- Consolation Prize - {F/INF/SOLO/DARK/PERMAPOP}

By Sockpuppetofsins

They didn't usually allow permablimps to compete in events. Too many additional factors, too
many complications surrounding potentially invalidated traps, too many questions about fair play
regarding timing and the size of doors.

However, they'd made an exception for Arris, and as she padded down the sterile looking halls
of the labyrinth she didn't really care why. She was happy with the thrill of the challenge, and the
potential payout sitting just beyond the exit if all went well. The pear shaped skunk blimp had done her
homework before they'd squeezed her green furred monobutt into a jumpsuit, watching old runs by
both successful and (explosively) unsuccessful contestants, and now so armed with knowledge was
determined to win. For example, she'd learned that while the labyrinth was modular to an extent, some
features never moved; features such as the decompression chamber trap with its tantalizing key, likely
because the trap's bulk and need for reinforced walls made it impractical to move. May of the
labyrinth's other ambushes and hazards had been revealed to her as well, from slime pits and berry gas
sprays to the insidious little syringe spiderbots and the low frequency harmonic resonator room.

Two of the three keys she needed for the exit door were hers now, and she just needed to find an
accessible third to secure her win. The rotund contestant was having a little trouble with that though,
most of the rooms accessible to her from the white tiled halls were traps either too risky to brave or
simply beyond her physical ability to complete. Being a literal gas-filled blimp meant anything
involving sharp objects was more or less an instant nope, as were obstacles that required a narrower
frame to negotiate – she was simply to wide for things like pipe maze, despite their lower danger level.

Despite her careful play style, Arris was in more danger than she knew. While plenty of time
remained on the clock for her run, one of the later stage obstacles had already been unleashed – the
drone. It wasn't much to look at, consisting of a heavy octagonal central body bearing thermal cameras
and sensors on each of its facings, which was held up by four squat legs that terminated in
omnidirectional rollers that gave it surprising mobility. Finished in the same sterile white as the
labyrinth's walls, it looked more like a prop or piece of furniture than a hazard, but a hazard it was
nevertheless. Once set free it would roam the corridors until it found the contestant, at which point it
would follow them, slowly closing in until it was with range to attack. Equipped with smart matter
hoses, it could hook up to any orifice of opportunity, defying attempts to dislodge it while bringing its
powerful compressor or tanks into play. Then it was usually just a matter of time, the drone would keep
pace with its victim while blowing them up bigger and bigger, until they became immobile and
inevitably burst. Only those who were quick on their feet, fast thinkers, or obscenely lucky managed to
escape once caught by it, and even then a second encounter was often all it would take to seal their fate
with a bang.

Arris had of course seen it in action during her studies, but she was oblivious to the machine's
presence as it slowly crept along behind her, quietly stalking closer and closer as she ambled along. The
sounds of the labyrinth's ventilation easily drowned out the low whir of the drone's battery operated
systems, Arris' own echoing footsteps adding to the audio camouflage for the machine. Arriving at a T
junction, she paused to review her mental map, and in that moment the drone struck.

Drawing to within a mere twenty feet of her, the droned released one of its hoses, the tube
slithering along the floor towards Arris like a malicious serpent. Closing the distance rapidly, it reared
up and lunged for her, finding the gap in the back of the jumpsuit for the permablimp skunk's fluffy tail
and sliding in through it. The rotund blimp woman yelped in surprise and spun around at the sensation
of the hose writhing against her body, her gaze immediately falling on the unmoving drone and the
length of writhing hose on the ground trailing towards her. Before she could try and scramble to safety
she felt the unwelcome sensation of the smart matter prodding her rump experimentally, then forcing
itself into her, the end of the hose thickening and expanding to form a locking plug that wouldn't be
easily dislodged. Arris couldn't even reach it to try; she was naturally too round and bulky for it, the
reach of her puffy arms only extending to about her waist. Confident of the connection, the drone rolled
closer, spooling up the excess hose as it began to pump, Arris' eyes going wide as she watched the hose
thickening and detected the unmistakable sensation of gas flowing into her.

She was blowing up.

