Expansion 101: Part 1 – Students Under Pressure

“Oh no…oh no!”

The pony’s little legs kicked pathetically several feet above the ground. A great rounded sphere separated her from the floor and as it grew her desk was pushed further and further to the front of the class.

Unfortunately for this distraught foal the sphere was herself.

A blush burned iridescent on her plump cheeks as the headmistress placed a paw on her, checking her tautness even as she expanded against her will. The other students looked on still seated, some terrified, some fascinated, some even wickedly amused by the sight of their rising colleague. The horrid creak of her school uniform, all the buttons long since popped but the fabric itself coming apart, filled the space.

Her checked miniskirt cracked at the seams and sailed in a lazy arc until it struck the far wall and settled in a heap. The giggling at her exposed unmentionables was only exceeded when the two peaks of her rump brushed the ceiling, and then pressed flat.

One of the iridescent lights buckled, flickered and died with a bang.

“Looks like this little pony got into the alfalfa.” Jeered the headmistress.

The pony shut her eyes tightly and gritted her teeth. She could feel herself tumefy all over, the pressure welling until she almost wanted to rupture, just to relieve it.

“Tut tut.” Her teacher flicked her stripped tail behind her like an admonishment. “You haven’t burst yet Annabel, but with your terrible track record it will be a wonder if you don’t soon.”

Annabel looked morosely down at the curvaceous but prim skunk standing at her base dressed in her severe but fashionable ensemble: grey jacket, pink miniskirt, square spectacles.

Headmistress Isadora Semien.

She could see no pity living in those ice blue eyes.

Tears slipped from Annabell’s own, slithering down her gently surging body.

“But Ms. Semien!” she whimpered. “I’m so full already! Please…have mercy?”

She smiled with her flat teeth in an expression so sweet and sincere only a devil incarnate could have denied her.

“Mercy?” the skunk chuckled. “This is cram school, child! I will not tolerate less then perfection. A child who does not give their all is useless. Might as well just…”

She prodded Anabel’s heaving breasts.

Although there was hardly any give the pony still winced like she had been stabbed.

“Yes….that.”

With the pony mewling behind her pitifully the headmistress walked back to the blackboard. Anabelle had ceased to inflate at last but her mass didn’t decrease at all. She looked like simply breathing was causing great strain to her. She felt so bold in her under things all blown up, so wanton a dirty. Certainly she was no angel, she’d been an absolute klepto at her old school and broken several of her friend’s hearts to prove that she could, but some punishments were too cruel, especially in proportion to her sins.

Proportion being the operative word here.

“Now then Annabelle” Ms Semien purred. “This next question is not important to your final grade but your continued existence. As per usual any student is allowed to answer or provide assistance, but if the question is botched then they receive half of the penalty. Standard procedure.”

“Urrrgh....” Annabelle grunted, her over-pumped belly trembling. “I fink…I’m…gonna blow!”

“Nonsense.” Ms. Seimen rolled her eyes beneath her eyeglasses. “The discipline harness is too well designed for that. You’ll burst precisely when you deserve to! Now then, question number seventeen. A mother is inflated to nine feet across compared to her daughter. With another five feet of expansion she will be five times as massive as her daughter. Of course we’ll deal with her later.”

A ripple of nervous laughter.

“Just how big is the old girl now, hmm?”

“Give me a minute.” fussed Annabelle, closing her eyes and trying to concentrate.

“Goodness.” Ms Semien cooed. “Ten feet across. It’s a wonder she didn’t just bust from the strain. Sweet release. She probably longed for it…”

“Stop it.” Sniveled the pony, cracking an eye open. Sweat was beading on her fur.

“Ten feet across. The big bloated joke was probably happy when it was over with…”

“Pweesh…let me think…”

“But ten feet’s nothing compared with you.” The skunk smirked up at Annabelle. “Gordon was about a third that size when he finally lost the fight. Talk about going out with style. I swear, my ears are still ringing!”

“Pwesh…stop…” croaked Annabelle, fighting for each word through her puffy lips.

“Come now Annabelle.” Ms. Semien affected an almost hurt expression. “I know you can handle it. You’re a big girl now. Be proud!”

“Need…think!”

