It’s Spring and finals week is in full swing on campus. The walkways that were usually bustling with Pokémon and filled with chatter were now mostly empty with the atmosphere being a mix between eerie silence and intense concentration. Despite the ominous aura, the sounds of leaves rustling as trees swayed in the cool afternoon breeze broke the silence and seemed to take out some of the edge. On this particular day on the edge of campus, two Pokémon were lounging outside a small café enjoying an afternoon brew together.
What would normally be a busy café was for the most part empty, minus the two ‘mons gazing aimlessly into the clear blue sky. For the odd passerby, they’d be greeted with the sight of a pair of orange and blue jumbo party balloons glistening in the sun’s rays at one of the outdoor tables. It was only upon closer inspection that revealed a Floatzel and Lucario eagerly chatting away with their comically overinflated tails poking out the back of their chairs.
These two Pokémon were of a few that were especially elastic with the ability to stretch their bodies to great lengths and in certain applications inflate themselves like balloons. While the ability to balloon offered few actual benefits aside from making themselves lighter and acting as a space filler, the sensation of expanding offered a unique means of destressing with some good old fashion comical cartoon balloon antics. Having finished their last final exam the day prior, the duo were certainly making the most of their time off while showing off their stretchy prowess.
“Aaaahhhh… Not bad weather ain’t it?” Floatzel commented after slurping up the contents of his drink.
Lucario finished taking a sip of his drink before replying back with a smile, “Best so far this week.”
“You know what that means?!” Floatzel asked eagerly, clearly bubbling up with energy. So much so, that his twin tails started to swell outwards behind him, squeaking as they stretched and ballooned to the size of a chair.
“Oh you want to go there?” Lucario asked back, raising a ‘brow’ and humoring the idea as his own tail started swelling to match one of Floatzel’s tails.
“What do you think?!” Floatzel fired back, grinning as he leaned over the table.
Lucario could only smirk at Floatzel as the area fell quiet and the two exchanged a challenging stare, each with a grin full of anticipation and their overblown tails swaying in the wind…
With both eyes locked on each other, the two ‘mons could feel a growing sensation of pressure building inside them as they each started to swell unconsciously. It was only until a gust of wind blew past that an audible bwooong broke the silence. Snapping out of their staring contest, the two realized how big and floaty the other’s tail(s) were and turned around to see their own bouncing off the backs of their chairs. Not realizing how floaty their tails became, the two burst into laughter trading jokes about how much of a loon the other was. Needless to say, they were enjoying the moment.
“Its summer now! Time to kick back, let loose, and have some fun!” Floatzel said pushing himself back into his chair. In doing so, Floatzel’s chair rotated past its tipping point and fell onto his ballooned tails. They compressed and strreeetttcchhed out under Floatzel’s weight. And with an audible squeaky protest, his tails rebounded pushing Floatzel back into an upright position.
The ‘zel couldn’t help but grin mischievously while Lucario rolled his eyes at the maneuver.
“Very clever you loon. But first, we have to finish returning the rest of these books.” Lucario reminded Floatzel, kicking a couple of backpacks under the table, each looking fit to burst full of books.
Floatzel pouted at the reminder – his tails visibly shrinking back to a more reasonable small-party-balloon size. “You just had to ruin the moment. What’s left to return anyways? We’ve already returned most of the science equipment this morning to the bookstore.” Floatzel asked kicking his feet in the air while taking another sip from his cup.
Deflating his tail as well, Lucario reached under the table and checked each of the bags. “Not much by the looks of it. Just a bunch of books we borrowed from the science library.”
“Oh…… great…” Floatzel commented flatly before visibly sinking into his chair almost looking deflated at the news.
The science library was atop a fairly steep hill and was on the other side of campus (easily a 15 minute hike from the café). Not wanting to think about how tired he was going to be from lugging 30 pounds of books up a hill, Floatzel reached for his drink, only to find he’d already finished it. Lucario could only chuckle as Floatzel sank further into his chair.
“Don’t worry about it. After this, the rest of the week is free leaving plenty of time to plan for Cinderace’s arrival.” Lucario replied reaching for his phone buzzing away with an alert.
“Yeah, I know... It’s been a year since he left for his study abroad program with Shinx. What should we get him as a welcome back gift?” Floatzel asked picking himself back up while Lucario took a sip from his drink, still scrolling through his feed looking for the notification.
Suddenly Lucario’s eyes shot wide open, spitting his drink all over Floatzel. “TODAY?!”
“Hey! What gives?!” Cried out Floatzel now soaking wet.
“Cinderace sent a message! … ‘The train schedule was moved up and it looks like I’ll be back in town sooner than planned. I’ll see you later THIS EVENING!’”
“Wait, from Cinderace?!” Floatzel quickly looked at their bags under the table. “But, we still have to return these books.”
Checking the time from a nearby clock, Lucario reasoned that “if we rush over to the library now we can return the books and still have enough time to get to the train station ahead of Cinderace.”
But before the two could do anything, a growl escaped both their stomachs, followed by a quick chuckle from the two.
Taking the lead, Floatzel grabbed Lucario’s cup, “You run inside and grab us a bite to eat on the way over and I’ll clean the table.
Lucario nodded back and the two attempted to jump out of their seats… only to find their still ballooned tails stretching out like rubber bands before yanking them back into their chairs, clearly too big to squeeze through the small cutout in the chair. A small blush escaped the duo who promptly deflated their tails before splitting up.
While Floatzel scrambled to clean the table and toss away their trash, Lucario rushed inside the café and blindly ordered three of the daily special. After shaking himself dry from an early shower, Floatzel dragged their backpacks to the entrance before swinging what felt like a bag full of bricks onto his back. Grunting under the weight, Floatzel noticed a sign next to the entrance highlighting the daily special. But, before he could read it, Lucario came sprinting out the front door calling “Heads up!” as he tossed a sandwich to Floatzel. With one sandwich in his mouth, Lucario stored the remaining one away in his bag.
“Thanks! I’m guessing that last sandwich is for Cinderace?” Floatzel asked helping Lucario wrestle his bag on.
“Yeah. It’s not much but it’s definitely going to be better than whatever they serve on the train.”
Not wasting any time, the two started jogging their way over to the science library. After a short jog through the central park, the duo paused at the base of the hill leading up to the science library to indulge in their lunch.
Peeling away the plastic covering revealed what appeared like ordinary sandwiches, nothing particularly special or big, but it’d be enough to get them through the day. Digging in, their sandwiches had a nice sweet mustardy taste with a hint of spice kicking in as an aftertaste. After scarfing down the remainder of their lunch, the two let out a mighty burp - earning the two of them a mild blush before exchanging a quick laugh.
With their hands-free, the race was on to get to the library. With security more lax than usual during finals week, the duo used every shortcut they knew of, jumping over bushes, sneaking through closed-off sections of campus, and discretely over rooftops – all in an effort to save some time. As the gradient picked up, Floatzel quickly found himself falling behind his much more athletic friend.
Panting, Floatzel cried out. “Slow down. My legs weren’t built for running like yours!”
“Hah!” Lucario scoffed also breathing heavily. He wasn’t that far ahead but after seeing Floatzel struggling, Lucario backtracked and reached for Floatzel’s bag.
“Here, I’ll carry some of your books to make it easier for you to run.”
“Oh, thanks!" Floatzel managed to say, feeling some of the weight come off his shoulders while trying to catch his breath. “But, remind me why we can’t just inflate and float our way over to the library?”
Lucario, half contemplating the idea, reasoned “Because, running is faster and even if we did balloon enough to lighten the load, the wind is blowing the wrong way so we’d end up back where we started.”
After pulling out the largest books he could find, Lucario zipped up Floatzel’s bag and started back up the hill. Floatzel, shaking his head, took a deep breath and charged after his friend.
After several minutes of heart-pumping and calves-burning climbing, the science library finally came into view. With a final burst of energy, the duo collapsed at the library entrance each gasping for air and creatively cursing the architect for not adding an escalator up the hill. As they each caught their breaths, the insults slowly turned into light chuckles and then full-blown laughter.
“It’s been awhile since we’ve done something like this.” Lucario snarked.
“Y-yeah… Last time Cinderace smoked both of us to the top.”
The two exchanged one last laugh, wiping away the sweat from a full day’s workout, before helping each other to their feet. As Floatzel shook off the dust, an audible growl escaped his stomach.
Lucario, a little surprised at the sound, raised a ‘brow’, “You’re still hungry? It’s only been half an hour since we ate.”
Floatzel staring at his gut was also surprised and simply raised both paws in confusion. “It’s probably just a build-up of gas since I haven’t really inflated very much lately.”
A bead of sweat escaped Lucario as he looked down at his own stomach, feeling a slight pressure grow within him. With all the studying, presentations, and exams recently, he too hadn’t inflated very much. Shaking away his concerns, Lucario handed the books he was carrying back to Floatzel. “Well, at least keep yourself small or else the two of us are going to have a big problem and be late meeting with Cinderace later.”
