FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Part 3.

Omega is still out there, and I'd be too naïve if I didn't expect at least one of the other metamorphs I've faced to be with her too. What worries me the most though is not the numbers of our enemies but what Omega's plan is. It has been months already since her escape from prison, and the only thing we've heard out of her was that frequency code she sent me at the Boulder incident. I just don't get it; why help us? Had we been caught up in whatever aftermath between the two fighting giants, then Omega would have no metamorph to contest against her. The more I think about it, the less it makes sense. Wish you could tell me you knew what's going on in her head, you always could tell what others were thinking. Sometimes I wish I could understand her better, and then maybe I could help her.

You probably wanna know what happened after Boulder, though, right? No way could we keep things down with the press and populace demanding answers about why two giant eels began to duke it out above one of the country's most important cities. They wanted someone to take responsibility for it, and the furthered investigations combined with the seeping popular rage made it very easy to blame Frannie for all that happened, even if Dexter Hooper, her assistant, had been the one responsible for ruining the demo and wanting to wreck the city. Imagine my surprise when I saw her pop up at the organization one day, dressed in her lab coat and escorted by Dr. Pierre, who was showing her around. Calling me "Madame Richards"... Snrk... you'd have a blast teasing her, heehee. Anyway, Francine LeFleur technically took the blame for the whole incident, but since the authorities were unable to find her and the only one who witnessed her transformation into Galvanika was me, she was declared a victim of the incident as well. I'm sad to see her career go down in flames like that, but damn, I never saw her shed a tear once. Prodigies are weird, you know? They look like you or I, but act completely different.

I'm just glad that she and her uncle got better as fast as they did. The doc had always been part of the organization without me knowing, and having her niece in on his affairs put a very distinct sheen in his thick moustache. They work really hard every day, coming up with training regimes for Shade, Queen and I... and even Galvanika herself to partake in. They've been analyzing our abilities too, and building cool gadgets for us to use. Sometimes I feel like they're our Q, heh. Hell, it was just the other day...

---

"Ah, Madame Richards, there you are. May I have your attention s'il vous plait?" Francine was waving up from her standard 5'2'' height, her backwards light-blue head-fin folding slightly as she tried to get Charlie's attention.

The scorpion metamorph looked down from the ceiling of the break area, a comic-book magazine in her hands. Squatting down against the surface her body was clinging to, her swinging tail was a dead giveaway for those who wanted to find her. Charlie smiled and returned the wave, "Hey Frannie. You come down for an early breakfast? I wanted to beat Kim to the donuts."

Francine smiled and titled her glasses above her serpent-like eyes, accommodating them on the bridge of her snout. "Oh, non. Not in the least. I had some coffee an hour ago."

"An hour ago? It's just about 5 AM. Were you up all night again?" Charlie stood straight and stretched her arms, ridding herself of muscular numbness. She had been reading for at least thirty minutes now.

"I couldn't sleep, not when there is so much to do," Francine gestured downwards, "If it's not much of a bother, could you come down? My articulations will become sore from craning my neck into this position to talk with you for too long."

"Ah, yeah. Sorry about that, habit." After flipping herself off the ceiling and having landed next to the eel scientist, the black haired arachnid folded her arms under her bosom and looked at her team member. "What was it you wanted? Is something up?"

Francine responded with a toothy grin first, flashing her thin rows of numerous fangs, "Oui. I must admit anxiety got the best of me, as I told Uncle Pierre I would show everyone after lunch. I have finished making the adjustments to the Specialized Ultra Nanofiber suits."

"Really? Rock on! Can I see mine?"

"That's why I came to get anyone available," Francine's tail tip was wagging fast behind her white lab coat. Charlie noticed it and grinned, finding the young prodigy to be adorable in spite of her appearance. "Follow me into the lab, Madame Richards."

"Hey, I already told you it's fine to call me Charlie like everyone else does, Frannie."

