the same thing that you had to do?" Frankie questioned the tall shark, a bit of a warble in his voice.

Balthazar smirked and reapplied his sunglasses. "Depends on what you ask of me."

The weight of the situation was bearing down on Frankie, whose knees felt weak like jelly and were ready to buckle at any point in time. "Okay, um," he took a deep breath to steel himself before continuing, "my college basketball team is in the finals of the championship and we're one game away from either winning or losing and I feel like maybe I'm part of the problem as to why we're having trouble and I just really want to win the whole thing before I graduate!" He blasted his entire wish out without stopping once.

Balthazar didn't move, but kept his eyes trained on the hyena in front of him. He liked to wear sunglasses in these tense situations as it meant that the other party had no idea how to read him. "Is that all?"

"Yes, sir..." Frankie felt the pangs of regret well within the pit of his stomach. He was going to be sick.

"Very well." Balthazar tone was one of confidence as he'd been in this position many times in the past. "I will help you."

Hunter couldn't believe what he was hearing. "You will?!"

"No way, that's awesome!" A wave of relief washed over Frankie, though it didn't last long. "Hang on, I know that these things come with a catch. What is it?"

"Once your team wins the game, you will then come work for me for a year." Balthazar calmly explained.

Hunter patted his friend's arm, a big smile on his face. "Oh, dude, a year is nothing!"

Frankie wasn't nearly as thrilled to hear those words. "What kind of work?"

"It could be anything from taking my place during these sorts of summons, assisting me with demonic possessions, or even doing my paperwork." Balthazar continued.

"You guys still do possessions?" Hunter cocked his head.

Balthazar just shrugged his shoulders. "Yes. There are people who genuinely want to have that kind of experience. We don't judge."

That wasn't the word that stuck out to Frankie. "Wait, paperwork?"

"Hell is a bureaucracy. You wouldn't believe the amount of red tape we have to wade through in order to get our jobs done on a daily basis." Balthazar sighed as he rubbed the side of his face. "The first part of which begins here." He held out his hands wide enough for an ornate-looking contract to appear before grabbing it. "By signing this you agree to the terms laid out in our pact, but I'm going to let you read it over first." He handed the document to the yeen.

Hands trembling, Frankie grabbed the fancy contract and looked at it - he wasn't imagining it, this was real, as was every other part of this experience. Everything was spelled out neatly for him, with nothing hidden between the lines like he thought there might have been. Even then, he still had trouble reading the single page as his eyes couldn't focus on the words even though they were right in front of his face.

"Ready to sign?" Balthazar made a deep purple fountain pen emerge from nothingness and handed it to the hyena.

Frankie gulped. "Uh, where do I do that?"

"There's a spot for your signature down at the bottom of the page." Balthazar took one hand in the other and cracked his knuckles. "You can't miss it."

Frankie unfurled the end of the document and, sure enough, there was a line he was meant to sign his name onto. He placed the contract on the counter beside him and meticulously hand wrote his signature. He was planning on giving it back to the shark when he was done, but the paper along with the pen vanished without a trace. "Wait! W-What happened?!"

"The deed is done." Balthazar boomed. "Should you have any further questions, now is the time to ask them."

Frankie had a mix of emotions swirling inside of him, making him entirely unsure of how best to react. "S-So, I'm going to win my game then?"

"With ease." Balthazar nodded. "Just keep doing what you normally do, and you won't have a problem."

"There's not gonna be any kind of blatant cheating, is there?" Hunter interjected.

Balthazar turned his head to the German shepherd. "Does he usually cheat in his games?"

"No way!" Frankie shot out, his heart filling with pride.

"Then no." Balthazar responded. "Anything else?" The pair of men in front of him looked at each other, but neither said a word. "Then I shall be off. Until we meet again, Frankie!" In an instant, a sudden puff of ashy smoke enveloped the gigantic shark demon and he vanished in a cloud of fire and brimstone.

"Okay, he's someone I fully expect to know my name without me saying it." Frankie mentioned after a few brief moments of silence.

Hunter snorted. "Well, yeah, he is a demon after all." He crossed his lanky arms but turned his head to his roommate. "How do you feel?"

"Weirdly okay. I think I'm gonna be alright." Frankie rubbed the back of his neck. "Oh, see all the stuff that happened when he left? That's what I was expecting to occur when I came out to my folks."

Hunter snickered for the first time since Balthazar disappeared. "Do you think your parents would've been as accepting had that happened?"

"Knowing my dad, he would've been way more into it." Frankie chuckled. "You should see his heavy metal record collection. He loves that stuff!"

Hunter grinned, though it faded once a silence bore into the conversation between them. The two of them only just began to internalize all of the events that took place. "We, um... we should clean up now."

Frankie nervously nodded his head. "Yeah, uh, let's do that."

***

The game was a complete blowout. Though the opposing team was still the best that Frankie's had faced, they just couldn't compare with the sheer athletic brilliance that his team had shown off. He, of course, had trained every day leading up to the game, but playing in it was like seeing a whole other person. He was flying down the court like he'd never had before and making shots that he otherwise would have missed. His entire team was like that, in fact, as if everything just clicked then and there for them.

They played like a well-oiled machine, to the point where their coach was flabbergasted enough to not have anything to say to them. He couldn't even believe that this was the same team who was on track to being reverse swept! By the time that the game was over, both the team and several of the players had set not only school records with their play, but regional, state, and country records as well - Frankie included!

The victory called for a celebration and everyone on the team headed down to the local sports bar, where fortunately everyone could partake in some post-game drunken revelry. People of all relations joined the players, from their family members to friends who stopped by to watch, to even romantic partners that weren't shy in taking them away from the action to get a little one-on-one action in.

Frankie wasn't particularly averse to knocking down brews, but he rarely had the opportunity to do so. He wasn't the kind of person who'd go and drink an entire case in a night, preferring to instead join in with others when they went for a night out on the town. One of the bigger differences between him and his teammates, however, was that he much preferred cocktails and other alcohols due to not particularly liking the taste of beer, but he was grateful that no one really minded.

What made him feel even better was having Hunter around to party with, which actually was a rare occurrence, but tonight was special. Although he was aware of why exactly they won, he still felt all the energy coming from the crowd in the stands that he couldn't help but feel just as pumped up when they all cheered. It made perfect sense that he'd join in and share in the merriment.

Both Frankie and Hunter had found a booth for just the two of them, not completely separated from their group, but not immediately sandwiched inside it either. The two of them honestly favoured what little privacy they got anyway.