“Fuck.” Swore the blimp. “God fucking dammit.” She'd thought that this would be a clean run,
but she had the damned robot dig-dugging her ass and she was still a key short. Despite her plush
balloon-like body now inflating bigger and bigger, she was more annoyed than worried. She had
capacity to spare and even if she couldn't reach the hose she'd seen how other players had dislodged it
before – she just had to find the right set up to get the hose out and then keep that bucket of bolts from
jamming it back in and giving her the Hindenburg treatment. Setting her ballooning body in motion she
hung a left, eyes peeled for what she'd need to peel off her obtrusive inflator.

I just need one more key, I'm not going to pop this close to the goal because of some glorified
bike pump with legs!

She beat feet as quickly as she could down the corridor, moving at halfway between a run and
waddle, the impact of every step reverberating through her as she grimly noted there was more of her to
reverberate each time. Her jumpsuit had felt tight to begin with, and now between her exertions and
extra filling it was growing tighter, giving her a preview of how she'd be feeling if she didn't nip this in
the bud. The hissing of the gas being pumped in through her ass was almost a roar in her ears, the
unsubtle crackling and popping of stitch work an unpleasant background noise on top of it. In her haste
she almost stepped on the pressure plate for a dart trap, deftly skirting around it at the last second and
panting a sigh of relief that she wouldn't be reduced to confetti just yet; the drone for its part simply
rolled over the plate, the sound of pointed projectiles bouncing off its armoured case ringing out behind
her as it doggedly followed along, inflating her all the while.

“Just fuck off already!” She snarled at the slightly dented machine, silently lamenting that none
of the darts had severed the hose for her. Simply puncturing it wouldn't do, the smart matter could
squish, squeeze, and contract to seal a breach, but a full on dismemberment would disrupt the
microcurrents that made it move and prevent it from reattaching without outside help. Arris simply
hadn't been that lucky, there'd been no change in the flow of gas and the drone was still an easy ten feet
behind her – and slowly getting closer as her circumference grew.

“C'mon, C'MON! Where the hell is it?” Arris grumbled, frantically peering down side passages.
What had first be irritation, if not fury, was starting to congeal into worry with a hint of panic, her pace
was slowing and her jumpsuit was ready to explode, and if she didn't find what she needed she'd
explode too. On her left yawned a heavy hatch like door, one that could undoubtedly snip the offending
hose in her rear like a pair of heavy steel scissors, yet Arris dared not do so; the room on the other side
was the decompression chamber, and once the door was closed the room would automatically
depressurize. That was enough to condemn any normal player to a messy pop, and as an air filled
balloon animal the only thing Arris would do differently in that situation was reach a bigger maximum
size before redecorating the room with her pieces. No, the door wouldn't help her, she was looking for
something else.

Oh man, this is bad... I'm getting so fucking BIG... if I don't figure out something quick I'm
gonna blow!

Then at the corner of the hall ahead of her she saw it, the object of her obsession. It wasn't
anything fancy, in fact it was quite mundane, little more than a large steel post helping to hold up the
labyrinth roof, but to Arris it was salvation. She raced towards it as fast as she could, the zipper of her
jumpsuit blowing open and the arm and thigh seams giving way as she half stumbled towards the
towering chunk of metal. In one of the old tapes she reviewed she'd seen a ceiling post used to lose the
drone after being plugged by it, coiling the hose around the post until it was wrapped snugly and using
the tension and friction to pull it out and make an escape. Sure the bot had a second hose, but if she got
away quickly it wouldn't be able to reach her to jam it in, and from what she'd seen the machine wasn't
smart enough properly untangle itself to pursue. It was her only chance – the only other way out was to
make it to the exit door and squeeze through, relying on the heavy shutter to snip the line when it
closed, but Arris couldn't pull that off with only two of the three keys she needed.

The post would have to do.