“Not a large boy to begin with, Gordon.” She scratched her chin. “Fascinating though how many scraps he left on his seat. And around most of the classroom now that I come to think of it…”

The pony’s groaning with her mouth almost matched the groaning of the rest of her.

“Naughty little artist, drawing on the chalk board before school hours!” the skunk shook her head. “Left his finest art work at the end; fogging every window. My hair still feel damp when I touch it. See? Just there!”

“I wanna…go home…!”

Anabelle was sobbing, turning beet red from embarrassment and frustration.

“A student needs to learn diligence under pressure.” Ms. Semien continued. “Although in your case that doesn’t seem to be an issue.”

The headmistress looked confused, then turned to the class.

“That was a joke.”

Immediately there was a light rise and fall of laughter.

“Let…me…think!” The pony balloon howled, thrashing her legs. “Pwesh!”

“Too late. Answer please.”

“I…HUC!” Annabelle hiccupped, tears streaming down her cheeks. “I…HUC!”

“Answer the question girl.”

Each hitch caused the already plush pony to round out further.

“Not a lot of time now.” The headmistress whispered.

“I don’t…HUC!” Annabelle burbled.

“I won’t accept anything but an answer, child.”

Ms. Semien reached down and lifted a shining pin from the chalk shelf.

“With those hiccups you might finish yourself off and deny me the pleasure, but if you need incentive know this. If you don’t answer when I count to three I’ll jab you. Remember what happened to Doris. She was a stubborn one like you…”

Annabelle fattened and murmured but no answer was forthcoming.

“One…”

“HUC!”

“Two…”

“HUC!”

Annabelle grimaced against her gassy burden; so tense her flanks had gone pale, nearly see-through.

“Thr…”

“Forty nine!” shrieked the pony, putting dangerous stress on herself with the effort. “She’s forty nine feet wide!”

“Good answer.” the headmistress nodded.

Annabelle’s breathed nervous a sigh of relief.

Until a soft groan was heard.

Which escalated into an unmistakable hissing sound.

“No no no…” pleaded Annabelle, watching herself rising up and out steadily.

“The wrong answer.” shrugged Semien, “but a good one. Quick, concise. I admired your spirit. You’re hopeless at math, Annabelle, but you showed true dedication to learning. To the last. You will be missed.”

“Merc…!” gurgled the pony before her lips squeezed shut, forced tight by her swelling cheeks.

She quivered and creaked as her form continued to engorge with gas, burgeoning into an inflexible sphere. Even her tail was ramrod rigid. Her poor stomach was dilated so massively it was painful to even look at.

Eventually her flapping legs fell slack, defeated, and they too blew out and grew firm.

She moaned pathetically, sensing her limit approaching.

“Annabelle, do quiet down please!” Muttered Ms. Semien. “We’re done here and there’s no use complaining about it. Please burst like a good little balloon. Now then, back to the lesson…”

Annabelle’s mass began pushing desks and students alike across the floor. Some of her classmates anticipating the violent conclusion pending seemed read to leap from their seats and run to the other side of the classroom to avoid the worst of it.

But the headmistress fixed them with a glare.

“Did I say you could leave your seats? You ought to know by now that the force of the blasts is rarely as impressive as you might suppose. Like a puffy little troublemaker ought to be is loud and obnoxious but ultimately full of nothing but hot air. Do I have to pick some candidates at random to demonstrate and remind you of the radius?”

There was a chorus of headshakes.

Annabelle squealed in strain, the ruthless pressure allowing no respite. She no longer even looked alive, just a stationary sphere gulping away at its own destruction.

The others tried unconcerned about their proximity to an impending explosion.

“Sorry Anna.” Susan the antelope whispered out of the corner of her mouth.

“We do not talk to failures here, Susan!” snapped the headmistress “Only productive students. Now then, on to question eighteen. A rooster is inflated to near bursting…”

The wall of pony squeaked.

BANG!

For a second the closest students rocked in their desks, their hair and fur blown sideways. Some toppled out of their chairs but rapidly clambered back in before this was seen. Afterwards brown and white scraps like tattered rubber drifted down to land on papers, desks, the floor and the former seat of Annabelle. The windows had all instantly fogged and students wearing glasses were forced to whip them dry on their shirts.