A soft smile appeared on the shiny black eel as she turned around and strode down the doorway. "You will be impressed with your Specialized Ultra Nanofiber suit, oui. You may remember our talk about chitin synthesis and porous excretion. The electrospinning techniques I've learned allowed me to customize the way the nanofibers react to incoming chitin when you generate your exoskeleton. This lets the fabric survive during synthesis and excretion, and allows it to temporarily meld with the polysaccharide solution without leaving you completely naked!"

If Charlie could've seen her own eyes she would've seen them spinning from dizziness as she followed the excited monologue spewing scientist. "Uh, you had me at completely naked. I mean wait no..."

"Imagine the applications!" interrupted Francine as they turned a corner and continued down the hall to her laboratory, "It's not just on-demand dynamic chemical interfacing, I also worked on implementing a similar solution to Madame Sanders's suit, that it may mimethize when she does. In effect: a complimentary camouflage with the added comfort and protection from the Specialized Ultra Nanofibers! I cannot wait until Madame Sanders sees it, I am sure she abhors relying on nudity in order to fully utilize her unique abilities!" Charlie almost grimaced at the suggestion Kim wouldn't use any opportunity to flash herself, since her scales already did the job of covering her privates. "Ahh! Here we are."

"Mon Dieu," Charlie laughed inside her head, long since lost in the middle of Francine's description. "She's worse than my eighth grade chemistry and biology teachers combined!" Once the automatic doors slid out of the way and Francine and Charlie walked in, the scorpion girl's eyes widened in surprise to the four transparent containers surrounded by complex-looking machinery, each container holding in itself a piece of similar looking apparel. "Oh man, they look so cool!"

"Merci, madame!" giggled the eel as she walked up to her most recent inventions, each of a different color. "The Specialized Ultra Nanofiber suit. Custom-made, form-fitting and comfortable. Combining the latest electrospinning techniques and my own brand of ceramics, with ultra-dense yet light antioxidant metal alloy, enabling the adequate protection of shock-resistance and impermeable fabric like a neoprene wetsuit..." she turned to look at Charlie expectantly. The scorpion was caught off-guard, feeling like this had suddenly turned from a suit design demo to a science class.

"Shiny." Both Charlie and her stinger tip nodded together and fast, as if telling Francine to continue. The eel grinned again and gestured towards the suits with an arm.

"All suits share the same characteristics, but as the name suggests, each one is tailored to the users' particular needs."

"Yeah, Beth's ultra-top-heavy," Charlie snickered as she looked at the third and largest suit. Her bumblebee companion was, after all, on the very tall side at 7ft.

Francine's snout gained color as she became embarrassed by Charlie's comment, and grew silent. Noticing this, the scorpion walked forwards and put an arm behind Francine as a friendly gesture. "Great job, Frannie. I can't wait to try mine on! Which one is it?"

"It's the uhm... the blue one." The eel scientist smiled, feeling a bit coddled by the taller girl, but all the same happy about receiving praise. To someone like Francine, who had always been expected to provide nothing but perfection through her research and development, being complimented and criticized at the same time was something she had not been able to experience yet. "You can try it on right now if you'd like."

"Wait, really?"

"Mmhm, oui. The machinery's still around because I just finished with them actually!"

---

"Man, forget beakers and tubes. Sewing IS your thing, Francine!" An overjoyed Charlie said as she twisted and stretched her body.

"Eheh," Francine nervously laughed, "This isn't sewing per se..." But she couldn't deny her own pride as the scorpion girl tried her Specialized Ultra Nanofiber suit on. The blue material stuck to Charlie like a leotard or wetsuit, hugging her entire body starting at her calves and finishing at her neck, and then going down again to her wrists. As the fabric was thin and form-fitting, it resulted in the more prominent areas of the female's body to stand out. The flare of Charlie's hips and her behind were tightly embraced by the material, a practical hole for her tail placed right above her butt. Her slender legs stood out more thanks to the marking of her womanly thighs at the bottom, whereas soft paddings protected and covered the sight of Charlie's nipples at the top.

