Themes for this month's story: size difference, belching, silliness / cuteness
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This story features my buddies  FurryEngineer42,  redblackdragon,  VolkanWolf,  Dragonjo,  Charciko and Charciko's character Kikoli. ^w^



Sini steps to the front gate of Nautica Colosseum, a colossal ring of stone crowned with kelp-like spires and surrounded by great leaping killer whale statues, which lance out of the shining Nautican Sea and whose bases spout founts of water just off the Coast of Nautica. The portcullis of the front gate’s closed until the Annual Belching Competition begins. He turns to face the City of Nautica a hundred yards down the arched bridge in the sea he’s on, waiting for the other competitors to arrive, and he begins to practice his belches. He warms up with the low-frequency ones which rattle your ribcage like a subwoofer and which set the mood for suspenseful scenes in horror flicks, slather flying from the groaning dragon’s devoted grimace, poison gases billowing clump by clump, pump by pump of his tripedal-beat heart into the fresh sea air. The gases gush the way of the sea-breeze until they’ve dispersed into nothingness, leaving behind a fishy, gastric stench. Satisfied, the dragon then harrumphs behind the plum haze exhausted from his snout, shuffling in place before trumpeting out swift, staccato belches of ascending pitch. Every roar of gas rattles not only his gullet, but the bars of the portcullis. By and by a red fox appears, waving at Sini from fifteen yards off. Sini’s burpy harmony comes to a halt (seeing the fox, he barks eagerly and snorts, prancing about), and the fox, named Exo, says:

“Sini! You’re here early! Gosh, couldn’t wait till showtime to show off, could ya? Not that I’m complaining…”

Sini shakes his head kiddingly. “Why are you even here? You know you’re gonna get smoked…. I bet I could out-burp you while asleep, if I held it in too long before hitting the hay.”

“Hey!” says Exo. “You shouldn’t underestimate your adversaries. I’ve been moving myself farther up the food chain, and I’ve got the guts to show. Just one sec…”

So Exo tosses his stomach upwards in quick succession, sloshing the acrid, hazy stew inside. Simultaneously, he spreads his paws which flutter in pulses synced with the swelling of his gut, and he takes a meditative breath which expands his belly and lifts his chin to the sky: it’s a breath almost as long as was his walk across the bridge. Then, with a beastly bracing of the legs, he procures a wet, metallic belch:

“BLEHHHAHHHHHHHHHHHUUAAAAAAARRRRRRCHHH!”

It smells of herbs and onions, and stings. It’s so pungent, it can be tasted, and it tastes how it smells. Sini gags on the sour odor of chives, his throat on fire. He buries his muzzle in his shoulders, stumbling away, and his hindquarters clang against the portcullis.

“Damn, Exo.” Sini’s sputtering up poisonous breaths, laughing between tears. “You belch like a satyr… except satyrs are vegetarian, and I smell some fox in there. You damn cannibal.”

Exo’s no longer mentally available. He wiggles his nose before achieving the same stillness as the killer whale statues, paws rested on the only animate part of him: his burbling middle.

“GwwoooouuuUUURURRRAAAP!” That one throws back his black lips, blasting the atmosphere with an acrid waft. “UuurRRRRLWWRRLLLLLRRAAACK!” “RRrrrRRRooOOOOoOOuuURRCHHH!” The air-shimmering fumes keep coming.

Sini can’t help but look apprehensive. His face-whiskers flop to every burp. The more saturated they become with Exo’s stink, the more they sag down like wet dog-fur. After a couple of minutes, some fish-people (orcas and oiyigs) have gathered at the gate, aweing and clapping for the fox, and so Sini’s trembling with irritation, quite literally now hating the fox’s guts. Exo’s belches get louder and cockier, while the poison dragon’s sulky, vile gas seething from his nostrils. Presently he inhales deeply then retaliates.

Exo and the fish-people backflip off of their feet to a wrathful “BRWWWAALALLOOOOOOOOOOOooOOOORRCCHH!” of virulent violet turbulence. Some go splashing into the ocean, sending up sprays of sea which never reach the bridge’s heights. Others flop down onto a fallen Exo, burying him under a slimy pile.