Remembering the end goal helped focus their minds and the pressure quickly subsided. Not wasting any time, the two raced inside, scanned their IDs, and made their way around the library to return their books to their proper places.
Unbeknownst to Lucario and Floatzel, the train Cinderace was in had just arrived to the station on the other side of town.
As the train slowed to a stop with an audible creak, a blast of air rushed out from underneath before the cabin doors slid open. After dozens of Pokémon exited the train, out came a Cinderace alongside a Shinx. Pausing just outside the train cabin, Shinx took a moment to stretch out while Cinderace rubbed the crust from his eyes.
After the two exchanged a hearty yawn, Shinx looked up to Cinderace and chuckled. “I still can’t believe you fell asleep that fast. You were all excited to get back before we left yet you knocked out right after we found our seats.”
Cinderace chuckled back scratching his head. “That bad huh?” Stretching his arms and hopping around in place to get the blood flowing again, Cinderace asked, “What time is it anyways?”
Shinx turned around scanning the walls until he found a clock. “It’s 4 o’clock.”
“Four o’clock?!” Cinderace cried out, realizing he was back way ahead of schedule. “Oh shoot. Lucario and Floatzel think I’ll be arriving later… Great, now I have no idea where they are.”
Shinx smiled understanding his friend’s conundrum, and chuckled after remembering Floatzel’s infamous balloon antics. “They’re probably still on campus. Last I checked your class finished its exams yesterday so they’re probably just lounging around somewhere on campus.”
“You think so?” Cinderace asked, clearly unsure what to do next.
“I mean probably. I was going to head to the workshop anyways and meet up with some friends.” Shinx replied.
With that, Cinderace crossed his arms with a smile. “Well, I guess that settles it. I’ll head to campus. I can even give you a lift.”
Shinx was quick to reply, “Oh no, you don’t have to. I- aaaAAAHHH.” But before he could finish Cinderace had already picked up Shinx and slung him onto his back.
“Don’t worry about it. Just hang on and give me some directions.” Cinderace grinned back at Shinx who could only roll his eyes realizing there was no way out. After exiting the train station, Cinderace knelt down and took a runner’s starting pose.
“You ready?”
“You do realize campus is 20 miles away?” Shinx asked checking Cinderace’s memory while tightening his grip on Cinderace’s bag.
“Only 20 miles? Sounds like my kind of warm-up.” Cinderace replied, clearly amped up to shake off the cobwebs after months of nonstop paperwork at a desk.
“Of course it is…” Shinx, muttered under his breath conceding to his fate.
And with that, Cinderace bolted off towards campus with Shinx hanging on for dear life.
Back with Floatzel and Lucario, the duo were just about finished returning their books. Lucario was pressing one of the books back into the shelf when a familiar voice caught his attention. Floatzel caught Lucario’s ears perk up and asked out of curiosity. “Hear something?”
“Maybe.” Lucario shut his eyes and concentrated on the surrounding aura. From Floatzel’s perspective, Lucario’s aura sensors raised up and seemed to float in the air as Lucario panned his head from side to side while scanning his surroundings.
After a few moments, Lucario’s aura sensors settled back down and a smile emerged. Checking the time on a nearby clock, Lucario nodded to himself and gestured for Floatzel to follow and keep quiet. Floatzel clearly confused followed closely behind and after passing multiple bookshelves along a small corridor, two voices became audible enough for Floatzel to hear. Floatzel recognized the corridor and the two paused behind a bookshelf next to a table.
The duo peeked through a gap in between several books to see their friends Buizel and Riolu studying together in their favorite study spot. Like Lucario and Floatzel, both Buizel and Riolu were also elastic. Buizel looked completely normal other than the occasional head bobbing indicating fatigue and sleep deprivation while Riolu on the other hand was sporting a particularly shiny and inflated tail that let out a low-toned “bwoong” each time it bounced off a bookshelf or a nearby chair. After dropping off several big books near his side of the table, Riolu also seemed to be especially floaty given he was always holding onto something and needed to press himself into his chair to keep himself grounded.
Riolu had only recently found out he was elastic so he didn’t know very much about his newfound ability or how to control his elasticity. This was most apparent when during a simple stretch, Riolu’s limbs managed to stretch out to the ceiling (nearly three times his height) before snapping back like rubber bands, much to everyone’s surprise.
Lucario and Floatzel immediately recognized the signs and Floatzel smiled nudging Lucario to intervene.
To not startle the two, Lucario knocked on a nearby bookshelf alerting the two of their presence.
“Hey, guys. Studying hard?” Lucario started.
Riolu quickly recognized Lucario and smiled weakly back while trying to hide his bloated tail. “Oh hey! Y-yeah… just one more to go tomorrow. Can’t say we’re both looking forward to it though.”
Floatzel let out a light chuckle. “Yeah. We’ve all been there and you’ll get through it…. Buuut-“ Floatzel said eyeing Riolu’s tail.
Lucario continued, “It looks like you need to let off some gas seeing how light and buoyant you are.”
Riolu was visibly a bit confused. “What do you mean?”
Lucario pulled out a chair took a seat across from Riolu. “When was the last time you… let loose?”
Riolu paused to think then replied, “Not for a couple of weeks with all the presentations and all.”
At that Floatzel facepalmed. “You do realize you’re getting lighter and stretching more easily because your body’s getting ready to release all the gas that’s been building up inside you? If you don’t let off some gas, you could lose control and start inflating to a really big balloon if you’re not careful.” This startled Riolu whose tail immediately started swelling slightly. Lucario was quick to put a paw on Riolu’s head and let out a calming aura pulse. Feeling the pressure build-up in him, Riolu instinctively shut his eyes and grabbed the edges of the table as his fingers, arms, and legs started visibly swelling.
“Just breathe normally and focus on my voice.” Lucario spoke softly trying to keep Riolu calm.
Riolu’s tail squeaked in protest as it swelled against the back of his chair but quickly calmed down and deflated back to it still fairly big but smaller size.
Floatzel smiled reassuringly. “You only unlocked your balloon abilities a while ago so I guess you wouldn’t know everything. But, if you let loose later tonight, you’ll use up enough gas to be distraction-free tomorrow so you can focus on your exam.”
After a deep breath, Riolu looked visibly calmer and Lucario withdrew his paw.
Shaking his head, Riolu forced a reassuring smile. “O-okay. You guys know a lot more about this than I do so I trust you.” At that, Lucario and Floatzel both smiled back and shifted their attention to Buizel who was now fast asleep and starting to drool all over the table.
Floatzel chuckled at the sight muttering, “It’s almost like looking in a mirror.” Lucario exchanged a grin understanding what Floatzel was referring to.
Riolu tilted his head in visible curiosity to which Lucario and Floatzel explained they were in a very similar situation when they were a Buizel and Riolu with the main difference being Floatzel was the one who had issues controlling his inflation and Lucario was the one falling asleep all the time.
Riolu looked over at Buizel and chuckled at the story scratching his head at the resemblance. Turning to Floatzel, Riolu asked if Floatzel had lost control during an exam.
Floatzel shifted his gaze rubbing his arm in embarrassment while Lucario chuckled under his breath, vividly recalling the event unfold. “You’ll be alright as long as you take our advice.”
“It’ll be better for everyone if you do.” Floatzel added.
A nervous laugh escaped Riolu as he pictured a giant blue balloon filling a room and agreed to follow their advice. After a friendly fist bump, Lucario and Floatzel waved the duo off and left them to their studies.
With the sun beginning to approach the horizon, a quick check of a nearby clock revealed they needed to start heading to the train station soon. Moving swiftly, the duo resumed rushing across the library to return their books to their appropriate spots. Having momentarily split up, audible grunting was beginning to come from Floatzel prompting a concerned look from Lucario. Floatzel waved this off and for a minute everything seemed fine. But, as Lucario was pushing one of the last books back into place, he heard a low hissing sound coming from Floatzel’s direction. Rolling his eyes, he quickly ran over to make sure Floatzel didn’t balloon too big and get stuck in between some bookshelves. Luckily for both of them, only Floatzel’s tails had started swelling but they were now the size of two oversized beachballs.
“You okay?” Lucario asked with a hint of worry in his voice.
“Y-yeah… I don’t know what happened. I wasn’t trying to inflate but it just started happening.” Floatzel replied, clearly confused as to what happened.
“U-uh… okay. Well let’s not test our luck and let’s pick up the pace.”
The two nodded and split up again to return the final set of books. After returning several more books, this time, Lucario felt an undeniable pressure build up inside him only to see his tail swelling back into an overinflated party balloon. Floatzel heard Lucario inflating and was quick to rush to his side. The swelling quickly subsided and Lucario managed to deflate his tail but now they both knew something was wrong and the fact that there were two balloon Pokémon slowly growing out of control in a cramped library was definitely worth worrying over.
