Story (c) Alden MacManx 2004

One day, near Halloween, Robby was walking in downtown when he spied a costume shop. 'Well, I do need something for the party at school...' he mused as he went in.

Many costumes of all sorts were in boxes and on the racks, designed for all manner of furs. One rack of boxes caught his eye... Body Balloons. They were of all types of costuming, from Sumo fur to Baby fur to Muscle, other species, a whole selection. 'Safe and flexible, super-sized and self-inflating! Magicked to make your fur the proper color!' read the label on the box.

'This is for me!' he thought as he checked the price tag. '$50! Steep, but... I can do it! I want this!' Taking the Sumo fur, he walked up to the counter.

The clerk greeted him politely. "You're the first fur to buy one of these! We just got them in this morning!" the saleswolf said. "Hope you enjoy it!"

"I hope so, too!" Robby said as he got handed his change.

The clerk bagged the box and handed it over. "Let me know how it works, if you come by this way again!" the wolf said with a smile. As Robby left, the wolf thought, 'He's in for a shock...'

Eager to try the suit out, the cat raced home, tail waving behind him as he dashed the last half-mile. Getting home, he remembered his folks were out on a trip up north, and he would have the place to himself till Monday. After a long cool drink, he went to his room to examine the Body Balloon.

Taking it out of the box, he shook it out. It was a long one-piece suit of a shimmery gray fabric, with gathers at the wrists, ankles, neck, and tail. Finding an instruction page, he read it. It told him how to put the suit on, zip it up, and fasten the gathers so little air would leak. There is a sumo loincloth built into the suit, and, once donned, the fabric will take on the coloring of the fur wearing it. Eagerly, he took his clothes off and put on the suit. The fabric felt silky-smooth on his fur as he put it on. The fabric hung in large bags and folds around him as he fastened the gathers on his ankles and tail, then zipped it up and did the wrist fasteners. 'This is so comfortable!' he thought as he pulled the hood over his head.

He looked in the mirror at himself. The gray suit hung off him, hiding the 'loincloth' in its bags. As he looked, the gray started taking on his orange coloring, right down to his tabby patterns! "Wow! That is impressive! Now, to blow it up!" He fumbled for the on-switch at the collarbone, next to the zipper.

There was a faint purring noise, and the costume began to fill out. He watched as the suit billowed out, arms and legs plumping with air. "Oh, this feels so cool! So nice!" he said as he watched 'himself' billow up and out to a very, very, very fat cat indeed!

When he tried to do so, his hands could not touch in front of his belly!

"Ha! Sumo air kitty!" he said as he waddled about. It was hard to move, but not impossible. When he went to go out of his room, his 'belly' rubbed firmly against the door frame. 'Big and fluffy!' he thought.

He barely managed to squeeze down the hall to the living room. "Talk about fat cats! Not many fatter than me!" he laughed.

Sitting on the sofa, he saw that he spread wide on it, legs sprawled out in front of him, and arms resting on his belly. "Wow!"

Robby reveled in his hugeness for a time, eventually struggling to his feet again. "Well, it works. Time to shut it off," he said as he pushed the button.

When he did, a weird tingle passed through him, and he felt awfully bloated inside. He moaned at the discomfort. "Feel funny..." he whispered, then he passed out.

He woke up on the floor, on his back. The first thing he saw was his belly swelling up in front of him. "Gotta get the suit off..." he muttered. He reached for the zipper and found...nothing!

Frantically, he searched for the suit fastenings. When he touched his belly, it felt not like he was wearing the suit, but that he was touching himself! "The suit? What happened?" he said. It felt like he was full of air!

Robby struggled to his feet. Bounding and wobbling to a mirror, he saw he was wearing the loincloth, but it was now snug, and felt it. Of the zipper and buttons and fastenings, there was no sign, just smooth, sleek fur, bulging with air. "I'm huge! So fat, I can hardly fit in the house!" he moaned, then, his belly growled with hunger. "Fooood..." he cried as he waddled to the kitchen, squeezing through the doors.