Slamming dunks all night had been such a tiring activity that Frankie felt like he hadn't eaten in months. All sorts of appetizers were ordered, from wings and nachos, to fries and onion rings that thankfully didn't disintegrate when they tried to eat them. All the greasy grub would normally be way too much for the pair of them to handle, but it helped them deal with the increasing amounts of alcohol they were ingesting.

Then came the main courses, where Hunter was content with an individual pizza and a side of Caesar salad, where Frankie had both a burger and footlong hotdog delivered to the table each with a plate of sweet potato fries to go along with them. Some people may think it'd be strange, but those were his favourite above all other sides. He, of course, devoured it all.

The pair got boozier as the night grew older, with some of the yeen's teammates heading off already. The group started dwindling down to single digit numbers before the pair decided that it was time to hit the road as well. It took a few moments to collect their bearings as they'd been sitting down for a couple hours at that point, but they were on their way out the door, doing their best to keep their legs moving in a straight line.

Regardless of a bus stop being literally a few steps away from the door to the restaurant, they opted to go for a bit of a walk to get some fresh air and work off their meals a bit first. The night was crisp enough to be refreshing without being too chilly to exist in it.

They meandered down the sidewalk until they hit the park, detouring from their path to go look at the sights. The first thing that they noticed was that the Ferris wheel that popped up around this time had been built since the last time that they walked this way, but it hadn't been opened up to the public yet. It being backdropped against the tall and ornate city fountain would make for an excellent photo opportunity.

They kept walking until they hit an area where the park benches were installed, lucky enough that no one else was there besides them. They took a seat, momentarily jumping as the wood was colder than they anticipated. Once settled, they looked ahead to the rose garden that volunteers had planted, noting the various colours all juxtaposed against one another. Neither of them particularly liked flowers all that much, but it made for a really nice view.

Frankie's heart was beating out of his chest, but he couldn't tell if it was still hype from the game he won, or the probable litres of alcohol currently saturating his system. It made him feel flush and warm to the touch. That's when he looked over to the dog and saw how he just stared ahead with his arms leaning on top of the bench, a contented smile on his face.

Hunter sighed and turned to the hyena. "It's been ages since we've been out here. This is great."

"Yeah, it's a nice change of pace for sure." Frankie wasn't sure why, but the heat he felt was only increasing. His heartbeat was rising rapidly, but he couldn't explain the reason.

Hunter, meanwhile, looked as cool as the cucumber slices that he munched on earlier. How he felt was an entirely different manner, as he went to shift his position and ended up sliding across his roommate's shoulder. "O-Oops!" He stammered, his cheeks going a rosy pink and he pulled himself away. "Sorry!"

"No, that's... alright." Frankie gulped, now realizing why he felt this way. Maybe it was the booze accentuating his feelings, but he was certain that his heart was beating because of Hunter. That sudden contact was the clue that solved the mystery. Truth be told, he'd had a crush on the German shepherd for years now but could never build up the courage to say or do anything. That is until now. "Hey, Hunter?"

"Yeah, Frankie?" Hunter had opted to lean over due to the embarrassment he just endured.

"I think I love you." Frankie blurted out without any inhibition.

Hunter's jaw dropped immediately. "I beg your pardon?"

"I just..." Frankie gulped and had to take a few deep breaths just to steel himself. "I've got a whole swirling mix of emotions inside of me right now, but I think, I mean I know, that I love you."

That left Hunter speechless for a few moments. "How long have you felt this way?"

"I guess for a while now." Tears were starting to form at the corners of his eyes, but he could tell if it was because of happiness, disappointment, or frustration. "I understand if you don't feel the same way."

"Hey Frankie." Hunter responded in a breathy murmur.

"Hmm?" Without warning, the canine had pulled Frankie into a passionate kiss, more than likely fueled by the drinks they both had. It caught him off guard, but he was instantly okay with what was happening, even putting his own force into the embrace. Those tears grew larger and began to stream down his cheeks, matting the fur that he had just showered off not too long ago. He was the happiest he'd ever been and didn't want this to stop.

Hunter was over the moon that this was finally happening. He'd wished for this to happen for eons, but he'd always been too scared to initiate anything. Finally, after all this time, he felt his feelings finally be vindicated. He didn't have to hide them anymore.

Frankie wasn't sure if he felt warm because of the strong outpouring of emotions that filled up his heart or if it was the alcohol, but he knew that he wanted to make love to the dog right now. His boner had plumped up considerably, slithering down a pant leg as it had nowhere to go. Arousal coursed through his entire body, making him, as well as the canine, more frenzied in their smooching. Electric pulses signaled to his limbs that his clothes needed to come off and that he had to press himself against the dog. The only hurdle he had to cross was that he wasn't in the best location to do so. He pulled himself away from the kiss, panting madly with love. "We need to go home."

***

The pair of lovers barely made it inside their apartment before fully making out with each other, ending up on the floor with their tongues firmly inside the other's mouth. Somehow, someone managed to kick the door closed from their position. They began to undress one another, taking care to make sure that their embrace wasn't interrupted for too long. The heat that poured off of them was palpable.

Through the midst of their disrobing, they made their way into the living room so as to be in a more comfortable part of their apartment. They kissed and groped and lunged at each other as they stripped each other down into their undergarments, though they didn't stay that way for long. Pretty soon, they were left completely in the buff, their throbbing boners mashed against the other. They could feel each other's heartbeats through the cockflesh.

A warm blanket of pleasure washed over the two of them as they pressed their increasingly sweatier bodies against each other. They huffed into each other's mouth as they writhed with lustful ecstasy. Neither of them wanted to stop, nor were either of them going to as they were completely alone.

"Well now, aren't you two cute together?" A familiar, deep voice rang out. The pair of lovers did a mix of shrieking and gasping as they instantly honed on where the voice was coming from. "I knew that it was only going to be a matter of time." Balthazar jeered at the two fully naked men on the rug.

Frankie felt like he was about to have a heart attack. "Wait, how did you get back here on your own?!"

Balthazar chuckled, his elbows resting on top of the sofa while his legs were spread far apart. "You invited me into your home, remember? All it takes is one time and then I can freely visit."

"But when did you get here?" Hunter was almost more freaked out than the yeen.

"Just now." Balthazar smirked, his eyes still hidden beneath his shades. "You didn't forget that a deal was made, right?"

"No," Frankie stumbled to right himself, hiding his erection with his hands, "I just wasn't expecting it to be dealt with already."