Luckily, they had finished returning all of the textbooks and just needed to return their library cards at the front desk on the bottom floor. This meant navigating several hallways and descending six floors. The elevator was far too risky so the duo exchanged a nod and scrambled for the emergency stairwell. After descending just a few floors, Floatzel noticed Lucario’s tail was growing again and called out.
But just as Lucario turned around to check his tail, a sharp feeling of pressure overcame Lucario causing him to reach for his chest. Caught off guard, waves of pressure caused his belly to surge outwards, ballooning in between his paws into an orb. Floatzel didn’t have time to reach Lucario before a surge of pressure overcame him as well, swelling out his hips to comical proportions before moving to fill his belly. The swelling started slow, but quickly gained speed with groans, audible hissing, and the noises of rubber sttrrreeeettching filling the stairwell.
The two stumbled for the handrails trying to keep themselves from bouncing down the stairs, grunting in between surges in pressure that caused their sides and bellies to flare outwards. At one point, Floatzel notices his fingers and paws slowly round out and watched helplessly as Lucario also struggled to contain his inflation.
“Why n-now?!” Lucario protested as his cheeks swelled, resisting the growing urge to inflate bigger with each passing inch added to their waistlines. Lucario tried in vain to squeeze his inflating body back into shape, pressing his inflated paws deep into his sides and chest, only to see them rebound and swell even bigger than before. In no time at all, both Floatzel and Lucario had rounded out enough that their bellies were just beginning to touch both handrails on either side of the stairway. As the duo grew even bigger, they also started to feel the weight come off their feet only to be halted by the fact that their ballooned bodies were now squished against both handrails. The duo slowly filled the space around them and formed two blockages leading up and down the stairway.
But, like before, the swelling and their inflation quickly subsided. What remained were two shiny orbs the size of jumbo-sized beach balls straining against the handrails. Lucario and Floatzel were both panting and blushing profusely at the sudden unintended expansion and while undeniably pleasuring, the whole event was only wasting time that they needed to get to the train station. Luckily, no one was around and the doors to the stairwell were all closed (that would have otherwise alerted everyone in the library of two swelling balloons in the stairwell). Not wanting to waste any more time, Lucario and Floatzel fought against their desires to grow even bigger and after a lot of squeezing, uncontained giggling, and a cacophony of squeaks, the two managed to compress themselves back down to a more manageable size.
Lucario got the closest to his normal size, still visibly swollen around the waist with his tail being the most obviously inflated. On the other hand, Floatzel couldn’t quite compress himself back to normal and had to displace a lot of his extra gas to his tails which were now both big enough to block the stairway.
“I can’t deflate any further.” Floatzel protested while concentrating and squeezing his tails. Much to his dismay, the gas-only displaced from his tails to ballooning his belly. He tried squeezing his belly but then the gas displaced and started swelling various parts of his body in a never-ending cycle.
Lucario seeing the conundrum waved Floatzel off. “Never mind that. We’re running out of time, just put what you can’t compress into your tails and watch where you swing those things.” At that, Floatzel let out a nervous chuckle realizing the both of them may be in the same situation as Riolu and that they each needed to be careful with their thoughts and movements or risk losing control again.
They were both still a bit dazed by their rapid inflation, but after a few deep calming breaths, the two exited the stairwell and carefully made their way through the library. Lucario took charge scouting out a clear path for Floatzel who skillfully maneuvered his two buoyant orbs of a tail between others and tight stacks of bookshelves. At one point, Floatzel even had to displace the air from his tails back into his belly to fit through especially tight areas, nearly losing control as he did so. It was only thanks to Lucario’s calming aura that the library was spared an early closure.
Somehow, the duo managed to make it back to the entrance and all that remained was to check in their library cards at the front desk. Lucario being slightly less on edge that Floatzel got in line to sign the two of them out while Floatzel waited anxiously near the exit ready to jump out in case he started blimping. As Lucario waited in the line for the front desk, he was at his furthest from Floatzel. Even from this distance, Lucario could see Floatzel’s belly slowly starting to swell outwards again. Looking down, Lucario noticed he was starting to shake a bit and had to put a paw over his chest as he felt the pressure returning.
The queue advanced slowly and passersby began giving the two balloons extra space. Floatzel’s belly continued swelling adding an inch every minute, now becoming as round as one of his ballooned tails with only the weight of his backpack holding him down. Lucario was also visibly sweating with his fingers each swelling before his eyes. By the time Lucario made it to the front desk, the librarian wasted no time signing them both out, even waiving a signature after seeing how swollen Lucario and Floatzel were getting.
After what felt like an hour, the two mons were cleared and they both bolted (or rather bounced their way) outside to the nearest overhead covering. At least if they started blimping, having a ceiling over their heads would prevent them from floating away.
While the pressure was overwhelming Lucario with his cheeks and paws filled with gas, he managed to keep himself together with the exception of his tail which swelled to the size of a normal Lucario. It wasn’t enough to get airborne but the same couldn’t be said for Floatzel who was now as wide as Lucario was tall. Lucario’s ears perked up as a hissing sound slowly filled the area only to realize it wasn’t coming from him.
Floatzel, now mostly an orb, had reached his limit and before Lucario could reach out to him to try to calm him down, the unknown source of pressure started surging again and Floatzel flinched as his body started stretching out in all directions. Floatzel could only watch as his gut swelled, promptly followed by his fingers, arms, and legs, as inches piled up by the second. Grunting against the pressure, he tried pressing into his ballooning belly, but seeing his paws sink into the expanding balloon accompanied by feeling his sides and tails streetttchhiiinnnggg out only made it harder to concentrate on deflating. At this point, Lucario could only watch Floatzel struggle to contain himself or risk himself also joining in blimping.
As Floatzel struggled, the sound rubber stretching and rubbing against itself filled the area with Floatzel panting and his senses overwhelmed by his own inflation. Lucario was so taken aback by Floatzel’s rapid growth that he tripped backward falling on his ballooned tail. The weight of Lucario’s body squeezing his tail against the ground caused the gas to displace and rapidly swelled his gut and paws. By this point, Lucario found himself bouncing on his own tail while cast in his friend's looming shadow whose belly alone dwarfed over Lucario. As the hissing grew louder and lowered in tone with Floatzel’s voluminous belly, the itch to inflate was beginning to become unbearable as Lucario began shaking trying to keep himself from inflating.
Even with all the stimulations with every bit of his body filling and stretching outwards, Floatzel kept fighting trying to control his inflation. But, as the ground left one ballooned foot and he struggled to stay upright while lightly hopping on the remaining foot, Floatzel felt his strength quickly diminishing.
Luckily for both of them, the hissing slowly subsided again and Floatzel’s growth slowed to a halt.
From an onlooker’s perspective, there were two incredibly ballooned pokemon clearly dazed by their own and each other’s inflation with one’s body distorted by uneven inflation and the other more closely resembling a small weather balloon without a string.
…
The two remained there for a minute, bobbing in the cool breeze trying to collect their thoughts and recover what sense they had left. Lucario stumbled to his inflated feet and took a deep breath before slapping himself as hard as he could with his ballooned paws. Reaching for his blimped tail, Lucario took another deep breath before falling back again onto his tail. Again his rubbery blue tail squeaked in protest and distended outwards in all directions. Clenching his teeth, Lucario couldn’t hide his blushing and a few chuckles escaped him as some of the cool gas inside him displaced and swelled the rest of his body. Lucario grunted and squeezed tighter on his tail reminding himself that he needed to deflate so he and Floatzel could see his friend.
Thinking out loud, Lucario’s tail slowly deflated alongside the rest of his body. A bit of the gas escaped through his mouth and he deflated back to his normal size (albeit still slightly swollen) but not obviously ballooned like before. Looking over to Floatzel, he too was also deflating.
Floatzel’s face was beat red and sweating profusely but he was managing his inflation better than before. After several minutes, Floatzel’s deflation slowed to a stop to the point where he was no longer towering over Lucario but was still big enough to barely have one foot on the ground.
“L-Lucario…” Floatzel stumbled with his words. “I-I can’t d-deflate any more right n-now… I’ll need you to t-tow me to the train station.”
Lucario still collapsed on the ground let out a sigh, clearly exhausted at the very recent highly stressful series of events.
“Sure thing you dork…. But you owe me one!”
After picking himself off the ground and dusting himself off, Lucario reached up to rotate Floatzel in the air to face downwards. Lucario still had to be careful with how he handled and rotated Floatzel since he could still feel how stretchy Floatzel was with his paws lightly sinking into his friend's sides. But, once Floatzel was righted with his back now to the sky and head at eye level, the two exchanged momentary stare while Lucario held Floatzel up like some sort of overblown pool toy.
…
“Snrk…ahahahahahah!” The duo burst into laughter, nearly in tears at how ridiculous the last hour was.