“Hehehe.” Sini advances on the hill of fish, muzzle smoking like a gun’s. He crooks back his neck over the lot of them, preparing to deliver the finishing blow. Then:

“OOOoUUR —”

“BURRRWWAAAAAAP.”

A blast delivered point-blank range to Sini’s left ear sends the dragon flumping against the guard-rails. Stabbing a legendary sword casually between his feet, the dragon-taur Venio gazes down at Sini and the pile of fish-people, wearing a snide smirk.

“Hey lame-Os. You think you’re pretty hot stuff, eh. Well GET A LOAD OF THIS.”

A glint shines in the taur’s eye before, without warning or reasoning whatsoever, he thrusts his sword directly upward underhand, then gallops forward and grabs a couple of orcas. The orcas produce cries of horror in their odd native language (SONAR, or some shit), then one by one they’re chucked into his eager maw, blubbery feet scissoring desperately, as if they mean to walk themselves out of Venio’s gullet (which doesn’t work out for them, for they instead struggle themselves deeper inside). By now the locales know what’s up (terrified by the voracious sight, the lot of them), but none of them mean to find out what’s down; so they furiously pick themselves up, fumbling back down a couple of times, rushing off of Exo whilst climbing over themselves (which works against their favor, as per ‘crabs in a barrel’ logic). Meanwhile one fat crimson bulge headquarters itself inside of Venio’s upper belly, while its twin fusses its way into the taur’s taur one. Sini and Exo have just lamely gathered to their feet when they hear the taur’s stomachs perform the first notes of a gassy duet, hear the burbles and gurgles and glorps of said duet amplified every second by the digesting seafood.

“AW YEAH.” Venio’s voice gains a few hundred pounds, and his competitors turn a milky white when they see why. As beneath his kneading paws and between his thighs each doughy mound of meal shrivels away with haste (due to his high metabolism), the dragon-taur grows bigger; originally Sini’s size or so, he’s now three feet taller.

Sini and Exo start cursing and fleeing down the bridge. The enlarged taur gallops after them. The last of Venio’s bulges shrink away, and he cannonades the competitors with a series of sweeping, rumbly belches — first with a “BWWRRUUOOOOOOOOOOAP” that sends the two tripping, somersaulting forward and almost losing their retreat pace — secondly a “UUURRWAAAAWRRRCK” that’s closer and knocks them a full-fledged ten yards forward, onto their bellies, and causes the air to shimmer and smell hot and fishy — finally a “BRRAAAAAAARWRWRCHHH” that throws the two poor cadaverous-looking bodies down in front of a little green wolf, who rubs Sini’s shoulder.

“Hey, babe. Looks like you could use a paw from the real best belcher…” The wolf makes a kittenish smile.

Sini initially looks very grateful, but once he hears the emphasized word, he’s freshly unsociable and makes a shooing gesture.

Exo scratches his head. “Volkan, isn’t it?”

The wolf Volkan claps his belly. “Exo? Wait till you see this…”

It’s crucial now to define where all the fish-people reside: either they’ve dunked into the ocean willingly or unwillingly, scrabbled back to the City of Nautica, or dangle from the guard-rails due to Venio’s couple last belches. Volkan spots one of these danglers, an orca who pleads for the wolf’s help as he nears, and then Volkan grabs his blubbery arms, hefting him up with a hidden strength. No gratitude gets the chance to be blurted out; quicker than a dolphin can jump out of the sea and say “Iyiyiyiyiyiyickwrr!” Volkan’s got the orca flailing from his skyward-pointed mouth, the orca comparatively the size and the weight and the filling-ness of a refrigerator, except pretty delicious; and by and by the orca’s going “Uwriwyiwriywiryiywwr!” quite sadly like a dolphin but different, and all his brethren who care for him along the guard-rails are doing the same, filling the atmosphere with ‘SONAR,’ which only vibrates the predator’s body with encouraging energies. That gets the shark-dolphin down his gullet the quicker. When the orca’s tucked into Volkan’s gut, the belly expands into a fluffy white dome and, thanks to the digestive juices inside, wastes no time on starting to shrivel, like a balloon someone punctured someplace.

