-= The Rendering Pit=-
[[A PATREON series. This story was posted 12 months ago on Patreon, subscribe now to see more]]
Table of Contents


Welcome to the start of a new series on Fur Affinity, The Rendering Pit! Follow Genevieve, Rigel and Samuel as they take their first steps into this brave new world of education and expansion!

This chapter written by rabidbadger and illustrated by me!

Buy Book One of The Rendering Pit HERE

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Samuel’s arms were curled tight around his soft, fuzzy chest as he looked at the doors off in the distance. Imposing, archaic things – they actually had hinges – which were nonetheless so densely woven through with alloy distortion and visible (and moving…) nanite layers that the badger had no doubt the things were nigh indestructible. He’d be entering them soon, and wondered very seriously just what kind of circumstances he would leave under – and when.

The station dock was humid with the runoff of engine exhaust and refueling, but he couldn’t help feeling a potent chill all through his back and arms. A quick check of his tablet said he had a little time before orientation yet, maybe enough to stop and snack on something? Empty stomachs weren’t good things to learn on he’d been told. A quick reach to adjust his slightly too-tight shorts and futilely attempt to pull his shirt down over his gut were all the more delay he spared the matter before he stepped out into the walkways and began sniffing around for his goal.

It didn’t take long either – there were aromas of such variety to suggest the outer ring of the school’s station was close to being a major trading outpost. It was a curious and heady mix, that – oil and metal, spices and meat, sweat and sugar. The kind of scent that crawled into the nose, coated it, and lingered. Some of it absolutely qualified as what he needed though and that gave Samuel something to follow, and gave the other occupants of the walkways a view of a young, obese badger waddling toward the food stalls.

***

Genevieve found herself glancing at the sight of a pair of patched shorts wrapped around too much ass for them to properly contain as they worked their way into a crowd of people. The vixen felt herself blushing furiously as soon as she realized it, looking back down at her feet – at her new shoes (the things felt like slippers, gripped like sneakers) – at the turquoise robe and silver shoulder patch – her parents had bought her uniform outright rather than allow their daughter to be stuck using school property. The patch was mostly bare so far, having only a closed eye in one corner.

“Well, the rest will fill up. Just have to figure out what to major in.”

She found herself smiling brightly at the thought. There were so many stories about this place, albeit some of them came with ominous undertones. Those were probably just exaggerations though. Genevieve saw plenty of people from the school out here with her, all of them had the badge somewhere – mostly on the shoulder as tradition dictated. All with the closed eye, like hers – though most of them also had something else on it somewhere. She wondered idly what the other signs meant other than representing focuses of study, but the renewed idle staring left her inattentive enough to collide with someone, and not be entirely sure whose fault it was that she now found her new robe clad ass on the dirty station floor.

“Ow! Sorry, sorry… I very expressly did not mean to, oh.”

The vixen stopped mid-thought. She’d looked over to see who the collision had been with, rubbing her butt with one hand and trying to get to her feet with the other, and everything ground to halt when she saw what looked to be a roughly avian shape made of smooth-edged shiny material. Not a bot, she saw no joints – no firm chrome or dark carbon fiber – no it looked more like latex. Head to toe, pale green, and already upright and offering an arm down to her.

Accepting the hand up confirmed the matter, it felt like the bird (she wasn’t sure if it was a male or female in there) was coated in a full body latex sheathe. They said nothing though, merely bowing a little when Genevieve was once more on her feet and then making to leave. She didn’t quite gather herself soon enough to come up with anything to say before it was too late.

“Some kind of hazmat gear, maybe? Weird place, but I guess I knew that was going to be the case.”

***

Samuel exhaled happily as he swallowed the last bite of a wrap full of shaved meat, licking grease from his fingertips. His stomach was gurgling less from hunger now, but there were stirrings of unease for other reasons entirely. He didn’t have time to address it though, a quick check of the time confirmed the need to head to the gates post haste. Or at least as much haste as a person of his size could muster.

He expected the gathering outside, but he’d also expected it to be larger. Not the twenty-some students that he currently saw, that was certain. Samuel saw a fair myriad of species, not to mention fashions. A vixen who shared his apparent love of cuisine, some black scaled and intimidating looking young man in a gray jumpsuit with a QR code on the back, two swans in silk, a short little mouse that looked perhaps the most confident out of the lot of them behind his glasses – Samuel was still trying to take them all in when there was a fierce hiss from the gates and a sudden jump of a few degrees temperature in the air around them.