Hours later, Robby was balanced on a chair, the table littered with food wrappers and containers. The famished teen had eaten EVERYTHING edible in the house! The loincloth had burst off his swelling belly long before. "Stuffed... must sleep..." he mumbled as he stumbled to bed, squeezing up the hall and into his room, then bouncing onto the bed.

When Robby woke, he found that he was just as bloated as before, if not even bigger! Something in him whispered that this wasn't right, but, when he went to dress, all the clothes he found were sized to fit his immense frame. "Why did I dream I was thin? I have been a big balloon kitty since I was two! Have to watch my appetite, though..." he mumbled as he went through his morning routine, squeezing his inflated body through the house. Back at the shop, the wolf looked through his crystal ball. "One down, many more to go!" he said with a chuckle as he watched Robby move his size-90 body through a size-30 house.

Halloween night, Robby and the rest of the PneumoSumo Club gathered for a party. Ten bloated furs, filled for years with air and fat, enjoying wrestling with each other. Other furs liked to watch the huge furs wrestle, and often they gave impromptu matches when two or more met out in the college grounds.

Around 10:30 at night, the ten friends suddenly, spontaneously, decided to go for a walk in the nearby woods.

Slowly, the ponderous furs made their way there, bellies bouncing and shaking with each ponderous step. Robby, along with the others, had vague thoughts of unease as they hiked as to why they were doing this. The weather was clear and crisp, with a brilliant moon low in the eastern sky. The coolness did not bother the bloated furs, not even the three swollen dragons, because the air and fat on their bodies trapped their body heat. 'Why are we going into the woods at night? We had more partying to do!' he thought as he made his slow way, following the swollen frog.

The other members did not speak much on the walk there. The biggest one, an immensely swollen elephant who needed help getting through the doors on campus, led the way, the others bounding their way behind him in the trail he left.

After an hour or so, the ten make their way to a large clearing, where a bonfire was laid, but not yet lit. They arranged themselves in a large circle around the fire pit, three big dragons, Robby the orange tabby, a frog, a horse, a raccoon, an elephant, a wolf, and a coyote, and they waited, wondering what and why they were waiting for.

Then, a strange fur came out of the woods, wearing a long cape and hooded robe, so his features can scarcely be seen. His footpaws, tail, and muzzle revealed him to be some sort of lupine. The stranger walks around the circle, poking and thumping each bloated body in turn.

When he completed his circuit, he walks near to the bonfire pit and, with a single gesture, lights the fire. By the flickering light (which, to Robby's surprise, were blue-green, instead of yellow-orange) the stranger addressed the group of furs.

"You ten are to help me achieve levels of magickal power hitherto undreamed of! Your bodies are full of charged air, which will be offered to Azal, the being of great magickal power, in exchange for gifting me with a fragment of his own power and skill, which will make me the greatest living mage on the planet!

"You will not be harmed, in fact, you will be allowed to reinflate back up and allowed to 'stew', as it is, until you ripen again for harvesting. Once a month, at the full moon, you all will deflate, sending your charged air to me for use! In exchange, I will let you keep your immense forms, and your minds will be blanked, so you cannot go away and leave me. If you do, and you're not drained monthly, well..." the wolf snickered.

Robby, as well as the other PneumoSumos, listened placidly. However, deep in his mind, a voice clamored to be heard. 'What does he mean? What will happen if I don't get deflated? Will I inflate till I bust? Will my appetite go completely out of control? Move, boy, move!' the thought rattled through his skull, but, he still sat placidly, compelled, like the others, to sit and wait.

The wolf then faced the fire and started chanting, casting powders into the blue-green fire, causing flashes of color to appear. Red, yellow, silver, gold and black appeared, as well as glitters of light. Robby watched the fire impassively. The wolf's words were incoherent at first, even to Robby's cat-sharp hearing, but soon became more distinct as the wolf's chanting grew louder.

"Azal, I implore thee to appear! Thy gifts I have brought to please you! Azal, come forth! EKO, EKO, AZAL!!!!!!" chanted the wolf.