All of this Venio watches from afar, tapping his toes, clearly unimpressed. Suddenly his sword (the one you have probably forgotten about) falls back down from the sky, point-down, and he catches it with one hand. And the second next he’s already making use of it.

“HrRRRRROOAOAOOOOOAAaAAUUUWWRRRRCKK!”

A twister of vile violet gases is unleashed from the wolf’s maw, catching the dragon-taur unawares. Wide-eyed, Venio double-hand stabs his sword into the bridge, steel screeching as the blade — buffering the blast — scrapes backward along the bridge, along with the taur’s clenched talons. He stays resilient, even when the wolf comes follows up with an “OOOUUUuUUUURRUuuRAAAAAAAAAAaaAAALLLPHHH” of twofold power, a torrent of poison haze blitzing out, fishy saliva misting over everything Venio’s way, the taur himself doubling down on his sword-grip, gritting his teeth. A third belch thrice as powerful as the first assails him then, causing his maw and eyelids to wriggle backward; when that last blast cuts off, sparks fly up from Venio’s blade, and he’s reared up, and staggers his hindquarters into the portcullis.

Landing on all-fours, Venio takes a breather, grimacing. “Are those puny little burps all you’ve got?”

That, of course, prompts Volkan to prove that they’re not, but his fourth belch is parried by Venio’s own “BWWRRUUUORRAAAAAP!” This in turn prompts a gaseous 1v1 between the two belchers whose names start with V. It involves lots of adept timing, like fencing but noisier. Whilst this fiasco is going on, a bright red dragon (bellied with yellow and bodied with a Skittle explosion of blues) strides toward Sini and Exo.

The dragon called Septora steps behind the occupied two, switching his gaze between them. Happiness and insanity carve a smile across his muzzle. One eye’s even tweaking. Septora now throws his head skyward, jaws ripping open, and then his neck flails down, and he swallows Exo’s upper half with a slobbery NOMF. As fight-or-flight is wont to do, it unleashes the most instinctual side of Exo, and so the fox cries like kon kon kon, and his paws slap for dear life against the comatosing dragon’s grin, kon kon kon, and the dragon’s gullet expands, and his jaws gyrate, and his tongue smacks happily against the fox’s body, the fox’s tail vanishing between Septora’s lips, krn krn kr blblbl… and then you can barely hear the fox — can only see his rowdy bulge fighting its way down the stretchy, contorting neck, fighting its way down to Septora’s torso to the gooey, pillowy confines of his gut.

By the time Sini wheels around and sees what’s happened, Septora’s lazily smacking his chops. The skittle dragon picks his teeth, then leans forward, expelling in Sini’s face the most sloppy, most disgusting, most mannerless and monstrous belch.

“BUUUUUUuuuUUUUUuuUUUUUUUUUURRRRRRRRRRRRP.”

The quake of air cuts off the match between Volkan and Venio; Volkan’s thrown into the torso of Venio, who hunkers down and braces against the belchy bombardment with blade sparking along the bridge: this goes quite dandy for the taur, till zooming through the air goes Sini. He smashes into the two, and starts up a snowball of rolling bodies which detonates back into separate entities when it’s battered against the portcullis, all three of them pinned there by the belch. When the burp ends, there’s still the stench of sulfur and charcoal clouding the air, and the slather has stuck them to the iron gate, which is not a problem, as it seems to be losing its adhesiveness, until “BWOoOOOOOOOOUUUURRRRRRRRWWWRRP,” a second mighty belch renews the trio’s sticky subscription, the air boiling with the wretched, smoky gas uncomfortably, the bars of the portcullis making the racket of 100 king ape cages. Once that burp’s over, the slobbery tentacles of the gate release the three of them, and they slop wetly down, groaning and piling atop one another. These three, however, know that once Septora’s on a roll, you can’t quite stop him, so they’re quick to get to their feet and counter with some considerable teamwork, as follows:

Venio, pumping down on his sword hilt: “UwRRROOOOOAOAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHP!”