"Expect the unexpected." Balthazar countered, pushing himself to his feet. The act reminded the other two of just how imposing he really is. "Come now," he smiled while sighing, "there's no need to be so modest. You had no issue stripping yourself down a few moments ago." He gestured to the hyena with one of his large hands.

Hunter stood up beside his roommate, also keeping his junk hidden. "Yeah, but you weren't in the equation then."

"In any case," Balthazar began, "I held up my part of the bargain, so it's time you held up yours." He snapped his fingers and a blood-red portal opened up in the living room. "As you're mortal, you won't be able to travel like I do so we'll have to take the long route." He looked at the yeen frozen in place. "Come on, the faster we get through all the administrative stuff, the faster you can get back to your normal life."

Frankie panicked and looked at the canine, who also had an expression of horror on his face. "I can't do this!"

Balthazar sighed and rubbed his eyes with his fingers, pushing his sunglasses up in the process. "Alright, fine. I'll let you get changed first."

Frankie stood stock still as he stared into the portal, seeing demons of all kinds parade around like it was nothing. "No, I can't go in there!"

The look on Balthazar's face grew more and more irritated as he was being held up. "Listen, Frankie," he closed the portal with another snap of his fingers, "I'm not playing any of your games. You don't have the choice to go back on our pact."

"Couldn't he do something else instead?" Hunter piped up, wanting to do what it took to protect his friend.

"Yeah!" Frankie's eyes lit up at the suggestion. "Lemme do something for you that lets me stay here."

Balthazar breathed deeply as he removed his sunglasses and hung them on the collar of his suit. His red eyes were trained on the young man in front of him. "I'm afraid that you don't get to weasel your way out of this one. We made a deal, remember?" A further snap of his fingers brought up the contract that had the hyena's signature on it. "I've done my part, so now it's time you own up to yours."

The document floated over to Frankie, whose heart was in the pit of his stomach. He kept going over and over in his head what he stood to lose from going through with this as he hadn't really thought about it until now - he hadn't quite finished with school yet, he'd lose out on any immediate job opportunities, he wouldn't be able to pay his rent or potentially look for another place to live, and most importantly, he'd miss out on living with Hunter. The entire thing overwhelmed him. "I can't do this." With tears in his eyes, he ripped up the contract. He couldn't go through with it. "I won't do it!"

"Big mistake." Balthazar's expression soured as he snapped his fingers, the contract pieces disintegrating into nothingness. "Had you thoroughly read through all the fine print, you'd know that reneging on a deal made with a demon comes with a price. In this case, I get to decide your ultimate fate." His words oozed a sinister tone. "A pity, really. You would've made a fine assistant."

"W-What are you going to do to me?" Frankie stammered from the fear that shot through his body.

Balthazar's expression remained unchanged. "Whatever I want." The ominous tone of his voice signaled a crackling thunderstorm to suddenly appear outside. The light coming in through the windows dimmed in accordance, though it didn't matter as a wave of his hand shut all the blinds in the apartment. "Now then, are you ready?"

"Ready for-" Frankie didn't get to finish his question before the shark snapped his fingers again. He couldn't understand what just happened, but he started to feel something strange going on inside him. There was some strange sensation balled up in his soul, but it didn't take long before it radiated outward to the rest of him, eventually making it all the way to the end of his limbs. He wasn't sure he was supposed to be enduring until he saw something that made his eyes nearly fall out of his head - the fur on the underside of his forearm was turning a dark crimson. He screamed and collapsed to the floor.

Hunter's jaw almost dropped to the floor. "What the fuck?!" The creeping red fur was bad enough, but he noticed how half of the backside of the hyena's forearm was turning into some kind of green-scaled plates, matching his now furless, emerald-coloured hands. Amazingly, the reddening fur didn't discolour the spots at all.

"It's a shame, really. I was going easy on you." Balthazar started monologuing as the young man stayed transfixed on his transformation. "See, almost everyone that I deal with has these astronomically large aspirations that they are looking to attain in a ridiculously small amount of time. Not only were you asking for something negligible in the grand scheme of things, but you were also humble enough to admit that you thought you might be part of the problem as well." He slowly paced around the transfiguring yeen. "I gave you one of the most straightforward and generous deals in the history of Hell, and yet you still backed out of it. I wasn't asking for the world, I was just looking for a bit of help. I wasn't even going to ask for your mortal soul like what was asked of me."

"Why are you doing this to me?" Frankie whined, now noticing how scales were replacing the front of his torso while his feet were making themselves look like his hands.

Balthazar mischievously smirked. "I'm making you more... compatible."

"Compatible?!" Frankie's heart dropped when he saw his fluffy tail scale over completely. He could feel his back mimic what happened to his front. "What's that supposed to mean?"

Balthazar let out a light snicker. "Oh, you'll see."

Without warning, the sides of Frankie's head pushed out, scaling over until he nearly resembled some kind of snake from the neck up. "Qué diablos?" He felt up the new extension, especially where the scales met the fluffy fur of his cheeks, and how the back of his head was perfectly scaled from one end to the other. He still had the black hair on top of his head, though.

"Frankie, I'm still here with you." Hunter tried to be a rock for the hyena but was losing his mind seeing his friend now grow taller along the floor. "I'm not gonna let you go through this alone."

"That's right. You won't." Balthazar quipped menacingly.

Hunter's head snapped immediately to the shark demon. "What the hell does that mean?" He barely got his inquiry out before the same odd feeling welled up inside of him. It soon bloomed outward, leaving him barely any time to ponder what was going on. He was expecting to experience a similar fate as his lover, which is why he was surprised to learn that he was growing taller right off the bat. "What the..."

"Hunter?" Frankie looked up at the canine on his knees, though he'd have to do a whole lot more of that now from his position. He saw how his roommate was rapidly adding inches to his frame, making it to his normal height while standing without any problems, only he didn't stop there and neither did he. The lengthening of his limbs followed suit to keep him proportioned properly, though them being longer made them feel so much more ungainly to wield.

Hunter's growth kept up at a steady pace. "Hey, wait, why am I getting affected too?"

"You've been aiding and abetting him this whole time. You're his cohort, though I'm going easier on you." Balthazar explained.

Eventually, the pair of transforming men saw that their growth was slowing down, though not before Frankie's top canine teeth and claws lengthened. Looking over himself, it finally made sense to him what he'd become - he was now half-hyena, half-cobra. "No, I can't be a hybrid!"