With the sun beginning to set in the background, Lucario turned his back to let Floatzel grab onto his bag and as they began walking in the direction of the train station, their senses slowly recovered. The duo was barely leaving the library when Lucario picked up on a familiar aura nearby. But, before Lucario could figure out where it was coming from, a familiar voice appeared behind the duo. Lucario quickly turned his head to see a Cinderace waving his paw while running towards them.
After dropping his bag and a bit of panting, Cinderace jumped at Lucario and smothered him in a tight hug. “It’s so great to see you again!”
Releasing Lucario from a close embrace, Cinderace chuckled as he turned his attention to the giant orange balloon hanging onto Lucarios backpack. “This is either a really big party balloon for a welcome back party or just Floatzel.”
“I can be both!” Floatzel joked.
Everyone burst out laughing and Cinderace reached in to hug the overinflated Floatzel.
Lucario chuckled nervously before asking, “How’d you find us? We were just about to head over to the train station thinking you were going to arrive later.”
Smirking, Cinderace gestured at Floatzel, “It wasn’t that hard to find a giant orange blimp especially with all the rubber squeaking noises… that and one of Shinx’s friends said they ran into you two earlier near here so I had a hunch.”
Lucario and Floatzel both chuckled as they embraced another group hug.
Floatzel squeaked audibly under a tight squeeze from Cinderace. “How’ve you been you big airhead?”
Cinderace tried to let go of the hug but Floatzel pulled Cinderace back in and began pressing Cinderace into his rubbery chest. Floatzel smirked, “I’ve been swell!” To which Lucario rolled his eyes and Cinderace laughed out loud.
The trio got back up to speed on how they’ve been over the past year and eventually got to the part where Lucario explained he was elastic like Floatzel.
Cinderace was quick to chuckle in disbelief believing Lucario was joking. True, Lucario certainly looked swollen, but he was a far cry from looking like a balloon especially next to Floatzel.
To prove himself, Lucario put a finger in his mouth and blew into it comically while concentrating on the pressure inside him. To Cinderace’s surprise, Lucario’s tail started swelling and his aura sensors fwoomped outwards, each growing big enough to become buoyant and hang upwards from his head.
Cinderace was caught with his mouth open.
“No way...." was all Cinderace could muster.
As if to confirm, Lucario shook his head from side to side causing his aura sensors to bounce off each other and give off a low bwoong sound. Cinderace couldn’t help but laugh at the revelation and with Lucario’s permission even got to squeeze his friend’s tail. Surprised at how stretchy and floaty Lucario’s tail was, Cinderace joked, “To think you were just a regular Lucario a year ago… how things change quickly!”
After another chuckle, Cinderace added with a devious smile, “You know, now that the two of you are balloons, think you can both give me a lift back to my place?”
Floatzel’s ears perked up at this and he chuckled. “Sure! I’m game. I just need to grow to twice this size and we’ll also need Lucario to blimp to the same size… That is if he thinks he can.”
Lucario quickly shot a smirk at Floatzel. “What was that? Last I checked, I’m actually the bigger balloon between the two of us.” To reinforce his point, Lucario’s aura sensors and tail swelled larger, expanding in between Cinderaces paws.
Not to be outdone, Floatzel scoffed at the claim. “Ohohoho… big talk coming from someone who’s still got both his feet on the ground.”
“Oho… Say that again when you're looking up at me!” At that both Lucario and Floatzel started swelling again before turning to Cinderace who was clearly caught off guard.
“What’ll it be Cinderace?” Floatzel started. “You need a lift?” Lucario added.
Cinderace was blushing at the sudden attention. “You guys can really do that?”
Floatzel quickly replied, “Of course we can.”
Lucario added in asking, “So, is that a yes?”
Cinderace now stuttering for words decided to play it safe. “N-No no! It’s fine. I meant it as a joke. I didn’t really think you guys could do it.” Cinderace weakly added “Besides, I just got back so maybe another time?”
At that, Lucario put both paws in a shrug shaking his head while Floatzel’s eyes lit up knowing sometime in the near future he and Lucario were going to get really big. With the sky slowly turning orange as the sun set in the horizon, Cinderace invited Lucario and Floatzel over to his place for the evening to catch up some more, to which the due reluctantly agreed.
As Cinderace reached down to pick his bag off the ground, he overheard Shinx calling in the distance and waving at him. Cinderace smiled and waved back. As he slung his bag over his shoulder, he could see Shinx running after what looked like a Riolu dragging a Buizel. Smiling once more, the group disappeared from view after rounding a building in the distance.
The peace was suddenly interrupted when Cinderace heard a pair of rubber stretching noises growing behind him. Spinning around and searching from side to side, Floatzel and Lucario were nowhere to be seen. It was only when he looked up that he found a much bigger and blimped Floatzel slowly ascending with Lucario dangling beneath while clinging to a ballooned paw.
“It’s not me!” Floatzel cried out straining again against the uninvited inflation.
Cinderace in shock to see Floatzel grow so big so quickly cried out. “IT WAS A JOKE!”
Lucario, who was slowly losing his grip on Floatzel’s rubbery inflated arm, shouted back. “We know! But forget that, just grab us before we get too high!”
A sudden gust of wind sent the expanding Floatzel bouncing off the side of the library wall with an audible boooiing as his body continued streetttchhhiiinnnggg out even wider (no doubt treating those inside the library to a show). It took a second for Cinderace to understand why altitude was significant until he realized both Floatzel and Lucario were visibly swelling larger and faster as they got higher up. Acting quickly, Cinderace sprinted towards the two ballooning pokemon jumping as high as he could on the library wall before jumping again off the wall in the direction of the two balloons, narrowly managing to grab onto Lucario’s tail. As Cinderace squeezed hard on Lucario’s tail, trying to not lose his grip, a squeak escaped the blue jackel before his body started swelling rapidly in all directions, streetttchhhiiinnnggg out even wider than before. And while Lucario tried to resist with what little strength he had left, he caved and his body suddenly fwoooommphed into a giant weather balloon. Lucario’s spontaneous ballooning had also swollen his tail to the point where Cinderace was having trouble holding on. With his remaining free hand, Cinderace grabbed one of Floatzel’s blimped tails as they rose above the tree line.
Looking up, Cinderace noticed a paper was falling out of Lucario’s bag. Before the paper slip could fly away, Cinderace skillfully released Floatzel’s tail, grabbed the slip and scrambled to regain his grip over Floatzel’s tail. After securing his grip, Cinderace managed to make out a few words on what appeared to be a receipt.
“One … day … special... … something …. something …… sandwiches?!”
Cinderace could only raise a brow in confusion. Unbeknownst to him, Floatzel and Lucario had eaten a special delayed inflation sandwich earlier which Lucario had overlooked in his rush to get to the library.
The trio were now so high off the ground Cinderace instinctively pulled the two ballooned tails closer to his chest, squeezing them tighter as he hung on for dear life. This external squeeze promptly caused both Lucario and Floatzel to turn beat red as they lost control of their inflation. Together they moaned out loud causing their rubbery bodies to vibrate slightly as they continued to swell outwards into small blimps.
With the library far below and disappearing beneath fog rolling in, Cinderace cried out “You guys are the worst!”
Floatzel and Lucario were too big to hear Cinderace below them. Even if they could hear, the two balloons were completely overwhelmed by their expansion and lost themselves in sensory overload. While Floatzel and Lucario continued swelling into the now velvet sky with their limbs disappearing into their growing orbed bodies, they couldn’t see or hear Cinderace smiling beneath them chuckling at how ridiculous of a predicament he was in.
“… and that’s what makes you guys the best!” Cinderace thought to himself. With that, Cinderace took one more look around the empty night sky before squeezing his friend’s rubbery overinflated ballooned tails tighter, nuzzling them both as the trio rose higher while filling the night sky with the sounds of rubbery balloons inflating.
...
The End
After some of the feedback from the last story, I definitely wanted to try again at making another story. But, this one's a bit longer. As always constructed feedback is always appreciated (could be about the image or the story. Either way, I hope everyone gets a smile out of this one XD
Buizel, Riolu, Lucario, Floatzel, & Cinderace © Game Freak
P.S. I will be coming back to illustrate some of the scenes from this story
What would normally be a busy café was for the most part empty, minus the two ‘mons gazing aimlessly into the clear blue sky. For the odd passerby, they’d be greeted with the sight of a pair of orange and blue jumbo party balloons glistening in the sun’s rays at one of the outdoor tables. It was only upon closer inspection that revealed a Floatzel and Lucario eagerly chatting away with their comically overinflated tails poking out the back of their chairs.
These two Pokémon were of a few that were especially elastic with the ability to stretch their bodies to great lengths and in certain applications inflate themselves like balloons. While the ability to balloon offered few actual benefits aside from making themselves lighter and acting as a space filler, the sensation of expanding offered a unique means of destressing with some good old fashion comical cartoon balloon antics. Having finished their last final exam the day prior, the duo were certainly making the most of their time off while showing off their stretchy prowess.