Volkan, pressing down on his belly: “BrraAAAAAAAAoOOOAAAoOOOOooOOOOORK!”

A gryphon, looking down on the spectacle: “What in the feathery fuck?”

And Sini, face going through great groans and yawns and all sorts of jaw-grinders:
“GWWRRRAAAAAYYYAAAAAAAAOOoOOOOORORRRWWWWWLLLCH!”

Together, the trio create a thunderous whirlwind of belches, which flogs the bridge about and whips the waves of the sea about. And in the barrage of petrifying purple, Septora’s swept up, releasing a crazed, draconic screech, and sent hurtling backwards. He almost crashes into — who’s this? — another red dragon ambling across the bridge. The dragon Charciko greets the incoming Skittle meteor with a lazy “BWRUUOOOACKK!” that voids all of Septora’s velocity, spinning him in midair instead: Septora alights on all-fours with a flourish of wings, letting out a relieved sigh.

“Heya, guys.” Charciko jigs past Septora, grinning toothily, his very presence sobering the tensions. “I guess you decided to start the party eerRRRWwwwrwRRRPPly, then? We heard you prAAAAAooOORRRrrcticing from a mile away.”

The three by the bridge pause, before agreeing and getting themselves more presentable. Septora, for a lack of words, lets out a raucous belch, expelling a cloud of fox fur.

Sini says, “Wait, we?”

Presently a pinkish red brute of a dragon, dragging an engorged gut across the bridge, shoves past Charciko. She huffs — causing her many golden necklaces to spank about — then stares down the three with the mean mug of a pitbull. She shouts, back at Charciko and Seppy:

“Step aside, boys! Watch and learn how a QUEEN comports herself.” Hunkering down on her belly like a tank, the pinkish dragoness tucks back her neck, before slinging it forward for a mortaring “BRRRRWRWRWRWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAOOORRROOOOMMMMP!”

Ripples of obese fat race over her body, her own belch blow-drying her despite it being aimed in the opposite direction. Bones of recent victims missile out of her monstrous maw, disappearing into the bright blur of sonic power; suddenly, a cleanly cut circle’s blown away from the portcullis in the brunt of the belch, and Sini and Volkan and Venio go flopping over one another, speeding at 90 miles per hour through the entrance of the colosseum itself, the structure cracking and crumbling here and there but otherwise resisting Kikoli’s display. The dragoness turns around and smites the two red dragons to the ground with an “URROOOWWPHH” before whipping around and making her leisurely way toward the colosseum. She says:

“Hmph! So that’s the best all of you can do? Show offs! Enough: let’s settle this once and for all.”

Kikoli clambers through the hole of the portcullis, successfully jerking her fat rump out of the hole on the third try. She paces with a heavyweight elegance through the colosseum’s entrance hall. Into the center of the sand-filled colosseum she comes, approaching Sini, Volkan and Venio. They’re rather pissed, which amuses her. However, her entertained look fades away when she hears two sets of footsteps stalking into the colosseum. Everywhere she turns, angry-looking somebodies gather around her, and she’s really quite unsure whether to embrace her momentary stardom or to run. Then she sees bellies swelling, five blimping abdomens.

“O-oh…” She clenches her teeth and curses. She’s smack-dab in the middle of impending destruction.

Beating her wings frantically, she tries to lift her engorged frame out off the colosseum, getting a few feet off the ground —

“BRRRRRRRWWWOWOWOOAOOAAOAOAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRPRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRWWRRRRRURRRRRRRRRRRRRP!”

Sonic booms clap her from every angle. A mountain of sound quakes the colosseum; rounded archways collapse; stadium seats turn to rubble and avalanche downward in stony floods; the kelp-like spires crowning the colosseum crack away, raining down and pelting the ocean; the smell of corroded game and fur and fish and acid and chives washes through the atmosphere; and suddenly, the colosseum’s foundation lurches heavily. Everyone’s swatted down. The colosseum floor is the deck of a quaking, shaking, sinking ship…

Rattle rattle rattle! Rumble rumble rumble!