"Oh, but you are." Balthazar chortled. "A devilishly handsome one, if I do say so myself."

"But hybrids don't exist. They never have!" Frankie felt panicked all over again.

"They did in my time." Balthazar shot back. "Hybrids used to be commonplace in the region where I lived, but your modern society wasn't happy with them for whatever reason." He snarled. "Did you know that my best friend growing up was a hybrid? He was actually half-wolf and half-rabbit. I thought he was pretty cute."

A thought suddenly ran through Hunter's head. "Wait, are you doing this because you think hybrids look cute?"

"I'm moreso doing this because he broke his end of the deal and that your society isn't welcoming of hybrids anymore, but I won't lie and say that I think he doesn't look good like that." Balthazar cupped his chin in his forefinger and thumb, a wry grin worming its way onto his face.

"So, is that it then? Are we done?" As if on cue to answer Frankie's question, the feeling grew within the pair of them once again.

Hunter let his head fall into his hands. "Oh no, what now?" That's when he noticed the fur on his chest start to grow shaggier. "What the fuck?" But that wasn't the only thing happening. As he placed his hands on the thickening fur, he could feel each pectoral subtly grow more defined in his grasp.

"Wait..." Frankie could see what was happening to his friend and looked down at himself. Sure enough, he, too, was gaining muscle mass. The slow tempo of their swelling turned into a much faster clip, the sensation moving to the rest of their bodies.

"Holy hell." Hunter lowly exclaimed as he watched his arms balloon in size before his very eyes as if he'd been slugging it out at the local iron pit. They were dense and heavy with packed muscle, as strong, if not stronger, than steel cables. He observed as veins popped up and snaked their way down his biceps, helping their embiggening by letting them engorge themselves with nutritious blood.

Frankie was seeing similar results on himself, though he was still entranced by his chest. While he wasn't getting hairier due to having grown scales where his treasure trail would go, his pecs were undergoing their own surge in size. He held them in his hands and felt how they got packed with so much mass that they forced his nipples to point downward. As much as he wanted to, he'd be lying if he said that the feeling wasn't intoxicating.

Hunter, however, had no such qualms with this part of his transformation. He relished the expansion of his frame and how much more space he was taking up now. The way his traps rose higher than they ever had before delighted him to no end, as did the way his back grew into a veritable mountain range of bulk that flexed and contracted with every errant move. His abs became shredded, forming a cobblestone roadway to his crotch that was also hard as rock.

The sensation grew in intensity as Frankie curled his fist up to his burgeoning shoulder, regarding how his forearm muscles moved as he did. The act also displayed how high his bicep peak had developed, now able to touch it with the palm of the hand attached to the same arm. This discovery led him to try and replicate it with his other bicep, which he did with ease. Even though he was laying on the floor and didn't have the opportunity to feel up his back, those muscles made their presence known by lifting him away from the rug.

Hunter felt like he was going to overheat from all the fur that piled onto him. It looked like he had a carpet running down his torso, though with how hirsute his back had gotten as well, it felt like he was wearing someone else's hide entirely. Then, the sensation made its way to his bottom half, where the real fun began. His quads bloated up instantaneously as if they were connected to an air compressor, only they didn't stop when they got proportional. They blew up into twin pillars of raw canine power, comparable to the thickest of redwood trees. Goodbye, thigh gap.

Frankie, meanwhile, also had his bottom half affected. While not nearly as large as what his lover's were ending up as, his thighs were gaining considerable heft to them, so much so that they had grown larger than they were before when flexed. He could feel his glutes firming up as bulk was added which gave him a rounder rear that he'd never really thought he could achieve. His calves bulged outwards as well, forming the ideal teardrop shape that bodybuilders grinded for years to get.

Once Hunter's calves had also been embiggened into diamond-hard slabs of beef, the sensation redoubled back towards his comparably flat ass. It was alien to him to feel his cheeks balloon out into dimpled globes that looked like one would need to do nothing but the heaviest of squats to attain, but it was quickly welcomed. His muscled rear didn't stop there as it filled out even more, looking to match his leviathan quads. Once all was said and done, he possessed a booty stronger than anyone else's on the planet. It begged to be groped and he was all for it.

Balthazar looked upon the two men in front of him, a smirk spreading across his face. "Let me be the first to tell you that the two of you look hot as hell." He slowed down the words at the end of his sentence for emphasis.

Frankie pushed himself onto his elbows, not quite used to all his new weight yet. "What are you talking about? We look like freaks!"

"Hey, my overall appearance didn't change that much." Hunter's ears drooped.

Frankie cringed, realizing that the dog really didn't anywhere near as out of place as he did. "Sorry..."

"You're really going to get upset with me?" Balthazar balked. "I gave you the one thing most men dream of but can't be bothered to obtain on their own. There've been no other men in history who got to have bodies like that for free!"

Hunter didn't want to admit that he wasn't totally upset with his current predicament. "I kinda like this."

Frankie had to swallow his pride. The snake transformation was positively terrifying, but the height and musculature were definitely something he could've used in his basketball games. "I do too, a little bit."

"See, I'm not such a bad guy after all." Balthazar lilted in a singsong voice that belied the awesome ferocity of his own brawny body.

"So, what? Is that all you wanted to do with us then?" Frankie was in the midst of getting himself sitting upright.

"Ah, ah, stay where you are. I'm not done with you yet." Balthazar commanded. "That was only phase one."

Frankie froze in place, his new fangs glistening in the artificial light. "What?!"

Those blood-red eyes of Balthazar's narrowed in on the half-snake on the ground, a predatory grin worming its way across his face. The way his mouth opened allowed for his deadly teeth to be displayed. No doubt the pair of young men were preparing themselves for the worst, but he had other plans in mind. With a snap of his fingers he was suddenly in the buff, though that was an incredibly accurate description considering the Herculean bod he was blessed with.

"What the fuck..." Hunter couldn't believe what he was seeing, though, try as he might, he couldn't pry his eyes away.

"Do you like what you see?" Balthazar cupped a meaty pec with one hand.

"Yes." Hunter replied without thinking.

Frankie was appalled at the dog's response. "Hunter!"

"Sorry!" Hunter curled himself up like a dog does when scolded.

Frankie sighed. "What, so you're an incubus too?"

"No, but I'm pretty well endowed like one if I do say so myself." Balthazar grabbed a hold of his monster cock in one hand, a few errant tugs bringing it to life. "I have gotten more than a few pointers from the ones I've personally dealt with though, so I do know what I'm doing."