“Aaaahhhh… Not bad weather ain’t it?” Floatzel commented after slurping up the contents of his drink.
Lucario finished taking a sip of his drink before replying back with a smile, “Best so far this week.”
“You know what that means?!” Floatzel asked eagerly, clearly bubbling up with energy. So much so, that his twin tails started to swell outwards behind him, squeaking as they stretched and ballooned to the size of a chair.
“Oh you want to go there?” Lucario asked back, raising a ‘brow’ and humoring the idea as his own tail started swelling to match one of Floatzel’s tails.
“What do you think?!” Floatzel fired back, grinning as he leaned over the table.
Lucario could only smirk at Floatzel as the area fell quiet and the two exchanged a challenging stare, each with a grin full of anticipation and their overblown tails swaying in the wind…
With both eyes locked on each other, the two ‘mons could feel a growing sensation of pressure building inside them as they each started to swell unconsciously. It was only until a gust of wind blew past that an audible bwooong broke the silence. Snapping out of their staring contest, the two realized how big and floaty the other’s tail(s) were and turned around to see their own bouncing off the backs of their chairs. Not realizing how floaty their tails became, the two burst into laughter trading jokes about how much of a loon the other was. Needless to say, they were enjoying the moment.
“Its summer now! Time to kick back, let loose, and have some fun!” Floatzel said pushing himself back into his chair. In doing so, Floatzel’s chair rotated past its tipping point and fell onto his ballooned tails. They compressed and strreeetttcchhed out under Floatzel’s weight. And with an audible squeaky protest, his tails rebounded pushing Floatzel back into an upright position.
The ‘zel couldn’t help but grin mischievously while Lucario rolled his eyes at the maneuver.
“Very clever you loon. But first, we have to finish returning the rest of these books.” Lucario reminded Floatzel, kicking a couple of backpacks under the table, each looking fit to burst full of books.
Floatzel pouted at the reminder – his tails visibly shrinking back to a more reasonable small-party-balloon size. “You just had to ruin the moment. What’s left to return anyways? We’ve already returned most of the science equipment this morning to the bookstore.” Floatzel asked kicking his feet in the air while taking another sip from his cup.
Deflating his tail as well, Lucario reached under the table and checked each of the bags. “Not much by the looks of it. Just a bunch of books we borrowed from the science library.”
“Oh…… great…” Floatzel commented flatly before visibly sinking into his chair almost looking deflated at the news.
The science library was atop a fairly steep hill and was on the other side of campus (easily a 15 minute hike from the café). Not wanting to think about how tired he was going to be from lugging 30 pounds of books up a hill, Floatzel reached for his drink, only to find he’d already finished it. Lucario could only chuckle as Floatzel sank further into his chair.
“Don’t worry about it. After this, the rest of the week is free leaving plenty of time to plan for Cinderace’s arrival.” Lucario replied reaching for his phone buzzing away with an alert.
“Yeah, I know... It’s been a year since he left for his study abroad program with Shinx. What should we get him as a welcome back gift?” Floatzel asked picking himself back up while Lucario took a sip from his drink, still scrolling through his feed looking for the notification.
Suddenly Lucario’s eyes shot wide open, spitting his drink all over Floatzel. “TODAY?!”
“Hey! What gives?!” Cried out Floatzel now soaking wet.
“Cinderace sent a message! … ‘The train schedule was moved up and it looks like I’ll be back in town sooner than planned. I’ll see you later THIS EVENING!’”
“Wait, from Cinderace?!” Floatzel quickly looked at their bags under the table. “But, we still have to return these books.”
Checking the time from a nearby clock, Lucario reasoned that “if we rush over to the library now we can return the books and still have enough time to get to the train station ahead of Cinderace.”
But before the two could do anything, a growl escaped both their stomachs, followed by a quick chuckle from the two.
Taking the lead, Floatzel grabbed Lucario’s cup, “You run inside and grab us a bite to eat on the way over and I’ll clean the table.
Lucario nodded back and the two attempted to jump out of their seats… only to find their still ballooned tails stretching out like rubber bands before yanking them back into their chairs, clearly too big to squeeze through the small cutout in the chair. A small blush escaped the duo who promptly deflated their tails before splitting up.
While Floatzel scrambled to clean the table and toss away their trash, Lucario rushed inside the café and blindly ordered three of the daily special. After shaking himself dry from an early shower, Floatzel dragged their backpacks to the entrance before swinging what felt like a bag full of bricks onto his back. Grunting under the weight, Floatzel noticed a sign next to the entrance highlighting the daily special. But, before he could read it, Lucario came sprinting out the front door calling “Heads up!” as he tossed a sandwich to Floatzel. With one sandwich in his mouth, Lucario stored the remaining one away in his bag.
“Thanks! I’m guessing that last sandwich is for Cinderace?” Floatzel asked helping Lucario wrestle his bag on.
“Yeah. It’s not much but it’s definitely going to be better than whatever they serve on the train.”
Not wasting any time, the two started jogging their way over to the science library. After a short jog through the central park, the duo paused at the base of the hill leading up to the science library to indulge in their lunch.
Peeling away the plastic covering revealed what appeared like ordinary sandwiches, nothing particularly special or big, but it’d be enough to get them through the day. Digging in, their sandwiches had a nice sweet mustardy taste with a hint of spice kicking in as an aftertaste. After scarfing down the remainder of their lunch, the two let out a mighty burp - earning the two of them a mild blush before exchanging a quick laugh.
With their hands-free, the race was on to get to the library. With security more lax than usual during finals week, the duo used every shortcut they knew of, jumping over bushes, sneaking through closed-off sections of campus, and discretely over rooftops – all in an effort to save some time. As the gradient picked up, Floatzel quickly found himself falling behind his much more athletic friend.
Panting, Floatzel cried out. “Slow down. My legs weren’t built for running like yours!”
“Hah!” Lucario scoffed also breathing heavily. He wasn’t that far ahead but after seeing Floatzel struggling, Lucario backtracked and reached for Floatzel’s bag.
“Here, I’ll carry some of your books to make it easier for you to run.”
“Oh, thanks!" Floatzel managed to say, feeling some of the weight come off his shoulders while trying to catch his breath. “But, remind me why we can’t just inflate and float our way over to the library?”
Lucario, half contemplating the idea, reasoned “Because, running is faster and even if we did balloon enough to lighten the load, the wind is blowing the wrong way so we’d end up back where we started.”
After pulling out the largest books he could find, Lucario zipped up Floatzel’s bag and started back up the hill. Floatzel, shaking his head, took a deep breath and charged after his friend.
After several minutes of heart-pumping and calves-burning climbing, the science library finally came into view. With a final burst of energy, the duo collapsed at the library entrance each gasping for air and creatively cursing the architect for not adding an escalator up the hill. As they each caught their breaths, the insults slowly turned into light chuckles and then full-blown laughter.
“It’s been awhile since we’ve done something like this.” Lucario snarked.
“Y-yeah… Last time Cinderace smoked both of us to the top.”
The two exchanged one last laugh, wiping away the sweat from a full day’s workout, before helping each other to their feet. As Floatzel shook off the dust, an audible growl escaped his stomach.
Lucario, a little surprised at the sound, raised a ‘brow’, “You’re still hungry? It’s only been half an hour since we ate.”
Floatzel staring at his gut was also surprised and simply raised both paws in confusion. “It’s probably just a build-up of gas since I haven’t really inflated very much lately.”
A bead of sweat escaped Lucario as he looked down at his own stomach, feeling a slight pressure grow within him. With all the studying, presentations, and exams recently, he too hadn’t inflated very much. Shaking away his concerns, Lucario handed the books he was carrying back to Floatzel. “Well, at least keep yourself small or else the two of us are going to have a big problem and be late meeting with Cinderace later.”
Remembering the end goal helped focus their minds and the pressure quickly subsided. Not wasting any time, the two raced inside, scanned their IDs, and made their way around the library to return their books to their proper places.
Unbeknownst to Lucario and Floatzel, the train Cinderace was in had just arrived to the station on the other side of town.
As the train slowed to a stop with an audible creak, a blast of air rushed out from underneath before the cabin doors slid open. After dozens of Pokémon exited the train, out came a Cinderace alongside a Shinx. Pausing just outside the train cabin, Shinx took a moment to stretch out while Cinderace rubbed the crust from his eyes.
After the two exchanged a hearty yawn, Shinx looked up to Cinderace and chuckled. “I still can’t believe you fell asleep that fast. You were all excited to get back before we left yet you knocked out right after we found our seats.”
Cinderace chuckled back scratching his head. “That bad huh?” Stretching his arms and hopping around in place to get the blood flowing again, Cinderace asked, “What time is it anyways?”
Shinx turned around scanning the walls until he found a clock. “It’s 4 o’clock.”