“That was a loud one!” Ms. Semien chuckled. “The pressure inside her must have simply been incredible! I believe she deserves a hand for that much at least, don’t you?”

As was customary there was a clipped round of listless applause.

“Janitor will hate me today.” The skunk sighed. “But now that…um…old whats-her-face has taken her medicine…”

“Annabelle.” Susan grumbled.

Ms Semien stopped in her tracks, hand poised to write on the board.

She didn’t move, didn’t turn.

“What?” her syrupy voice snarled.

“Her name was Annabelle.” Susan said, narrowing her eyes.

“I didn’t ask you.”

Semien turned slowly like a snake preparing to strike, menace even in the sound of her satin miniskirt rustling.

“I must get those harnesses seen to.” The headmistress said coolly. “Insubordination should be one of the infractions punishable. As stands all it recognizes is poor answers, which unfortunately you have not provided Susan.”

The antelope’s features all screamed terror but she kept up her determined scowl.

“You can’t bully me.” She said.

The headmistress beamed.

“Insulting a teacher’s authority, now that IS punishable.”

She walked to her desk and opened the top drawer. Immediately upon doing so the student body let out a hushed gasp of dread even before she drew the sleek silver remote from its depths. Susan’s courage snapped and she looked ready to cry or bolt as Ms. Semien held the remote aloft for all to see.

“If not officially. Still working out the kinks to the system, but if you want something done right…”

Her gaze scanned the line of embossed names until they settled on Susan’s, just above a little black button.

“Do it yourself.”

She pressed and held.

Susan huffed fretfully, her chest rising up…and up. Still seated her belly swelled until her desktop tilted forward, her papers fluttering to the floor. Just as the stitches of her uniform threatened to snap across her front, her socks on all four of her legs also breaking in long gashes from the stress, Ms. Semien lifted her finger.

The antelope girl collapsed in her seat, panting and flushed. Her seat was damp.

“Good for you too?” the skunk grinned. “That’s enough to teach you a lesson. If you make it through the period see me after class and we’ll get that out of you. Never say I’m unfair to exemplary students.”

“Ms. Semen?”

The headmistress froze once more in place, the atmosphere around her seeming to likewise congeal.

All she needed to do was follow the giggling when she turned, her furious stare finally settling on the wolf cub who was a miniature tower of smug.

“Jeremy.

“That’s my name.” the cub sneered. “Don’t wear it out!”

He wasn’t even in full drab school regalia. Instead he wore a red blazer and jeans.

And a backwards cap! That was going too far.

“Tisk.” The headmistress smiled mockingly. “Jeremy you’ve been on my short list, but I’m a patient woman. You’re nearly more trouble then you’re worth, but I’ll give you one more chance. Tell me again what my name is?”

“Ms…Spunk?” the wolf tried.

“Try again.” The skunk shook her remote meaningfully.

“Ms…Jizz?”

Instead of speaking she held up one finger steadily.

“Oh!” Jeremy laughed again. “I remember now! Ms. Semen!”

“Its Semien, you brat.”

She pressed his button hard but the wolf cub just chortled as he began to balloon.

“That tickles!”

She pressed harder. Of its own accord Jeremy’s pants began to unzip as he midriff rounded out. He looked alarmed for the first time by his sheer size, but quickly he regained his smirk.

“Remember my name yet?”

“Sure I do, Ms. Cum!”

This time she jammed the button down until her knuckled whitened. The student’s body swelled faster, larger. He belched loudly and his roiling gut wobbled.

“You’re trying my patience.” Ms. Semien looked murderous.

“You haven’t tried mine yet, wanna trade?” Jeremy murred.

“I have enough reason to hold this until you cease!” The headmistress threatened. “But I’m already pushing my quota for disciplined undergraduates so I’m feeling generous enough to give you a chance. Will you stop being a naughty little balloon?”

Jeremy seemed fascinated by his girth more then frightened now. He prodded his belly and positive beamed when he finger jumped back out with a bounce. Then he belched and a wide grin spread across his face.

When his pants finally split apart against the force of his spreading thighs he laughed for a minute straight, rolling onto his turgid back.

“I will not be mocked.” Ms. Semien bit her lip hard, but managed to pull her finger off the button. “Last chance Jeremy.”