Frankie was beyond upset. Had he known that this was what he had to deal with, he'd have never have signed the contract or even gone to the trouble of finding the tome in the first place. "God, just... get yourself off already and leave." He had no fight left in him after everything that had just happened to him. He was defeated.

"Oh, I won't be the one getting off." Balthazar's breathing showed off the delicious extent of his broad chest rising and falling.

Frankie was having difficulty making words come out of his mouth. "I-I don't understand."

In one swift motion, Balthazar stepped forward and placed one of his massive stompers directly on top of the yeen-cobra's cock, eliciting an unexpected moan from the hybrid. "Remember, I'm one of the nicer demons. Even when you're in my debt, I still want to make sure that you're enjoying yourself."

Frankie couldn't believe how much euphoric stimulation the simple act was providing to him. His tongue had lolled out of his mouth while his eyes went half-lidded momentarily. He was a mess of emotions, though the strongest of which was arousal. He couldn't help his girthy prick from oozing out a dollop of precum onto his cut abdominals.

"Oh, so it appears that you're enjoying yourself." Balthazar noted the rivulets of pre that drooled from the hybrid's cocktip. "Want me to apply more pressure?"

Frankie gasped, he could get more of this sweet sensation. "Yes, please." He groaned out.

"Then I shall give it to you." Balthazar pushed down just a little bit more, wriggling his toes along the sensitive flesh of the other man's glans. "Still not satisfied? Want me to go harder?"

"Yes." Frankie blurted out without thinking. His libido had kicked into overdrive.

"I didn't catch that." Balthazar purred, his grin stretching from ear to ear. "What was it you wanted?"

Another wad of pre came belching from Frankie's dick. "I need you to go harder."

Balthazar pressed down with even more vigour. "Is that hard enough for you?" His voice gradually began to crescendo louder.

"Harder." Frankie was filled with something he'd never felt before - it was as if he were being pumped full of a new, dominant energy that he'd never experienced before.

Balthazar was really applying a lot of pressure now, rubbing his giant foot along the length of the half-hyena's pole. "Do you wish it to be harder? Do you crave more?" He'd been whipped up into a manic frenzy by the sheer saturation of erotic energy in the room.

"Harder!" Frankie bellowed, groping his boulder-like pecs.

Balthazar lost himself in a demonic cackle as the light in the room turned to a hellish red. Without warning, his body began to creak larger, his muscles inflating bit by bit as mass was packed onto his already gargantuan frame. He was well past professional bodybuilder or even weightlifter-sized, now entering a league all his own. His pectorals grew to be like a pair of concrete slabs, mashed between arms that were making beach balls look small. It made no sense for him to grow taller as he'd bust through the ceiling, but he was more than willing to make up for that in other ways.

Ignored by the other two, Hunter found himself in the throes of pleasure from watching the spectacle unfold in front of him. He was working his prodigious length at the fastest speed his brawny arm could manoeuvre, while his other hand was between his ample rear, gently playing with his pucker. All these new sensations that he had to now deal with were overwhelming, but he couldn't get enough of them. Emboldened by his state of arousal, he was determined to make one of the two studs he was watching have their way with him by night's end. He could take anyone right now.

If this were what Hell was like, Frankie couldn't fathom how Heaven could top this. Despite never ever experimenting with himself like this, he was loving every minute of having someone else's foot jerk him off. The stud shark above him clearly wasn't lying when he said that he knew what he was doing. All the hundreds of pounds of demon heft innately added to the heavy force applied to his cock, but the strength gained from that musculature ensured that none of the pressure was about to be let up any time soon. The best part was that none of this hurt, spurring him on even further.

Balthazar didn't remember the last time he got to let loose like this and wagered that he'd probably not get another opportunity to do so in some time. He was wider and thicker than he'd ever been before in his afterlife, even figuring that he was encroaching on the territory of the heaviest and densest of incubi. That's why it was odd to him - and he wasn't about to say this out loud - that he could feel his blackened heart fluttering anew for the first time in eons. He had finally found someone that could let him indulge in the things that he liked for once and didn't have to oblige himself to the whims of someone who had no taste in their sexual desires. Maybe he oughta drop in again sometime.

Frankie was on the verge of orgasm from the impromptu footjob, barely able to hold on. Both hands were now fondling his barrel chest, squeezing for dear life as his cock was getting milked by the sole of the shark's foot. This was what his soul wanted, and he just never realized it before. It wouldn't be long until he'd blow.

Balthazar himself was on the edge, panting up a storm as he'd never stopped masturbating his rock-hard erection. The one hand he was using noticeably wasn't enough to encircle his prick, but he knew that even two hands wouldn't do the job adequately. The force he applied to the hybrid below him was faltering, but he persisted despite nearing release. Just a few more pumps-

"Ahhh!" Hunter cried out loud, fully fingering himself. His swollen orbs had pulled up and unleashed a torrent of doggiebatter all over his shaggy torso. Load after load poured out of his cock, his balls unrelenting in their production. Little did he realize that he just set off a chain reaction in the room.

Balthazar's resistance was next to erode, the godly shark's behemothian chest heaving with every intake of musky air. His eyes closed involuntarily as his floodgates flew wide open, shooting rope after sticky rope directly at the writhing hybrid below him. Despite not being stimulated, his prostate was going haywire from not getting off like this in a very long time. His schlong throbbed with every beat of his heart, causing his loads to pulse to the rhythm.

Lastly, there was Frankie, who had succumbed to the passionate footjob he'd been subjected to for the past several minutes. His dam burst almost immediately after the demon's, shooting his gooey, white seed smack dab against his bulging pecs, mixing with the lava-like strands of jizz coming from the shark above him. The heat wafting off of him was palpable, as was the masculine stench of cum.

Balthazar finally stepped back and took his foot off of the hybrid, his cumbersome musculature moving in sync with his panting breaths. "So," he placed one hand on his hip, "was it really as bad as you were thinking it was going to be?"

Frankie felt completely spent, but still somehow had energy flowing through him. "Your intro was atrocious, but your climax was phenomenal." He had no problem criticizing the demon.

Balthazar looked at the canine in the corner, covered in his own seed. He had to move his entire body as he couldn't just turn his head due to his traps preventing it from moving. "I see someone else enjoyed themselves."

Hunter just chuckled as he laid there in his afterglow, giving a thumbs up.