The intricate layers of line-formed gray goo over the doorways were glowing orange, starting from the center of the gate and steadily moving out toward the hinges. In the center, where the glow was brightest, the whole mass began to peel itself back into an incandescent mass that steadily retreated. As the collapsing field of woven circuits reached the edges of the gates, they began to open outward – slowly, grinding against the deck metal in a way that left most of the new students wincing visibly.

The gate stopped just wide enough that the students could fit through it, mostly. The vixen and badger still felt their hips squish against the sides of what turned out to be some kind of odd mix of stone and metal that comprised the gate itself – three feet thick, and freezing cold. Samuel found himself suspecting the ominously loud bang of the door shutting behind them was a sound effect played purely for drama, but said nothing outright about it yet. What was waiting for them in the courtyard was more important. He did however find himself staring in half-mesmerized awe as the molten material at the edges of the get began to re-weave itself into a new network of surveillance circuits, structural reinforcement, and signal disruption mesh on the fly now that the gate was once more in place.

***

Genevieve was staring at the badger’s hindquarters again, or was until he turned at least. His eyes were heading for the doors, sure, but – well, the sight of those things re-arranging was kind of pretty…

“Hi newbies!”

The vixen’s gaze twisted around again quickly enough that she felt her chest wobble from the momentum, and her jaw slowly dropped down to rest on top of it after she saw where the voice came from.

‘She’s green…’

Genevieve muttered it first, but there were plenty of other murmurs that followed. What (who?) stood before them resembled in the broad strokes of form a blue jay, but clearly not colored blue – nor covered in feathers, or even made of flesh at all. The figure was on the tall side, and entirely mechanical in form. Large emerald glass-steel claws, hydraulic joints, a transparent dome ‘stomach’ that was currently full of some kind of gray liquid with her chest comprised of similar receptacles, carbon fiber and cable making up the bulk of her arms – and for all that her razor looking titanium beak was smiling warmly for someone who clearly had no body heat.

“Welcome to the Rendering Pit little ones.”

The vixen was on some level dimly aware that she was staring still, mouth hanging open, but there was a way yet to go before she could muster the control to fix that. Right now, it was far more important that she pay attention to the chime-like motions the bird-bot-lady made when she moved. Her eyes were easy to get lost in as well – luminous glowing orbs of glass. The bird turned to the side, holding out a wing sporting iridescent feathers that were generating tiny tongues of electricity whenever they moved.

“This way! We have supplies for anyone who need them in the main foyer, and then we’ll take you to orientation and screening.”

The group began to move, and with it so too did Genevieve and Samuel.

***

The supplies were simple things; clothing, a dedicated tablet for the curriculum, and the diamond shaped plates that everyone from the university had. Samuel, Genevieve, and all the rest found theirs identical – they all bore three empty quadrants, and a lone one engraved with a closed eye.

They also found themselves being ushered slowly from the room full of tables they’d found their things in into what seemed to be an auditorium, or theater, or – something? It was difficult to say. It had the seats and stage, but also appeared to have the necessary electronics for light shows, holo-theater, and possibly also low-grade fusion initiation.

The twenty some students entered the hall, and found that their guide had left them behind. The chamber was enormous enough to leave them all feeling a bit awkward, alone amidst empty space and dim lighting. It took each of them a few moments (some more than others) to notice they were being watched from the back of the stage. Two figures stood there, each one a bit on the large side.

The one on the left was gray furred, long-eared – rabbit, mostly? Mostly. The horns left Genevieve tilting her head with an odd smile on her face and a murmur about ‘nifty body mods’ to come. Said bunny wore a purple skirt and matching top, that made no attempt to hide her ponderously swinging belly, and bore a window for her cleavage. Below that were pale aqua leggings that were clearly form-fitting, and doing the fitting around a generously cushioned pair of thighs and buttocks. The plate on her shoulder was brushed silver, and bore its four sigils – an open eye with a blue slit pupil, a very odd looking cube that seemed to be confused about its dimensions, two claw marks followed by three dots, and a trio of parallel lines – all traced in light glowing just a half inch above the surface of it.