“Hold on…” he gurgled, still inflating. “It’s coming…”

His jacket hung about his shoulders but was comically too small now compared to his stout immensity, the zipper barely dangling shy of his swollen naval that peeked from beneath his stretched undershirt. The female students were doing their best not to stare at his engorged member that was pressed tight against his briefs but some did turn back to see, awe write large in their wondering eyes.

Especially when it began to whistle.

“Almost there…!” his stomach rumbled like a gathering storm. “Here’s my answer miss!”

Although by this time his head nearly brushed the ceiling he still managed to squat in his overtaxed form.

And let loose.

FRRRRAAAAARRRRRAAAAPPPPPP!

It was infectious as it was unavoidable. Along with the sweeping stench, an epidemic of laughter shook the students and loudest of all was Jeremy himself, each of his convulsions sending jiggles throughout his blimp-like form.

He was still laughing even as Ms. Semien pushed the button again and held it.

He laughed as he coat tore in two, as he undershirt ripped apart, as his desk toppled over and his marching hugeness distended until it took up the entire middle of the room.

He laughed as he broadened until his growth stopped and the pressure just made him perilous congested.

He even laughed when the hissing inside of him rose into a high-pitched whine.

Some students forgot themselves and covered their ears.

“No!” the skunk barked. “You will watch! You will listen! You will learn!”

Jeremy’s fur seemed to recede into a perfectly rounded and smooth series of spherical masses: his teeming middle with jutting naval, his arms which had sucked in his paws, his legs which had pulled his paws deep into they vanished, and last but not least in size his overblown manhood, perfectly globular despite being fully erect, its thick veins throbbing.

One of the girls actually whistled back.

“Enjoy while you can.” Snarled Ms Semien.

Jeremy had long since stopped laughing when his head retreated into the rest of him. Now he sat (stood?) in silence except for the occasional groan of his hide.

“As I was saying.” The headmistress kept her finger pressed down even as she reached over to take up the chalk. “Question the next. If a rooster is caught and inflated to near bursting, and eggs can be laid and collected at the normal rate of eight every fifteen minutes, how many will he lay in shock if he explodes inside of an hour?”

KA-BANG!

The wolf exploded louder then the students had heard all month.

As one they fell silent as bits of Jeremy and his jacket rained down around them.

“Come, come!” chattered the skunk, sashaying back to her desk. “These questions are based on hard research and many, many controlled experiments. You don’t want to know how many roosters we had to burst to get results. However, if you drooling idiots can’t answer a question this simple then I might as well press and hold every button on this remote and get a class that can!”

“She’s really off her trolley today.” Phillip the fox mumbled to his partner.

Both he and Harriet the mink were far in the back, out of earshot of the headmistress if they kept their voices low.

Harriet’s lip was twitching and she didn’t answer for a long time.

Like most of the attendees for Expanded Learning Cram School she had known her share of breaking the rules in a variety of public schools. She’d been deemed a hopeless caused after her numerous violations of school property, her blatant disregard for her studies, and her impenitent promiscuity with anything properly equipped and with the money or popularity to make it worth her while. Then her mother set her up here. Naturally the parents didn’t see the full weight (no pun intended) of the ‘discipline harness’, which consisted of a strange hose-like assembly fitted to twin compressed tanks beneath each desk. The guardians of hopeless furs would often overlook the implications without thinking too hard about it, gawking instead at the vast variety of curriculum offered and the promise of a reformed cub guaranteed.

Of course the meaning of the discipline harness was difficult to ignore when the pipe was shoved up your butt and you knew that with a touch of the remote or when the desk computer recognized a wrong answer that chill gas, goop, or something worse between the two would flood you and cause you in short order to bloat massively, shred your uniform, and, if you were especially disobedient, force you full until you burst.

You’d be back the next day. Faculty collected your scraps and took them to the academy restoration chambers, but you’d never be fully yourself again. Some people wondered if the being that walked around with your face and some of your memories afterwards really was you at all, although supposedly they were fabricated from every part of your leftovers that could be found. The bigger you blew the more chance there was of pieces being lost, and if that happened your next chance might come back without crucial facilities. All in all it was a lot less then the ‘fully proven and completely harmless’ technique the brochure had promised.