"Mmm, really comfortable!" the excited arachnid said while swinging her arms back and forth in a warming-up motion, "Feels warm and cozy too. I bet I could sleep in it!" she giggled, bouncing in place higher and higher until she sprang several feet up onto the ceiling. "Woo! Wall crawling feels great too! Hey, think I could revive Baywatch in this?" she struck a pose while standing horizontally from the wall, winking towards Francine while Charlie stuck her chest out prominently.

Francine shrugged a bit, unfamiliar with what her team mate was talking about, but all the same was very pleased with the initial aspects of her design. "Alright, Madame Richards, it's time to test out its harmonizing function."

"Huh? Oh. You mean my...?"

"Oui! Please engage your exoskeleton." Francine nodded and Charlie nodded back before somersaulting back onto the floor.

"Right. It's not supposed to tear apart like all my other clothes when I make my armor appear," Charlie looked at her suit before brushing some of her hair away, "Alright Frannie. Let's see how good you really are!" Charlie closed her eyes and concentrated. The muscles in her limbs tensed first, followed by her small but noticeable abdominals and laterals, her butt tightening up as she willed her exoskeleton to form all at once. Dark spots started appearing all over the blue suit at once, liquid starting to pour out. The ooze, as if possessed of a life of its own, began to cover Charlie's body in strategic locations. Once enough of the black liquid had covered these spots, the chitin hardened and took shape.

First, Charlie's knees, elbows and shoulders gained paddings to protect her joints. Then, the chitin spread below her waist, encircling her hips like a band of sorts. Her sizable chest was covered over the middle and its bottom by chitin that went around to her back and spread down like a half-top, which also provided the lift and protection to her breasts normal apparel, would. The black substance spread from her waistband and shoulder pads to cover her thighs and upper arms respectively in a thinner film to prevent weighing the extremities down. Finally, Charlie's forearms were both engulfed by large amounts of chitin with each side forming a thick pincer under and above her arms.

Charlie balled her hands into fists within the chitin pincers and opened her black eyes just as her mouth and nose disappeared under a chitin faceguard. Two protrusions on her guarded cheeks that grew into jaws snapped together loudly along with her pincers. "How do I look?"

Francine was ecstatic. Not just from the fact Charlie was comfortable and not just from the perfect match of blue and black. "The nanofiber polysaccharide interface was a success! Excellent!"

"Hey, stop talking geek and tell me I'm pretty," joked the scorpion as she made her cheek jaws and pincers disappear, but one could see Charlie's smile even behind her face-guard. "This is awesome, Frannie."

"Yo! The 90s called," a snarky voice said with a laugh, "They said they want their longass Power Rangers morphing sequence back."

Charlie and Francine blinked and turned to look around but found nobody. The latter closed her eyes and focused for a few moments before softly smiling. Instead of the standard blackness a person sees when they close their eyes, Francine's bioelectrogenesis enabled her to use electric charges in the environment to track and find people. "No sneaking around in my laboratory, s'il vous plait, Madame Sanders."

"Ah! You're no fun, squirt." From one of the wall corners began to materialize a tall, green female reptilian. It was the color-changing chameleon metamorph known as Shade. "But really, Beth's guys were spot on when they told her they saw you two go in here. Heh heh."

"Oh! Is Madame Myers not coming?"

"Yeah, she's just finishing with her breakfast. I had a quick one too. Surprised you didn't have any donuts there, Sting." Kim shrugged as she brushed her luscious mane of chestnut hair behind her.

"Wait, what...?" Charlie froze as her eyes suddenly widened to the size of plates, "Don't tell me you ate my cream-stuffed donuts...!"

"Didn't see your name on 'em, sister. Early bird." Kim shrugged, but an angered Charlie stomped towards her while a concerned Francine deactivated her electro-location ability and watched the ensuing confrontation.

"I'd been waiting all morning for them to arrive, you...!" Suddenly, chameleon and scorpion were both facing off while the taller Kim at 6ft. tall stared down with a sassy smirk. The heavyset chests on both females squishing together were indicative of the dangerous proximity, but Francine was too nervous to say anything.