Balthazar turned back around to face the half-cobra. "You know, I like you Frankie, I really do. You've got a good heart in you deep down, and I think that in another lifetime we could actually be close friends." In spite of the monumental orgasm killing his need to blow again right away, he found himself fondling his overly stuffed pectoral. "You just need to learn to follow through with your promises, although I'm more than happy to be your teacher."

"Wait," Frankie managed to push himself up so that he could see the demon, "are you saying that you'd wanna see me again?"

"Neither confirming nor denying that." Balthazar stated. "But what did you really think of what we just did?"

Frankie wore the dumbest grin on his face. "What did I think? I thought that was the fucking best sex I ever had!" He lazily wiped a hand down his face.

"Good, then my work here is done." Balthazar smirked, a satisfied look on his face. "Actually, since you liked that so much, I think I'll leave you with a parting gift." Like with everything else he's done thus far, he snapped his fingers, intending for something to happen.

Hunter was content with himself; he'd just had the best jerk of his life and thought that he was smoking hot ta boot. It was a high that he was willing to ride for some time, until he realized that the funny feeling had returned to him for a third time. Opening his eyes, he shot straight up into a sitting position and looked down. There he saw that his feet, which were already huge from the growth he underwent previously, were now pulsing even larger. They throbbed to a size not big enough to look ridiculous on him, but huge enough to be easily noticeable, much larger than his hands were. "I don't even think they make shoes this big."

"Don't say that I don't do anything for you." Balthazar winked at the German shepherd. "Well, I should be off." He snapped his fingers and his suit instantly appeared on him, though both he and the clothing looked as pristine as when he arrived. The only difference between then and now was the fact that he was several magnitudes larger than before. "Should you require another deal or are looking for something a bit more... personal," he lowered his shades so that the pair of young men could see his eyes, "then you know how to find me." Fitting his sunglasses back onto the bridge of his nose, he gave one final wave. "Toodles." And with that, he vanished in a cloud of ashy smoke.

"Well, now that's an evening I'll never forget! Right, Frankie?" Hunter looked over to the hybrid, only to see him sitting quietly while staring at his hands. "Uh, Frankie?"

Now that he was post-orgasm, all of Frankie's consciousness was clear and was processing everything that occurred to him at a rapid pace. It was only then that he realized that he was stuck like this and couldn't ever go back to who he was before. He felt like his life was over. "What have I done..."

Seeing his best friend distraught lit a fire in Hunter, who shuffled over to the half-hyena in record time. "Frank, hey, it's gonna be alright. I'm here with you."

"This is it." The corner's of Frankie's eyes began to well up with tears. "This is the end. I'm stuck like this, and I can't go back." His voice cracked as hopelessness shot through him. He buried his head in his hands. "I can't do anything anymore. I ruined my life."

"Hey, no." Hunter cooed, wrapping his now-beefier arms around his lover. "Listen to me, your life isn't over. You still have family that care for you and love you."

"How could anyone love a monster?!" Frankie bolted up to look at his roommate, tears streaming down his face and matting his speckled red fur. "I don't see how anyone could love me when I'm like this."

"Well I love you, Frankie, and I don't care what species you are." Hunter declared. "I love you for you." With that, he grabbed a hold of the hybrid's face and pulled him into a passionate kiss. It was a little bit awkward due to the fangs his friend now sported, but he was determined to make this work. His tongue lashed against the other while his fingers gingerly caressed the half-yeen's chin. He broke it off as he didn't intend for it to be long, but from the look in the other man's eyes he knew it did everything he was hoping it would.

Frankie felt his soul light up, his heartbeat increasing with excitement. "You... actually love me?"

"I'm gonna be honest with you, you could've turned out so much worse than you did." Hunter booped the hybrid's nose. "You look kinda cute the way you are. It's just different, like you got a haircut or a tan or something."

Frankie chuckled, his spirits starting to lift. "I think it's quite a bit different than that."

"Oh, here's a thought." Hunter clasped his hands together. "What if you made another deal with Balthazar to turn us back to normal?"

The thought had actually already occurred to Frankie, but he wasn't certain that it was something he could feasibly pursue. "Something tells me that he's expecting me to do that and has something far worse cooked up."

A bit of solemn silence passed while the two sat there. It took a few moments for Hunter to speak up again. "So how are you gonna explain this to your family then?"

"I... I don't know... I don't have any clue how they would react to seeing me like this. Maybe my parents might come around, but anyone else..." Frankie could feel the tears begin to form again, but that clashed with a sudden adamant persistence filling up his soul. There was a fire in his belly that didn't want him to give up. "But I know that I'm gonna make it work. Someway, somehow, I'm going to turn this around. Maybe something can be worked out to change me back, but maybe that's not possible. All I know is that I can't just sit here and do nothing." It was at that moment that he realized that he'd riled himself up so much that both fists were clenched. As much as he wanted to get his life back on track, he wasn't going to do much at that moment in time. Taking a deep breath to calm himself down, he turned to the dog. "What are you going to do?"

"Oh, well I'd probably have an easier time in that regard. My biggest problem is gonna be finding clothes that fit me." Hunter shrugged his shoulders.

Frankie smirked, only now getting a good look at his roommate. "And something to put on your feet."

"Ugh." Hunter moaned. "I need goddamn clown shoes now." He lifted one of his rippling legs in the air. "Just look at how fucking huge my foot is. I swear that it's bigger than someone's head!"

The words Frankie wanted to use to describe seeing that monster paw got caught in his throat, but luckily his body had other means of communication. His python had slithered to life, becoming rock solid in a matter of seconds as he bit his lip.

Hunter wasn't blind to the half-snake's reaction, noticing the erection spring up instantly. "Wait, you're seriously ready to go again?" He let his leg drop to the floor.

"I can't help it, it's like I have no downtime with this body!" Frankie was flustered at how easily he'd been caught checking out his lover's feet.

The sensation wasn't lost on Hunter, who also perceived a second wind coming upon him. "Come to think of it, I feel like I've got more rounds in me as well."

The fire burned inside Frankie something fierce, the assertive energy he felt before reared its head again. "I need you to do something for me."

Hunter cocked his head. "Like what?"

"I need you to get me off with your feet." Frankie's voice was resolute in tone.

Hunter was taken aback by the odd request. "You mean like what Balthazar did? I don't think I can do that."

"No, you don't have to do that. I just need my dick sandwiched in between those paws of yours." Frankie's cock throbbed at the thought.

"You need it?" Hunter quirked a brow.

"I do." Frankie huffed, his boner not letting up.