Grabbing at it with pudgy paws to steady herself, she awkwardly started to circle around it, her
jumpsuit finally blowing apart in a rain of fabric scraps as her body billowed outwards, leaving her
precious few inches of clearance to make her way around the post. Despite feeling the growing tension
on the hose, her mind was aflame with a vision of what would happen if it went wrong; a helpless
green skunk blimp wedged between the post and the wall, her paws flapping uselessly as the robot
pumped her up bigger, and bigger, and bigger until... *pop*. She made her way around the metal
beam three times, four times, five times, before trying to pull away, feeling the plug straining in her
guts, and just like that the tension vanished, letting her stagger forward to freedom.

Or what should have been freedom.

The hose was still in her rump, the hissing of the gas still ringing in her ears, and as she
laboriously turned about she could see why. The drone had spooled out extra hose to let her make her
orbits of the post, then added even more length the loosen her loops before following in her footsteps to
unwind itself from her attempted entanglement. Nothing she'd seen had ever indicated it was smart
enough to do that, and yet it had; clearly it had been updated since that last time this trick was used on
it, and that was bad.

Arris' mind reeled as she tried to figure out a new way to ditch the drone, growing larger by the
second as she did. There was a slime tank trap she might be able to lure it into falling in, but that might
not short it out and might just as easily pull her in too. Likewise there was the diving pool with its drop
down cage and high pressure air line, but she was too buoyant to dive in, likely not strong enough push
the drone in, and stood a real chance of once again being dragged in if it went wrong.

“Oh fuck.” Muttered Arris “Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck, it's going to POP me!”

The skunk could feel panic building inside of her just as readily as the climbing pressure, and
gingerly backing away from the drone she broke into a sprint, or tried to at least. Her limbs were too
bloated and stumpy for speed now, her body an engorged orb half again her starting size and still
expanding, the best she could manage now was the waddle of the damned, the slow portly side to side
sway of a blimp that was trading mobility for volume at an alarming rate. The drone had no issue
keeping pace with the bulging balloon animal, and such was her girth that even squeezing into a side
room to look for something, anything, to help her escape, might well be beyond her.

Oh god, I don't want to go out like this, I'm sooo big already and this thing is going to keep
going until I just explode...

A montage of other doomed competitors played in her head, the overflowing berry, the
decompressing pressure vessel, the hydrogen blimp, the water balloon - but this time with Arris
subbing in for all of their explosive finishes. She'd practically been enamoured with watching other
contestants fuck up their runs and end up squeaking, squealing, creaking spheres before rupturing
explosively and splattering all over, but that didn't mean she wanted to experience it for herself. She
just wanted the prize money damn it all!

“Maybe... just stop? Please? I'm so huge already, another trap would be sure to get me... please,
don't pop me like this!” Whatever the phantom audience thought or said, Arris couldn't hear them, and
despite her pleas the drone showed no interest in doing anything that wasn't making her bigger,
rounder, and tighter. The hapless permablimp had to be closing in on nearly ten feet wide, easily filling
more than half the corridor, her springy gait bouncing and wobbling her gas filled mass with every step.
It should've been harder to move her ponderous bulk around, but she felt light as a feather.

Arris' breath caught in her throat as something dawned on her, the pit of her stomach turning to
a block of ice with fear. She stopped for a moment, steadying herself, and then took a little hop
forward, only for it to be anything but a little hop, her massive spherical frame rising several feet into
the air and begrudgingly drifting down to the floor afterwards.

“I... it's... I... I'm full of HELIUM?” She squealed, noticing for the first time the rising pitch of
her own voice. “No, no, stop it! Stop pumping me up! I'm a PERSON, not a PARTY BALLOON!”
Someone somewhere disagreed with her claim, the hose bulging as the flow of lighter than air gas into
her abruptly increased, as if trying to finish her off once and for all. Arris moaned, her arms rising
outstretched, lifted by the outwards surge of her flanks. It took everything she had just to move her oil
drum thick legs, her contact with the labyrinth floor growing more and more tenuous as she came
closer and closer to floating. “P-Please... no more... I'm so full...” Whimpered the skunk, tears welling
in her eyes. “I can't take much more! Don't break me like some kind of toy!”