"Hey, you could lay off a donut or two once a week, don't you think? We have to eat too," Kim laughed before Charlie pulled her down by the neck, but Kim pushed her arm away, "Oh, wanna go at it, bug-butt?"

"You and me, right now, lizard-face!"

"Ahh!" a panicked Francine, who couldn't bear hearing the agitated and silly argument anymore, began to flail her arms in desperation to call for the two girls' attention, "Please no fighting in the laboratory, s'il vous plait!"

But Kim and Charlie, too far gone, were suddenly caught into a senseless brawl on the floor, throwing punches and slaps, snarky comments and less-than-tasteful name-calling. It wasn't until a loud buzzing drowned the room's noise that the fight stopped with both Kim and Charlie being pulled up by their tails by a really tall red-haired amazon. The yellow and black striped metamorph holding the bruised and snarling girls away from each other looked past the regal-looking white chest fluff and let out a sad sigh as the feelers on her head drooped. "Honestly, you two are incorrigible. Can't you behave properly in front of Dr. LeFleur?" Beth reprimanded, her wings stopping as she landed and didn't let go of Kim and Charlie's tails. "Good morning, doctor."

"Muh-merci beaucoup, Madame Myers!" Francine, intimidated by the largely taller female queen bee, bowed slightly, but only received a warm smile from the insect metamorph. "I just didn't know what I could do to stop them once they began."

"I know. They're like little girls, fighting over silly things. Isn't that right?" Beth glared down at her friends. Kim rolled her eyes while Charlie stuck her tongue out at her. Beth sighed and let go of both before walking towards Francine, "After seeing Stinger's SUN suit on, I understand the calibrations were a success?"

"Oui, indeed!" Francine nodded and clapped her claws together, "I was actually going to show you all later today, but since we're all here, why don't we go ahead and change into each of our suits, hmm?"

"Ah, great idea, doctor!" Beth nodded and looked back, "Come on Kimmy. You were excited about what Dr. LeFleur had in store for us, weren't you?"

The chameleon girl sat up and looked back at the three remaining containers. "Huh, not a bad design. Looks like it's gonna be comfy too, especially if it fit bug-butt."

"Yeah, it's really comfortable. I was also asking Frannie if there's any French recipe for fried chameleon." Kim grinned at Charlie, but stopped herself when the chameleon began to strip out of her clothes and casually and nakedly walked over to the SUN suit capsules. Charlie averted her gaze at first, but after reminding herself that it was all girls in the lab, she just bounced herself over to a wall to watch as Beth and Kim changed into their suits. Francine also began to suit up shortly after.

Seeing Kimberly, Bethany and Francine change into the same suit as her made Charlie feel certain warmth in her. She remembered her loneliness months ago, and how the world was always going to be against them and others like them because they were different. But Charlie also knew that while that was true, they also were all in the same boat, and not only that. The giggles and teases from Kim, Beth's big-sister attitude, even Francine's shy and cute demeanor; it felt like she had made a group of very diverse friends. The more she heard them talk about themselves and each other while changing, with casual commentaries and even inane occurrences in the air, Charlie was convinced that there was nothing wrong with them. Physical differences aside, they still had everything that made them human. "If only there was a way to show you this, Lexy. There's no need to force this into everybody. We can just... coexist."

"Charlie?" Beth floated up to her perch.

"Madame Richards are you well?" asked a concerned Francine from below.

"Stop sulking Sting. We were talking about celebrating shorty here's 'cheevo with a group picture! Get down already."

"Right," Charlie smiled and nodded to the group before walking back down to the floor. The four team mates gathered with Charlie and Kim each to the sides of Beth while Francine, the shorter one, stood directly under the queen bumblebee's hefty, orange covered chest. Francine used a remote to point a camera and zoom it into them for the picture. It captured them into a frame with the scorpion, the chameleon, the bee and eel grinning. "We're gonna bring peace to the world," Charlie thought to herself, "I don't know how, or when. But we will do it."

To Be Continued...