Hunter had to shake his head and wonder how he got tied up in all of this. He shuffled along the carpet until he was facing his friend head on. "Um, I've never even thought of doing this before, so I have no idea what I'm doing."

"You don't need to worry about that." Frankie encouraged. "Just do what comes naturally to you."

Hunter shrugged his shoulders. "Here goes." Delicately, he raised a leg towards the hybrid's girthy length just until his toes made contact with the rock-hard flesh. From there, he planted his entire foot down and massaged the shaft, eliciting a moan from its owner.

"That's it." Frankie blissfully sighed, though not before feeling his arms weaken and then give out from the euphoric stimulation. "Fuck yeah, more of that."

Tongue stuck out the side of his mouth, Hunter contoured the arch of his massive foot around the veiny shaft, feeling his roommate's heartbeat with every pulse of blood. He got the tip wedged in the gap between his big and index toes and started to pull down against the glans.

Frankie let out a wheezy chuckle from having his sensitive foreskin stretched slightly further than it was meant to go. It was almost embarrassing how much he enjoyed this despite never thinking about it before. His new body was full of surprises.

Getting into a more comfortable position, Hunter lifted his other leg up to match the one already at work. Now with both feet playing with his friend's meaty dick, he was able to naturally move it along the cockflesh as if he were using his hands. While nowhere near as fuckhuge as the shark had been, his brawny lower half had more than enough strength packed away inside to keep the half-hyena's pleasure train chugging along its tracks.

Frankie was beside himself with perverse delight, feeling the gratification rocket through him and causing various muscles to spasm. He involuntarily braced himself when a particularly big shock hit him, but all his body signaled to him was that it craved more stimulation. Taking his sumptuous arms, he pulled them towards his chest until his hands found purchase on his fat nipples. He gave them a tug, not realizing how much of an admittedly whorish moan would be coaxed out of him. Unlike the dashboard of a car, every twist and turn he gave here only amplified the exhilaration he felt. He wished that he'd done this sooner.

Hunter was starting to get the hang of working a cock with his feet, which wasn't exactly a skill he'd ever think he'd acquire since he couldn't put it on a resume. His gargantuan quads flexed and contracted with every bobbing motion his feet did. It helped him quite a bit that he had a fair bit of muscular padding as he was sitting at an odd angle and not once did his ass feel sore. This was something the pair of them would have to do again in the near future.

Between the podiatric assault on his dong and the playful roughhousing of his nips, Frankie wasn't far from blowing his load. Pre drooled in buckets down his prick, coating much of the canine's behemothian stompers in sticky, translucent goo. Another belch of preseed meant the end was near, which made him redouble his efforts on the upper half of his body. Grunts escaped from gritted teeth as he yanked each nipple in a different direction. This was the horniest he'd ever been, and he wanted nothing more than to just let all that pent up excitement shoot out from his monumental crotch rocket.

Hunter pushed and kneaded that fat pole with a surprising dexterity that he didn't know that he had. He could hear groans coming from the hybrid every time one of his claws gently scraped down the sensitive flesh. Every rub sent out more pre, which in turn slicked his feet up even more until he had that rod entirely lubricated. The one thing he hadn't tried yet was tackling his lover's testosterone factories, which he wasn't sure would do anything. Nevertheless, he shimmied a foot down and massaged along the ballsac, unexpectedly inducing an aroused gasp from the hybrid sprawled on the floor.

Frankie had to bite his lip to keep him from shooting his load then and there, but he knew it was only a matter of time. His hands uncontrollably spasming meant that he lost his grip on his nips, but he was able to continue pleasuring himself by groping his plump pectorals as they flexed. At some point he was well beyond being able to control himself and, with a loud, lustful moan, his balls pulled up and his floodgates opened, geysering white, hot jizz right onto his already cum-covered chest. His cum tanks were productive, absolutely roiling with seed despite getting off once already today. It meant that he'd need to drain himself on a regular basis now if wanted to be able to do anything at all.

The deluge of yeenbatter blasting from the half-cobra's prick cued Hunter to back his feet off, but he kept his eyes glued to the grotesque, yet intriguing, display. The way those pendulous balls emptied themselves captivated him, wishing that he could've been more involved in the process than just using one part of his body. In a way, he felt empty, but he'd felt the same thing not too long ago when he saw the demon work over his friend. How he wished he could've been in the middle of that.

Eventually, Frankie's fire hose of a cock sputtered to a dribble after unloading untold litres onto himself and the floor. It wasn't something either of them had thought of before, but now they had to find the best way to clean up and dispose of all these gallons of semen puddling around them. He wasn't going to worry about that now, however, as he felt that enjoying his post-release ecstasy was far more important.

Hunter saw how blissed out the half-hyena was and smiled. "Was that good for you?"

"That was perfect." Frankie beamed in a gratified tone. "I can't believe that you haven't done that before."

"It probably helps that my feet cover more surface area than the largest of hands that people have out there." Hunter tried to put his paws on the rug to rest his weary leg muscles, but he found that the cum-soaked fabric just slid them forward instead.

"Alright," Frankie wearily pushed himself up until he was in a sitting position, "whatever plans we come up with to sort this whole thing out are, I think they need to wait until we clean this mess up first."

Hunter gulped, not feeling entirely satisfied with himself just yet. His eyes firmly lingered on the semi-flaccid log of hybrid fuckstick nestled in between his roommate's burly legs. He breathed in the masculine musk that had built up over the course of their fun and huffed. "I'm not done yet."

Frankie cocked a brow. "What do you mean?"

A gasp escaped Hunter's mouth. "It's just that... this new body has some urges that I hadn't really felt before. I mean, maybe I have, but they've never been this strong." He blushed a deep scarlet, his embarrassment palpable. "I need that meatlog inside of me."

Frankie was honestly struck by his best friend's bold proposition, but he couldn't help but have his interest piqued. "Yeah, I can definitely help with that."

"I'm glad." Hunter pushed himself forward until he was on his hands and knees, helpful for traversing the seed-slicked carpet. "I've just got this aching need in my soul that has to be filled."

"I know what you're talking about." Frankie caressed the dog's face as it grew nearer, eventually giving him a soft kiss on the lips. "Turn around." He gently commanded.

Hunter's mouth got contorted into a Cheshire-like grin. "Yes sir!" He eagerly twisted his body around, displaying his huge, muscled glutes for the half-yeen.

"Oh my God, I hadn't actually seen your ass since we transformed. It's fucking huge!" Frankie exclaimed, fondling the dimpled globes with gusto.