On the right stood a Siamese cat, pudgy faced and older than looking than the other. He wore a set of simple, beige slacks, a too-tight blue shirt that had no visible means of keeping itself closed around his chest, yet laboriously did so, bands of something gold around his wrists, and then of course the diamond badge. His was gold, matching the arm bands; it bore a similar open, slitted eye (this one green), three claw marks and three dots, an apple sporting both a bite taken from it and a nail piercing it, and finally a coin emblazoned with a key.

The rabbit spoke first, while the cat splayed his arms out and apparently ‘directed’ the lighting in the room to rise gently. There were patterns of it on the walls, mostly cast in dark blues and dancing trickles of green.

“Hello students! I’m Professor Victoria, and this is Professor Reginald.”

Samuel found himself staring just as hard as Genevieve this time – in fact the entire class found reasons to, and that was before Victoria gave them an even better one than usual. The horned rabbit held her hand out, lines of pink illumination beginning to draw themselves in the air just above her wrist, points of pink light forming above her head like a square halo. What came next was something that resembled an explosion.

Victoria’s mouth pulled back in a (strangely sharp) grin as the light flared briefly. Genevieve found herself stumbling right into the back of a bulky mustelid and using his shoulder for support as watching the bunny had begun giving her vertigo, the gray lapine seemed to be ‘zooming in’ when nothing else around her did. Everything about it looked just this side of understandable, but her mind kept telling her there was some key detail about this that was required for proper comprehension that wasn’t being provided. Victoria had gone from proper height to parade float sized, and was now staring down at them from a face that was, coincidentally (or not), about the size of one you’d expect to see on a giant monitor.

The professor’s grin widened, as the lighting around the students faded – and the hazy purple/blue glow of dancing lights bathing Victoria’s visage intensified. Samuel thought he smelled something like ripe blueberries just as she folded her arms and spoke.

“The testing chambers in the next room will decide your major. You enter alone, you do whatever comes naturally, and you live with the consequences and opportunities it provides. Xerx, Reginald, and I have shown you some of the possibilities – rest assured there are countless more paths of study. Don’t second guess yourself, choose what feels right, leave shame at the door.”

A darker haze settled over Victoria’s immense visage before that bright pink shone again. The students found themselves standing in an orderly line, at the foot of the stage, by a set of stairs. Victoria was proper sized again (well, maybe a little taller – she was an inch higher than the Siamese now), and Reginald was holding an arm up and smiling at them all.

“Proceed forward, everyone. Good luck! I hope to see some of you in my classes soon.”

Samuel couldn’t quite help but think of the feline as looking like one of those comfortable older mentor types that dispensed wisdom and radiated trust. Genevieve couldn’t quite stop herself from feeling the way his belly spilled shamelessly out from under his shirt was cute. All of them found themselves walking toward the back of the stage as soon as instructed though. The curtain at the back parted for the students, who passed through it one at a time – some parting it more than others. Eventually, it left the two instructors alone in the auditorium.

“How many of them do you think will stick through the first year?”

Victoria did the asking, that ‘old and wise’ air the cat radiated wasn’t just for show. There was one more ‘decade’ claw mark on his shoulder than hers.

“Hard to say, our retention rates don’t exactly follow the norms for higher learning institutions – and in some cases, we retain without explicitly graduating them – but I liked the look of a few of them.”

The horned bunny smirked a little at that, giving Reginald a gentle nudge in his side.

“You always like the look of some of them. You even keep one, once in a while.”

***

Beyond the curtains (not, some of the students reminded themselves, beyond the veil – not yet), the group found their ‘testing center’. Which is to say they found themselves in a white room, sporting four rows of five small poles with black spheres the size of a head-on top of them. It didn’t take too long before someone tried touching one. Seeing said black scaled young man tense up briefly and let go, then quirk an odd smile and reach back down, managed to spark a bit of courage in the rest to follow suit. Genevieve and Samuel may have been among the most sluggish to join in, but they had to walk to the last row – and try not to knock anyone over. They did eventually get there though.

Fingertips closed around a warm, smooth, ebon surface – twenty young peoples’ eyes closed to the white room around them, and opened again in a dark space, alone.