The gas continued to flow, rushing into her without the slightest pause or respite. The
permablimp was more than a dozen feet wide and just about immobile now, passing thirteen feet and
then fourteen in what felt like record time, unable to do anything but grow larger and larger. Choking
back a sob, Arris felt her feet finally leave the ground, the vast furry orb of her body slowly ascending
like a bright green weather balloon. Her fat bloated limbs were sinking into her globular bulk, her neck
puffing out like a life preserver while her tear soaked cheeks fattened and bulged. With a sudden twinge
of horror Arris realized she was almost completely rounded out into a sphere, her natural round and
portly stature working against her.

They're not going to stop. Thought the blimp to herself. They're going to keep pumping me up,
and up, and up. I'm gonna fucking pop, I'm gonna get so fucking full I'll explode and die!

Arris sobbed openly, her breathing fast and frantic as she thrashed about, bloated paws
submerging into divots in her flanks, trapping her in her own body. She'd blown up so big, stretched so
much, and still she was inflating, her head sinking deep enough into her neck doughnut to squeeze her
bowed out cheeks; hide growing painfully tight and spurring memories of her jumpsuit just before it
burst. The bomb-to-be had lost track of how big she was, all she could see now was a horizon of her
own turgid flesh, the tension stinging her like pinpricks as she watched her once thick fur thin out
across her vast surface. The ceiling was close and getting closer too, but before she could reach it and
bounce off the drone reeled her in like a balloon on a string, moving out on a leisurely drive around the
labyrinth while she dangled and bobbed haplessly above it.

“Pwease shtawp, twoo bhig, d-dun pawp meh... dun wanna dyyyyy...” Arris cried, a little trail
of tears pattering on the floor behind her. “Nuh mhore! NUH MHORE! HEWP! PWEASE!” Every
cry of fear and panic came out of her mouth slurred, compressed and stretched by her melon sized
chipmunk cheeks and her distended squished muzzle. Her flesh creaked and groaned, filling her ears
with the sounds of her impending structural failure, the hissing of the never ending gas stream an
omnipresent background to her overinflated cacophony. The tip of her tail brushed the floor as she was
towed along, a little air current on her belly telling her she was almost at the ceiling too, almost a
corridor jamming twenty feet wide. She tried to flail free of the hose one last time, balling her sausage
fingers into fists and kicking her rounded feet inside of their furry prison, wobbling in midair to no
avail.

Out of the corner of her eye she spotted the exit door as she was hauled past, the gold trim and
illuminated sign unmistakable even from her diminished vantage point. Even worse was the silver key
hanging from a hook upon a silken strap on the door's front – the third key she'd needed to escape and
claim victory – left out as a freebie.

The blimp screamed at the sight, her body catching on the floor, walls, and ceiling, wedging her
tight and making the last thing she'd see the win she'd been so close to achieving. Undeterred by its
captive's plight, the drone came to a halt but didn't stop pumping, it simply wasn't programmed to do
anything other than pop the unfortunate balloons it caught. Arris continued to grow, and grow, and
grow, her body flattening against the surfaces confining her as she was forced to expand, the pressure
inside of her rocketing to levels she'd never thought possible. And all the gas bloated permablimp
poptoy named Arris could do was swell.

And swell.

And swell.

And swell.

She couldn't fight it, couldn't hold it, couldn't even think about it, the pressure spike a white hot
flare in her head, bugging out her eyes as blood seeped from her pursed lips and dribbled from her
nose. Arris was full to the brim, maxed out, and still more was being pumped into her, stretching her so
thin she pulsed and throbbed in time with the puffs of gas.
 Please no... don't kill me... not like this... don't pop me... don't... make... me... explode...

Arris detonated, a meaty BLOOSH painting the hallway and exit red with nova of blood and
wet rubbery scraps, as if a fat furry IV bag had been run over by a lorry. Half of the drone turned
crimson with the splash, a macabre flame decal detailing by its unfortunate quarry. As bits of skunk
blimp dripped from the ceiling and splattered on the floor, a leader board tallied her performance,
casually recapping the doomed balloon's destruction and updating Arris' status from In Progress to
DNF, and adding one more recording to the long archive list of labyrinth run participants. Then, just as
it always did, a fifteen minute countdown started to the next run.

Maybe they'd be luckier than Arris.