"Which means that I can dish out anything you give me." Hunter giggled, enticingly waving his rear in the hybrid's face. "You don't have to hold back on me. I can take what you've got."

A wry grin slid onto Frankie's face. "I don't plan to." He stroked his lubed up shaft, which stiffened instantaneously. "Good thing I don't have to start this from scratch." Pressing his prodigious cock against the German shepherd's pucker, he smeared his cum all around the delicate ring of muscle.

Hunter couldn't help but moan despite not even having been penetrated yet. "You tease." He sniggered, his heart rate rising. "Just stick that fucker in me!"

"Can do!" Frankie enthusiastically shoved his fat length into his lover's tailhole, gaping him greater than he ever thought was possible. The slippery surface of his schlong meant that he glided right into the canine's backdoor, going balls deep with little difficulty on his end.

Hunter's arms failed him, giving out the second he got stuffed by the half-snake's sausage. "Guh!" The only things that left his mouth were guttural groans and monosyllabic grunts.

"Hunter, holy shit, dude." Frankie grabbed a hold of the dog's wider hips. "You're so... ajustado!" The act of his pelvis going flush with his friend's ample butt sent sparks through his nervous system.

"I think I know what that means." Hunter chuckled. "Just you wait, it can get a whole lot tighter down there!" He clenched down as hard as he could on the gigantic log in his anal cavity, his asscheeks and legs flexing as hard as they could.

Frankie's brain nearly short-circuited from the intense stimulation that his cock was being subjected to. His grip faltered and he slipped backwards, catching onto his roommate's mammothian quads. "God, man, your thighs are totally fuckhuge. I think they're bigger than most people's waists."

"Thick thighs save lives." Hunter proudly proclaimed. "Now shut up and fuck me."

"With pleasure." Frankie leaned over and redoubled his efforts, his hands reaching down to the dog's barrel chest. His fingers entwined themselves in the sweat-and-cum-matted fur coat that his lover sported, getting slick with both substances. He was able to grab hold of those meaty pectorals and gave them a good squeeze, savouring the pure, manly strength packed into the muscles.

Hunter didn't mind that his torso was getting groped, in fact, he loved it! His body was strong enough to withstand anyone's manhandling, provided they were mortal. Man, if the shark demon could grow his body to that kind of size, there's no telling what someone more inclined to that kind of job would be truly capable of. Maybe this entire experience wasn't so bad after all. He and Frankie had never been closer.

Frankie pumped his cock into the dog's anal cavity with wild abandon. His thrusting had picked up tremendously, all thanks to the pre which continually provided ample lubrication to carry on the act. He repeatedly humped in a steady rhythm, preseed spurting out with every slam of his hips. It would take a while to fully acclimate to his testicles' new level of production.

Hunter couldn't find the strength to push his hands back up, but he didn't mind in the slightest. The way the hybrid's own beefy pecs rubbed along his shaggy, mountainous back felt better than what any afterlife could provide. He could feel his friend's heartbeat through his throbbing cock, the monolithic spire positively drilling deep into him. The way those turgid cum tanks slapped his own like a Newton's cradle sent electrical impulses ripping up his spine. He wasn't going to last much longer at this rate.

Either due to the unctuous nature of the canine's fur or his own inclination to fondle more of the man below him, Frankie's hands moved towards his roommate's fat nipples. Taking each one in a different hand, he gave a gentle squeeze, eliciting a long, low moan from their owner. This compelled him to dial it up and twist harder. That, combined with the raw, rapid jackhammering he was giving the pooch, was his way of communicating that he couldn't hold it in anymore and was about to blow.

The deliberate ministrations Hunter received was pushing further over the edge than he'd ever felt before. All he could do was lay there and take it from the hybrid, but with the way his body was built now it was like he was made for it. His own cock had been spewing forth yet more pre to add to the collection already underneath him. All it was going to take to blow his load was to get his prostate flattened just a few more times like it was a button made solely for pleasure, but with the way that fuckstick inside of him was slowing down, it might just flow right out when he gets filled. Here it cums.

Frankie groaned aloud as his dick pumped for the last time before ejecting an outburst of potent seed right into the bowels of his lover. His cock painted the inside of the German shepherd's cavity like the world's tackiest Jackson Pollock piece, though it'd be one that no one would ever get a good look at. The torrent of jism rushed inside as fast as it was getting shot out, but unfortunately the dog's insides weren't any sort of basin large enough to hold everything that was given and started pouring out onto the carpet below. There was probably a very slim chance that they could salvage it.

Getting stuffed with so much jizz caused a chain reaction within Hunter, his own phallus jettisoning rope after sticky rope of doggiebatter. The rug had become so saturated with cum that his own bounced up and splashed him on the underside of his enormous pectorals. He'd never even tried this with a toy before, so he had no idea how pleasurable it was going to be, but now that he knew what to expect, his body craved more.

Frankie had been reduced to a hot, sweaty mess by the time he'd finished spurting into the other man. After three orgasms he was ready to call it for the day, feeling like his energy level had depleted to a point where taking a break was feasible. Honestly, he'd say that he felt like he ran several marathons at the same time with how much he was trying to catch his breath. The same couldn't be said of the canine, however.

With a big smile on his face, Hunter contentedly panted. He allowed himself to collapse on the potentially ruined carpet, sliding off of the hybrid's dick in the process. He felt complete.

"I'm gonna say it right now, that was the best sex that I've ever had." Frankie crumpled in a heap on top of the dog, completely spent.

Though he'd been thoroughly exhausted from getting plowed by the biggest stud on the planet, Hunter's brain was still as sharp as a whip. "That implies that you've gotten laid before."

"Oh!" Frankie playfully wrapped his delicious arms around the sweaty dog's protruding chest and slid his face beside the other's. "Them's fighting words, mister."

Hunter chuckled and twisted his head as far as it would go to give the half-yeen a quick peck on the cheek. "I kid, I kid."

Frankie could feel his heart swell as he hugged the canine a little tighter. Despite every terrible thing that had happened to him, he felt truly loved. He was traumatized, yes, but his best friend never left his side for a moment. He felt incredibly blessed to have the German shepherd here with him and couldn't have been prouder to be his best friend. It was the sign that he was going to be alright in the end. "I love you, Hunter."

Hunter felt his face grow flush at his lover's private proclamation. Yes, things have changed for him as well, but he'll bounce back with the half-hyena by his side. Maybe one day they'll go back to normal, but for now he was happy to just lie here with the other man for a bit. "I love you too, Frankie."