Part of Robby's mind was surprised as the fire blazed bright, shifting in all colors. Out of the colors and light condensed a form... a bird. A bird that Robby could have had perch on his huge belly with room to spare. A bird whose plumage was black, but sparkled with all colors, even some that he could not adequately describe.

"You summoned me, Willard? Have you the offerings? Have you fulfilled the contract?" the bird spoke, in a loud booming voice.

"I have, O mighty Azal! Ten fat furs, blown up by magic, producing the magic air you crave!" replied the wolf.

"So I see..." the bird chirped, then flew to the fur on Robby's left, a blue and green dragon. It pecked at the dragon's belly, and the dragon... deflated with a faint whistling noise, shrinking down to a slender dracoform. The dragon just smiled blissfully as he shrank, and the small bird grew larger!

Azal went around the circle, poking the inflated furs with its beak and absorbing the air inside them, reducing them to deflated sizes, while the bird grew larger, and larger, and LARGER! As the bird grew, the sparkles on the plumage grew brighter in intensity.

When Azal made it to Robby, the bird stood, on its claws, almost twice as high as Robby was tall! It pecked at Robby's belly, deflating the cat. He felt at peace as he shrank, feeling warm and happy. Then, a thought entered his head.

'You didn't volunteer for this. All you wanted was a costume.I can reinflate you if you wish, or restore you to your

normal slender form, resetting things as they were before you met Willard. What would you desire?' Robby 'heard'.

Robby thought both of his life as a PneumoSumo, and of his life before, which he had 'forgotten' once he was inflated. What came as a bit of a surprise to him was that, despite the difficulties he had in being hugely bloated, he actually liked it more than his slender self. Before he could reply, Azal 'spoke' again.

'The others all feel the same way. I will restore your bloat, without the compulsions Willard put on you. You be happy,

little one.' A wave of well-being surged through Robby.

The giant Azal walked back to the fire, stepping into it without being harmed. "I have given you what you desired, Azal! Now, give me what is mine!" Willard shouted.

"I will. A piece of my power is now yours..." was Azal's reply. A gray spark leaped from Azal's wing to Willard.

Willard sighed as power flooded through him. Then, a funny feeling surged through the wolf's body. He glanced down, and Willard saw he was inflating! Rapidly, the wolf blew up and up, getting taller and fatter, the robe bursting off his ballooning body.

"Azal! What are you doing?" Willard shouted as he ballooned, growing bigger by the second.

"Mere mortals cannot hold much of my power in their small shells, so, they must enlarge to contain it all. You will get all the power you ever desired, Willard." was the reply.

"But I'm getting immense! So inflated, I can't move! Help me! I can't cast spells while immobile! Make it stop!" the

ballooning wolf cried, rounding into a huge ball, puffy paws dimpling his spherical surface.

"I'm giving you what you demanded, Willard. It's not my fault if you didn't read the fine print..." Azal said with a snicker

as the wolf stopped growing and hovered in the air, a twenty-foot ball of inflated fur, so swollen, he can barely yip words. "You have your power. Too bad you didn't learn the spells to control it adequately now, is it?" he continued, poking at the bloated wolf with his beak, bumping him around some. The wolf did not deflate, nor did he speak.

Azal then flapped his wings, and all ten furs reinflated back to the sizes they were before arriving. "Be happy with your lives, little ones, and go with my gratitude. May you always be happy with yourselves, and go in peace. Live large, fellows!" he cawed, then vanished, taking Willard with him.

The furs looked at each other across the firepit, the fire going out when Azal vanished. "You know, I really LIKE being this big!" said the elephant.

"So do I!" said the raccoon. "I was pudgy before, but, being this size feels great!"

"I agree!" Robby said. "I was skinny, now I'm huge! I have more fun being big than I did being small, despite the difficulties."

"Enough talking! We got partying to do!" shouted the horse.

To a group cheer, the swollen furs made their way back to the dorms, and a life of being PneumoSumos.