“Four o’clock?!” Cinderace cried out, realizing he was back way ahead of schedule. “Oh shoot. Lucario and Floatzel think I’ll be arriving later… Great, now I have no idea where they are.”
Shinx smiled understanding his friend’s conundrum, and chuckled after remembering Floatzel’s infamous balloon antics. “They’re probably still on campus. Last I checked your class finished its exams yesterday so they’re probably just lounging around somewhere on campus.”
“You think so?” Cinderace asked, clearly unsure what to do next.
“I mean probably. I was going to head to the workshop anyways and meet up with some friends.” Shinx replied.
With that, Cinderace crossed his arms with a smile. “Well, I guess that settles it. I’ll head to campus. I can even give you a lift.”
Shinx was quick to reply, “Oh no, you don’t have to. I- aaaAAAHHH.” But before he could finish Cinderace had already picked up Shinx and slung him onto his back.
“Don’t worry about it. Just hang on and give me some directions.” Cinderace grinned back at Shinx who could only roll his eyes realizing there was no way out. After exiting the train station, Cinderace knelt down and took a runner’s starting pose.
“You ready?”
“You do realize campus is 20 miles away?” Shinx asked checking Cinderace’s memory while tightening his grip on Cinderace’s bag.
“Only 20 miles? Sounds like my kind of warm-up.” Cinderace replied, clearly amped up to shake off the cobwebs after months of nonstop paperwork at a desk.
“Of course it is…” Shinx, muttered under his breath conceding to his fate.
And with that, Cinderace bolted off towards campus with Shinx hanging on for dear life.
Back with Floatzel and Lucario, the duo were just about finished returning their books. Lucario was pressing one of the books back into the shelf when a familiar voice caught his attention. Floatzel caught Lucario’s ears perk up and asked out of curiosity. “Hear something?”
“Maybe.” Lucario shut his eyes and concentrated on the surrounding aura. From Floatzel’s perspective, Lucario’s aura sensors raised up and seemed to float in the air as Lucario panned his head from side to side while scanning his surroundings.
After a few moments, Lucario’s aura sensors settled back down and a smile emerged. Checking the time on a nearby clock, Lucario nodded to himself and gestured for Floatzel to follow and keep quiet. Floatzel clearly confused followed closely behind and after passing multiple bookshelves along a small corridor, two voices became audible enough for Floatzel to hear. Floatzel recognized the corridor and the two paused behind a bookshelf next to a table.
The duo peeked through a gap in between several books to see their friends Buizel and Riolu studying together in their favorite study spot. Like Lucario and Floatzel, both Buizel and Riolu were also elastic. Buizel looked completely normal other than the occasional head bobbing indicating fatigue and sleep deprivation while Riolu on the other hand was sporting a particularly shiny and inflated tail that let out a low-toned “bwoong” each time it bounced off a bookshelf or a nearby chair. After dropping off several big books near his side of the table, Riolu also seemed to be especially floaty given he was always holding onto something and needed to press himself into his chair to keep himself grounded.
Riolu had only recently found out he was elastic so he didn’t know very much about his newfound ability or how to control his elasticity. This was most apparent when during a simple stretch, Riolu’s limbs managed to stretch out to the ceiling (nearly three times his height) before snapping back like rubber bands, much to everyone’s surprise.
Lucario and Floatzel immediately recognized the signs and Floatzel smiled nudging Lucario to intervene.
To not startle the two, Lucario knocked on a nearby bookshelf alerting the two of their presence.
“Hey, guys. Studying hard?” Lucario started.
Riolu quickly recognized Lucario and smiled weakly back while trying to hide his bloated tail. “Oh hey! Y-yeah… just one more to go tomorrow. Can’t say we’re both looking forward to it though.”
Floatzel let out a light chuckle. “Yeah. We’ve all been there and you’ll get through it…. Buuut-“ Floatzel said eyeing Riolu’s tail.
Lucario continued, “It looks like you need to let off some gas seeing how light and buoyant you are.”
Riolu was visibly a bit confused. “What do you mean?”
Lucario pulled out a chair took a seat across from Riolu. “When was the last time you… let loose?”
Riolu paused to think then replied, “Not for a couple of weeks with all the presentations and all.”
At that Floatzel facepalmed. “You do realize you’re getting lighter and stretching more easily because your body’s getting ready to release all the gas that’s been building up inside you? If you don’t let off some gas, you could lose control and start inflating to a really big balloon if you’re not careful.” This startled Riolu whose tail immediately started swelling slightly. Lucario was quick to put a paw on Riolu’s head and let out a calming aura pulse. Feeling the pressure build-up in him, Riolu instinctively shut his eyes and grabbed the edges of the table as his fingers, arms, and legs started visibly swelling.
“Just breathe normally and focus on my voice.” Lucario spoke softly trying to keep Riolu calm.
Riolu’s tail squeaked in protest as it swelled against the back of his chair but quickly calmed down and deflated back to it still fairly big but smaller size.
Floatzel smiled reassuringly. “You only unlocked your balloon abilities a while ago so I guess you wouldn’t know everything. But, if you let loose later tonight, you’ll use up enough gas to be distraction-free tomorrow so you can focus on your exam.”
After a deep breath, Riolu looked visibly calmer and Lucario withdrew his paw.
Shaking his head, Riolu forced a reassuring smile. “O-okay. You guys know a lot more about this than I do so I trust you.” At that, Lucario and Floatzel both smiled back and shifted their attention to Buizel who was now fast asleep and starting to drool all over the table.
Floatzel chuckled at the sight muttering, “It’s almost like looking in a mirror.” Lucario exchanged a grin understanding what Floatzel was referring to.
Riolu tilted his head in visible curiosity to which Lucario and Floatzel explained they were in a very similar situation when they were a Buizel and Riolu with the main difference being Floatzel was the one who had issues controlling his inflation and Lucario was the one falling asleep all the time.
Riolu looked over at Buizel and chuckled at the story scratching his head at the resemblance. Turning to Floatzel, Riolu asked if Floatzel had lost control during an exam.
Floatzel shifted his gaze rubbing his arm in embarrassment while Lucario chuckled under his breath, vividly recalling the event unfold. “You’ll be alright as long as you take our advice.”
“It’ll be better for everyone if you do.” Floatzel added.
A nervous laugh escaped Riolu as he pictured a giant blue balloon filling a room and agreed to follow their advice. After a friendly fist bump, Lucario and Floatzel waved the duo off and left them to their studies.
With the sun beginning to approach the horizon, a quick check of a nearby clock revealed they needed to start heading to the train station soon. Moving swiftly, the duo resumed rushing across the library to return their books to their appropriate spots. Having momentarily split up, audible grunting was beginning to come from Floatzel prompting a concerned look from Lucario. Floatzel waved this off and for a minute everything seemed fine. But, as Lucario was pushing one of the last books back into place, he heard a low hissing sound coming from Floatzel’s direction. Rolling his eyes, he quickly ran over to make sure Floatzel didn’t balloon too big and get stuck in between some bookshelves. Luckily for both of them, only Floatzel’s tails had started swelling but they were now the size of two oversized beachballs.
“You okay?” Lucario asked with a hint of worry in his voice.
“Y-yeah… I don’t know what happened. I wasn’t trying to inflate but it just started happening.” Floatzel replied, clearly confused as to what happened.
“U-uh… okay. Well let’s not test our luck and let’s pick up the pace.”
The two nodded and split up again to return the final set of books. After returning several more books, this time, Lucario felt an undeniable pressure build up inside him only to see his tail swelling back into an overinflated party balloon. Floatzel heard Lucario inflating and was quick to rush to his side. The swelling quickly subsided and Lucario managed to deflate his tail but now they both knew something was wrong and the fact that there were two balloon Pokémon slowly growing out of control in a cramped library was definitely worth worrying over.
Luckily, they had finished returning all of the textbooks and just needed to return their library cards at the front desk on the bottom floor. This meant navigating several hallways and descending six floors. The elevator was far too risky so the duo exchanged a nod and scrambled for the emergency stairwell. After descending just a few floors, Floatzel noticed Lucario’s tail was growing again and called out.
But just as Lucario turned around to check his tail, a sharp feeling of pressure overcame Lucario causing him to reach for his chest. Caught off guard, waves of pressure caused his belly to surge outwards, ballooning in between his paws into an orb. Floatzel didn’t have time to reach Lucario before a surge of pressure overcame him as well, swelling out his hips to comical proportions before moving to fill his belly. The swelling started slow, but quickly gained speed with groans, audible hissing, and the noises of rubber sttrrreeeettching filling the stairwell.
The two stumbled for the handrails trying to keep themselves from bouncing down the stairs, grunting in between surges in pressure that caused their sides and bellies to flare outwards. At one point, Floatzel notices his fingers and paws slowly round out and watched helplessly as Lucario also struggled to contain his inflation.