Poor Annabelle had swollen so big she’d probably come back tomorrow without remembering her middle name. Doris had been lucky since popping with a pin led to what the cadets called a ‘localized spread’, easier to retrieve.

As for Jeremy he’d blown up so many times over the last week she was beginning to suspect he enjoyed it.

It was starting to get to Harriet. She hadn’t burst yet once but the very idea left her teeth chattering, especially after the whimpering pony and the laughing wolf. The pressured squeak of their bodies right before that thrumming boom still rung in her mind. Some students claimed it was a good feeling, ‘like making love to a vacuum cleaner in reverse’ one cheerleader had famously said, but she’d had a life long fear of balloons ever since a birthday clown had over inflated one for a joke when she had been very young. The sound it made before vanishing in a cloud of rubber was so worryingly similar to the students before their own finales.

“Harry?”

It was Phillip’s pet name for her. She snapped from her reverie.

“You okay Harry?” he whispered.

She nodded vaguely.

“Roosters don’t lay eggs you dumb clod!” Ms. Semien cried, jabbing her remote and causing the offending rabbit girl to twitch and blubber as she swelled in fits and starts. “How many times do I have to FILL YOU IN?

“I can’t stand this.” Harriet said, or rather mouthed.

Phillip seemed more comfortable with raising his voice even slightly then she, but this might have been due to his fearlessness where the headmistress was concerned. One of many reasons she admired him, even if he was thick as a brick sometimes.

“We’re getting out of here.” Phillip said. “I’ve got it all worked out…”

“Loose the bubble gum, deary, or I’ll show you first hand what that bubble feels like!”

It was hypnotizing for the mink to watch her fellows inflating by degrees all around her, letting loose a chorus of pained snorts and piping sounds as the gas flowing deep into each vessel sought escape by any means.

“An escape, Harry!” growled Phillip. “You and me! We can show this place our backs for good…”

The hissing amplified by the closeness of the room seemed to bear in on her from all sides. She couldn’t think about anything else. Even closing her eyes she could see them; split stalking packed with bloated flesh, tense bras and panties fighting loosing battles against an avalanche of pressurized fur, tails pumped round, cheeks puffed until they closed mouths and beaks for good, dismal farts and futile belches. She could smell perspiration, that musky smell of excitement.

She could almost smell rubber…

“Julie!”

Ms. Semein rubbed the remote almost tenderly across an enormous scaly abdomen. The owner was a geeky iguana, freckled and bespeckled her uniform once crisp and studiously cleaned, although her bloating had reduced it to drooping tatters along with her designer tangerine bra. Julie gulped when she dared to look down. For one thing she had been quite short, and now was looking down at her medium build teacher while still seated…at least part of her was seated. The other thing almost brought her joy. If it wasn’t enough to be teased for her love of anime and her glasses and freckles (as well as her weakness for martinis) the number one cause of her harassing had been her tiny chests. Mosquito bites, flat as a pancake, punctured airbags; she’d heard it all.

Now, aside from the sensation of impending boom, those jumped up preps would have marveled at her assets, so full with air they didn’t even sway.

But the shriek of gas escaping through her snout and her stiffened nipples took precedence over her pride.

“You’re close on to your third burst this week.” The headmistress snapped. “A wayward cough could detonate you in this state. Where is your head at, girl?”

She could only waggle her head in a non-committal way, mostly because her neck had engorged too large to move very much at all.

“No matter. You can still nod for certain. I’m giving you a final bid before I make it four times and maybe I’ll assign a little homework! I’m sure your roommate would love mandatory breathing into you until you felt ready to pop. Might teach you the benefits of study!”

Julie did manage to shake her head this time.

“Fine, fine.” The headmistress walked to the board and began to write. “True or false. Much like when a blockheaded student bursts, does your heart stop when you sneeze as well?”

“Err…” Julie mumbled.

“The clock is ticking.” Ms. Semien tapped her stiletto heel against the floor. “With a bun the size of THAT in the over if I accidentally brushed this button with my nose…”

The flustered iguana’s double jointed eyes sought out her friend Clay, a Dalmatian who had a thing for the scalies, enough of one to risk his pelt on passing her cheat notes. If ever she needed a leg up it was now. At this density if she finally went off she was worried she might disintegrate.