“Well, fuck,” Sini says, swaying uneasily to his feet. Quakes keep flashing.

Venio sighs, planting his sword in the dirt. “This is the curse of too much taur-power, I’m afraid.”

“Hey! That wasn’t all you!” Sini barks, a vein bulging on his forehead.

Everyone evacuates. The dragons gallop out of the sinking, dissolving stadium and across the bridge, and Volkan rides Sini’s back. The bridge crumbles away behind them like a sweeping tide at pace with the dragons’ shadows. Any leftover fish-people who’d been dangling from the guard-rails fall into their natural blue habitat, so let’s not lose sleep over their safety.

* * *

On the Coast of Nautica, the competitors watch the great sun fall below the magenta horizon line that used to be blocked by Nautica Colosseum. Now there’s only a void. A void of ocean. A void that’s not just physical, but metaphorical: the void of the hearts of these dragons and this one wolf who have no Annual Belching Competition to participate in this year.

It is canceled.

Volkan scrubs his neck. “You know… I think we got a little carried away back there.”

“I shouldn’t have used my full power,” Venio says, regretfully.

“Great power comes with great responsrblbl,” Exo says inside of Septora’s stomach, and everyone stares surprised at Septora’s stomach — especially Septora — but no one comments on it.

Sini says, “You know, you guys are right. We got so feverish, tryna out-burp each other, we went and broke the competition. And where’s the fun and games in it if we’re gonna destroy ourselves over it? You know, I like all you guys, you know? We should just try to have fun, and not… not…” He had more to say, but Volkan on his back belches in his ear, which kind of distracts him.

“Let’s destroy another colosseum next year!” Septora exclaims, a bit too excitedly.

Everyone nods, then shifts uncomfortably. But Sini doesn’t nod, he just sighs a defeated sigh.

Volkan looking over Sini’s back says, “Hey, where’s Charciko and Kikoli?”

“Um… Char went diving for her, I saw,” says Sini. “When we were running out, Kikoli couldn’t keep up with the bridge and kind of just plunked into the ocean. Kinda like an anchor, you know?”

“That makes sense,” Volkan says. “Oh, hey, there’s her and him right now;” he points.

Sure enough, Charciko’s carrying Kikoli on his back, chauffeuring her strenuously ashore. He collapses on the beach under her fat ass, and Kikoli hops off the red taxi, holding up a giant gold cup which reads under a tangle of seaweed, “BEST BELCHER.”

“Behold!” Kikoli cries. “I found this shiny, I found it, so it’s mine. And so is the title.” She sticks her tongue out at everyone. “I win — I win — I win! Bwaha! Losers…”

“Actually, Kikoli, I think you’re disqualified,” Sini says, winking at Volkan.

“WHAT?”

“Yeaaaaah…” Volkan winks. “You’re… you’re disqualified for…”

Sini says, “For ruining the competition.”

Kikoli yells, “Did NOT!”

“Well, let’s have a vote,” Sini says. “Venio? Charciko? Sep? Exo? Did Kikoli ruin the competition?”

“Ruined it,” says Venio.

“Err —” Charciko freezes at Kikoli’s death glare.

While Kikoli’s threatening Charciko, Septora snatches the golden cup out of her paws with his jaws, swallowing it whole.

“Well…” Septora’s belly bulge begins, kindly. “OUCH! Ooh, what’s this?”

Kikoli wheels on Septora, gasping. “That wasn’t yours to eat! Give it back, Skittle-skull!”

Septora looks at Kikoli then belches rudely in her face. She moans, twirls, then faints on the ground. Everyone’s silent for a couple of seconds, then bursts into laughter.

Although there might not have been a “BEST BELCHER” today, it’s clear what the “BEST BELCH” was.

The one that shut Kikoli up.