“Why n-now?!” Lucario protested as his cheeks swelled, resisting the growing urge to inflate bigger with each passing inch added to their waistlines. Lucario tried in vain to squeeze his inflating body back into shape, pressing his inflated paws deep into his sides and chest, only to see them rebound and swell even bigger than before. In no time at all, both Floatzel and Lucario had rounded out enough that their bellies were just beginning to touch both handrails on either side of the stairway. As the duo grew even bigger, they also started to feel the weight come off their feet only to be halted by the fact that their ballooned bodies were now squished against both handrails. The duo slowly filled the space around them and formed two blockages leading up and down the stairway.
But, like before, the swelling and their inflation quickly subsided. What remained were two shiny orbs the size of jumbo-sized beach balls straining against the handrails. Lucario and Floatzel were both panting and blushing profusely at the sudden unintended expansion and while undeniably pleasuring, the whole event was only wasting time that they needed to get to the train station. Luckily, no one was around and the doors to the stairwell were all closed (that would have otherwise alerted everyone in the library of two swelling balloons in the stairwell). Not wanting to waste any more time, Lucario and Floatzel fought against their desires to grow even bigger and after a lot of squeezing, uncontained giggling, and a cacophony of squeaks, the two managed to compress themselves back down to a more manageable size.
Lucario got the closest to his normal size, still visibly swollen around the waist with his tail being the most obviously inflated. On the other hand, Floatzel couldn’t quite compress himself back to normal and had to displace a lot of his extra gas to his tails which were now both big enough to block the stairway.
“I can’t deflate any further.” Floatzel protested while concentrating and squeezing his tails. Much to his dismay, the gas-only displaced from his tails to ballooning his belly. He tried squeezing his belly but then the gas displaced and started swelling various parts of his body in a never-ending cycle.
Lucario seeing the conundrum waved Floatzel off. “Never mind that. We’re running out of time, just put what you can’t compress into your tails and watch where you swing those things.” At that, Floatzel let out a nervous chuckle realizing the both of them may be in the same situation as Riolu and that they each needed to be careful with their thoughts and movements or risk losing control again.
They were both still a bit dazed by their rapid inflation, but after a few deep calming breaths, the two exited the stairwell and carefully made their way through the library. Lucario took charge scouting out a clear path for Floatzel who skillfully maneuvered his two buoyant orbs of a tail between others and tight stacks of bookshelves. At one point, Floatzel even had to displace the air from his tails back into his belly to fit through especially tight areas, nearly losing control as he did so. It was only thanks to Lucario’s calming aura that the library was spared an early closure.
Somehow, the duo managed to make it back to the entrance and all that remained was to check in their library cards at the front desk. Lucario being slightly less on edge that Floatzel got in line to sign the two of them out while Floatzel waited anxiously near the exit ready to jump out in case he started blimping. As Lucario waited in the line for the front desk, he was at his furthest from Floatzel. Even from this distance, Lucario could see Floatzel’s belly slowly starting to swell outwards again. Looking down, Lucario noticed he was starting to shake a bit and had to put a paw over his chest as he felt the pressure returning.
The queue advanced slowly and passersby began giving the two balloons extra space. Floatzel’s belly continued swelling adding an inch every minute, now becoming as round as one of his ballooned tails with only the weight of his backpack holding him down. Lucario was also visibly sweating with his fingers each swelling before his eyes. By the time Lucario made it to the front desk, the librarian wasted no time signing them both out, even waiving a signature after seeing how swollen Lucario and Floatzel were getting.
After what felt like an hour, the two mons were cleared and they both bolted (or rather bounced their way) outside to the nearest overhead covering. At least if they started blimping, having a ceiling over their heads would prevent them from floating away.
While the pressure was overwhelming Lucario with his cheeks and paws filled with gas, he managed to keep himself together with the exception of his tail which swelled to the size of a normal Lucario. It wasn’t enough to get airborne but the same couldn’t be said for Floatzel who was now as wide as Lucario was tall. Lucario’s ears perked up as a hissing sound slowly filled the area only to realize it wasn’t coming from him.
Floatzel, now mostly an orb, had reached his limit and before Lucario could reach out to him to try to calm him down, the unknown source of pressure started surging again and Floatzel flinched as his body started stretching out in all directions. Floatzel could only watch as his gut swelled, promptly followed by his fingers, arms, and legs, as inches piled up by the second. Grunting against the pressure, he tried pressing into his ballooning belly, but seeing his paws sink into the expanding balloon accompanied by feeling his sides and tails streetttchhiiinnnggg out only made it harder to concentrate on deflating. At this point, Lucario could only watch Floatzel struggle to contain himself or risk himself also joining in blimping.
As Floatzel struggled, the sound rubber stretching and rubbing against itself filled the area with Floatzel panting and his senses overwhelmed by his own inflation. Lucario was so taken aback by Floatzel’s rapid growth that he tripped backward falling on his ballooned tail. The weight of Lucario’s body squeezing his tail against the ground caused the gas to displace and rapidly swelled his gut and paws. By this point, Lucario found himself bouncing on his own tail while cast in his friend's looming shadow whose belly alone dwarfed over Lucario. As the hissing grew louder and lowered in tone with Floatzel’s voluminous belly, the itch to inflate was beginning to become unbearable as Lucario began shaking trying to keep himself from inflating.
Even with all the stimulations with every bit of his body filling and stretching outwards, Floatzel kept fighting trying to control his inflation. But, as the ground left one ballooned foot and he struggled to stay upright while lightly hopping on the remaining foot, Floatzel felt his strength quickly diminishing.
Luckily for both of them, the hissing slowly subsided again and Floatzel’s growth slowed to a halt.
From an onlooker’s perspective, there were two incredibly ballooned pokemon clearly dazed by their own and each other’s inflation with one’s body distorted by uneven inflation and the other more closely resembling a small weather balloon without a string.
…
The two remained there for a minute, bobbing in the cool breeze trying to collect their thoughts and recover what sense they had left. Lucario stumbled to his inflated feet and took a deep breath before slapping himself as hard as he could with his ballooned paws. Reaching for his blimped tail, Lucario took another deep breath before falling back again onto his tail. Again his rubbery blue tail squeaked in protest and distended outwards in all directions. Clenching his teeth, Lucario couldn’t hide his blushing and a few chuckles escaped him as some of the cool gas inside him displaced and swelled the rest of his body. Lucario grunted and squeezed tighter on his tail reminding himself that he needed to deflate so he and Floatzel could see his friend.
Thinking out loud, Lucario’s tail slowly deflated alongside the rest of his body. A bit of the gas escaped through his mouth and he deflated back to his normal size (albeit still slightly swollen) but not obviously ballooned like before. Looking over to Floatzel, he too was also deflating.
Floatzel’s face was beat red and sweating profusely but he was managing his inflation better than before. After several minutes, Floatzel’s deflation slowed to a stop to the point where he was no longer towering over Lucario but was still big enough to barely have one foot on the ground.
“L-Lucario…” Floatzel stumbled with his words. “I-I can’t d-deflate any more right n-now… I’ll need you to t-tow me to the train station.”
Lucario still collapsed on the ground let out a sigh, clearly exhausted at the very recent highly stressful series of events.
“Sure thing you dork…. But you owe me one!”
After picking himself off the ground and dusting himself off, Lucario reached up to rotate Floatzel in the air to face downwards. Lucario still had to be careful with how he handled and rotated Floatzel since he could still feel how stretchy Floatzel was with his paws lightly sinking into his friend's sides. But, once Floatzel was righted with his back now to the sky and head at eye level, the two exchanged momentary stare while Lucario held Floatzel up like some sort of overblown pool toy.
…
“Snrk…ahahahahahah!” The duo burst into laughter, nearly in tears at how ridiculous the last hour was.
With the sun beginning to set in the background, Lucario turned his back to let Floatzel grab onto his bag and as they began walking in the direction of the train station, their senses slowly recovered. The duo was barely leaving the library when Lucario picked up on a familiar aura nearby. But, before Lucario could figure out where it was coming from, a familiar voice appeared behind the duo. Lucario quickly turned his head to see a Cinderace waving his paw while running towards them.
After dropping his bag and a bit of panting, Cinderace jumped at Lucario and smothered him in a tight hug. “It’s so great to see you again!”
Releasing Lucario from a close embrace, Cinderace chuckled as he turned his attention to the giant orange balloon hanging onto Lucarios backpack. “This is either a really big party balloon for a welcome back party or just Floatzel.”
“I can be both!” Floatzel joked.
Everyone burst out laughing and Cinderace reached in to hug the overinflated Floatzel.
Lucario chuckled nervously before asking, “How’d you find us? We were just about to head over to the train station thinking you were going to arrive later.”
Smirking, Cinderace gestured at Floatzel, “It wasn’t that hard to find a giant orange blimp especially with all the rubber squeaking noises… that and one of Shinx’s friends said they ran into you two earlier near here so I had a hunch.”