Clay just shrugged but she gave him such a cute pout he rolled his eyes, thought…then shook his head and gave her a skeptical look.

“No?” she meeped.

“Been skimping on your lessons again.” Ms. Semein grinned. “And Mr. Clay, you should know better.”

The Dalmatian boy made a strangled noise in his throat.

“I saw your little strumpet’s peripheral appeal.” She drove Julie’s button down “I hope you like…how do you degenerates put it…more cushion for the pushin’?”

The lizard girl had barely time to simply look shocked before her overloaded tummy thrust huge, juddering at the very brink.

“Come on.” The skunk hissed, finger tight on the controls. “Time for you to pop!”

Julie shook her head as best she could, streaming eyes slammed shut, looking like a big overweight baby throwing a tantrum and holding her breath.

Her bra broke its anchor and went zipping off to her left, knocking an unfortunate student unconscious. Her panties had been reduced to five gallant threads still bridging her vast girdle.

“Don’t…wanna!” she bleated.

Still she widened. Still she bellyached at the labor of holding so much in.

“I said POP!” Ms. Seimen shouted.

BANG!

One of the windows actually shattered and the nearest student screamed.

Glistening scales rained across the desks.

Harriet felt herself tremble against her will.

“She always was considerate.” Ms. Semien mused.

As she trotted back to her place amidst another lukewarm applause.

Clay let out the tiniest of relieved sighs.

“Oh and Clay.” The headmistress said matter-of-factly. “You’ve been caught at cheating, one of if not the gravest offense in a place of learning.”

“Wait!” he protested, waving his paws. “I didn’t do anything! I hardly knew her! I’m being fra…HUP!”

His final objection was muffled when his paunch shot out from his floundering paws: a good foot of solid gas-filled bulk. Even his desperate struggle to let it go and subsequent gentle poot and stifled eructation did zilch in the long run but make his puffy cheeks burn with embarrassment.

“You’re being punished is what you are.” She looked his expansion over reprovingly. “To be perfectly accurate however we’ll call you by an accurate title: a balloon. Nothing beside from this time till the moment you reach your threshold.”

“Its not fair!” he whined, uniform parting, buttons flying, body heaving. “She’s got what she deserved, but not me! I don’t deserve to blow! Its not fair!”

“You know what isn’t fair? Students who feel they can give themselves an unfair advantage!”

She paced to her desk, drew out a line of tape from the dispenser and to chorus of gasps she slid the piece over Clay’s button, holding it down even as she set the remote down.

It was hard to tell if the dog’s bulging eyes were a sign of his resignation, fright, discomfort, or if the internal force was just so great they were being pushed up in his sockets. The latter seemed increasingly likely as his leather belt broke against his mounting form, his pants tore neatly down both legs to accommodate his pneumatic limbs, all five of them.

“What is it about blowing up that gets the boys so roused?” the headmistress pondered aloud. “This one could hold out for awhile. I know the type, so I will permit you sitting closest to the condemned to move your seats away from him slightly. For one thing we hardly know what he ate to get so fat!”

She laughed at her own joke; not minding that few could even muster a polite smile in return.

“We can get away!” Phillip’s whisper was harsher and louder then before. “After period it will be too late and if I should lose the plan in a burst…”

He shook his head, banishing those pointless fears.

The pent up black and white spotted balloon grew unabated, nestled in the desks even as their occupants hurriedly tried to move out of the way.

“Harry!” Phillip hissed.

Clay was starfished in his final throes, gas exiting violently through every avenue but his body still getting bigger and bigger. He bobbed in place, so full he almost floated.

“Harry. We need to escape!”

BANG!

Another window shattered and a third cracked down the middle.

“WE HAVE TO ESCAPE!” Harriet shouted, leaping to her feet, spotted fragments of pelt coming to rest in her hair.

She became uncomfortably aware that everyone in the class was suddenly looking in her direction.

Including Ms. Semien.

“Ah, Ms. Harriet.” The headmistress smiled coldly. “A declaration of an attempt to escape? The harness is too good for that!”

She opened the bottom drawer of her desk and began rooting around.

Harriet felt ready to faint.

“This calls for something special…”