Lucario and Floatzel both chuckled as they embraced another group hug.
Floatzel squeaked audibly under a tight squeeze from Cinderace. “How’ve you been you big airhead?”
Cinderace tried to let go of the hug but Floatzel pulled Cinderace back in and began pressing Cinderace into his rubbery chest. Floatzel smirked, “I’ve been swell!” To which Lucario rolled his eyes and Cinderace laughed out loud.
The trio got back up to speed on how they’ve been over the past year and eventually got to the part where Lucario explained he was elastic like Floatzel.
Cinderace was quick to chuckle in disbelief believing Lucario was joking. True, Lucario certainly looked swollen, but he was a far cry from looking like a balloon especially next to Floatzel.
To prove himself, Lucario put a finger in his mouth and blew into it comically while concentrating on the pressure inside him. To Cinderace’s surprise, Lucario’s tail started swelling and his aura sensors fwoomped outwards, each growing big enough to become buoyant and hang upwards from his head.
Cinderace was caught with his mouth open.
“No way...." was all Cinderace could muster.
As if to confirm, Lucario shook his head from side to side causing his aura sensors to bounce off each other and give off a low bwoong sound. Cinderace couldn’t help but laugh at the revelation and with Lucario’s permission even got to squeeze his friend’s tail. Surprised at how stretchy and floaty Lucario’s tail was, Cinderace joked, “To think you were just a regular Lucario a year ago… how things change quickly!”
After another chuckle, Cinderace added with a devious smile, “You know, now that the two of you are balloons, think you can both give me a lift back to my place?”
Floatzel’s ears perked up at this and he chuckled. “Sure! I’m game. I just need to grow to twice this size and we’ll also need Lucario to blimp to the same size… That is if he thinks he can.”
Lucario quickly shot a smirk at Floatzel. “What was that? Last I checked, I’m actually the bigger balloon between the two of us.” To reinforce his point, Lucario’s aura sensors and tail swelled larger, expanding in between Cinderaces paws.
Not to be outdone, Floatzel scoffed at the claim. “Ohohoho… big talk coming from someone who’s still got both his feet on the ground.”
“Oho… Say that again when you're looking up at me!” At that both Lucario and Floatzel started swelling again before turning to Cinderace who was clearly caught off guard.
“What’ll it be Cinderace?” Floatzel started. “You need a lift?” Lucario added.
Cinderace was blushing at the sudden attention. “You guys can really do that?”
Floatzel quickly replied, “Of course we can.”
Lucario added in asking, “So, is that a yes?”
Cinderace now stuttering for words decided to play it safe. “N-No no! It’s fine. I meant it as a joke. I didn’t really think you guys could do it.” Cinderace weakly added “Besides, I just got back so maybe another time?”
At that, Lucario put both paws in a shrug shaking his head while Floatzel’s eyes lit up knowing sometime in the near future he and Lucario were going to get really big. With the sky slowly turning orange as the sun set in the horizon, Cinderace invited Lucario and Floatzel over to his place for the evening to catch up some more, to which the due reluctantly agreed.
As Cinderace reached down to pick his bag off the ground, he overheard Shinx calling in the distance and waving at him. Cinderace smiled and waved back. As he slung his bag over his shoulder, he could see Shinx running after what looked like a Riolu dragging a Buizel. Smiling once more, the group disappeared from view after rounding a building in the distance.
The peace was suddenly interrupted when Cinderace heard a pair of rubber stretching noises growing behind him. Spinning around and searching from side to side, Floatzel and Lucario were nowhere to be seen. It was only when he looked up that he found a much bigger and blimped Floatzel slowly ascending with Lucario dangling beneath while clinging to a ballooned paw.
“It’s not me!” Floatzel cried out straining again against the uninvited inflation.
Cinderace in shock to see Floatzel grow so big so quickly cried out. “IT WAS A JOKE!”
Lucario, who was slowly losing his grip on Floatzel’s rubbery inflated arm, shouted back. “We know! But forget that, just grab us before we get too high!”
A sudden gust of wind sent the expanding Floatzel bouncing off the side of the library wall with an audible boooiing as his body continued streetttchhhiiinnnggg out even wider (no doubt treating those inside the library to a show). It took a second for Cinderace to understand why altitude was significant until he realized both Floatzel and Lucario were visibly swelling larger and faster as they got higher up. Acting quickly, Cinderace sprinted towards the two ballooning pokemon jumping as high as he could on the library wall before jumping again off the wall in the direction of the two balloons, narrowly managing to grab onto Lucario’s tail. As Cinderace squeezed hard on Lucario’s tail, trying to not lose his grip, a squeak escaped the blue jackel before his body started swelling rapidly in all directions, streetttchhhiiinnnggg out even wider than before. And while Lucario tried to resist with what little strength he had left, he caved and his body suddenly fwoooommphed into a giant weather balloon. Lucario’s spontaneous ballooning had also swollen his tail to the point where Cinderace was having trouble holding on. With his remaining free hand, Cinderace grabbed one of Floatzel’s blimped tails as they rose above the tree line.
Looking up, Cinderace noticed a paper was falling out of Lucario’s bag. Before the paper slip could fly away, Cinderace skillfully released Floatzel’s tail, grabbed the slip and scrambled to regain his grip over Floatzel’s tail. After securing his grip, Cinderace managed to make out a few words on what appeared to be a receipt.
“One … day … special... … something …. something …… sandwiches?!”
Cinderace could only raise a brow in confusion. Unbeknownst to him, Floatzel and Lucario had eaten a special delayed inflation sandwich earlier which Lucario had overlooked in his rush to get to the library.
The trio were now so high off the ground Cinderace instinctively pulled the two ballooned tails closer to his chest, squeezing them tighter as he hung on for dear life. This external squeeze promptly caused both Lucario and Floatzel to turn beat red as they lost control of their inflation. Together they moaned out loud causing their rubbery bodies to vibrate slightly as they continued to swell outwards into small blimps.
With the library far below and disappearing beneath fog rolling in, Cinderace cried out “You guys are the worst!”
Floatzel and Lucario were too big to hear Cinderace below them. Even if they could hear, the two balloons were completely overwhelmed by their expansion and lost themselves in sensory overload. While Floatzel and Lucario continued swelling into the now velvet sky with their limbs disappearing into their growing orbed bodies, they couldn’t see or hear Cinderace smiling beneath them chuckling at how ridiculous of a predicament he was in.
“… and that’s what makes you guys the best!” Cinderace thought to himself. With that, Cinderace took one more look around the empty night sky before squeezing his friend’s rubbery overinflated ballooned tails tighter, nuzzling them both as the trio rose higher while filling the night sky with the sounds of rubbery balloons inflating.
...
The End
After some of the feedback from the last story, I definitely wanted to try again at making another story. But, this one's a bit longer. As always constructed feedback is always appreciated (could be about the image or the story. Either way, I hope everyone gets a smile out of this one XD
Buizel, Riolu, Lucario, Floatzel, & Cinderace © Game Freak
P.S. I will be coming back to illustrate some of the scenes from this story
Category All / All
Species Unspecified / Any
Gender Any
Size 1280 x 1062px
How did this inflation-elastic ability come into existance?
And what do they mean by "let loose"? Like, exhaling?
And what do they mean by "let loose"? Like, exhaling?
Hey is there going to be more butt inflation art of riolu and lucario in the future?
Oh gosh, after reading this, it's no wonder why uncontrollable inflation is so awkward... and also fun!
Thanks a lot for the art and story!
(Also, don't tell anyone, but I may have to, um... borrow some of your elastic ideas for a future commission...)
Thanks a lot for the art and story!
(Also, don't tell anyone, but I may have to, um... borrow some of your elastic ideas for a future commission...)
Being elastic has its quirks... and benefits depending on who you ask xD
The picture is great, but the story is even better!
Damn, I am jealous of this cinderace, I'd definitely snuggle two giant blimps :3
Damn, I am jealous of this cinderace, I'd definitely snuggle two giant blimps :3
Hey Hey! This picture AND story are really good! Like, honestly the story may be the real star here! You put a lot of effort into it and while there are some small things, its honestly pretty darn well written! I would be interested in reading more things of these characters even without the inflation haha
Thanks for the kind words! There'll probably be more world-building stories in the future.
Quite the fun bit of story, lovely puffy time <3 Love these world lore stories and the concepts involved! Slice of life while dealing with being prone to getting carried away is the bessssstt <3 Would totally throw money at you for commissions like this if the chance arose X3
So, it's implied that Lucario wasn't always a balloon? How and when did he become one?
¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Sometimes it's hereditary but other times it's something that just manifests itself at a young age. Though it is known that after a certain age if someone doesn't show signs of being elastic, they certainly aren't. In Lucario's case, he's a really late bloomer and started showing signs just before the age cap.
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