“Smashing the Scoreboard”

Scavenger wore a dopey, toothy grin as bright lights and flashing colors emanating from her luminous flatscreen TV shined against her leaf-green eyes whilst she mashed the buttons and tapped the thumbsticks on a slate-grey and slightly-scratched N64 controller. Crackly, low-fidelity growls, roars, slurps and chomps played through her speakers, along with other such rampageous and cataclysmic noises, such as the heavy thumping of massive feet, the shrill shrieking of helpless townsfolk and the sounds of crunching wood, crumpling metal, crumbling concrete and clattering glass. A retro gaming aficionado with a keen ear could easily recognize the chaotic clamor as the sounds of typical gameplay for a 1990’s action-arcade game featuring an iconic trio of giant, mutated, city-smashing animals who debuted a decade prior. Rampage: World Tour, or as it was called on this hacked copy of the game, “Rampage: Interdimensional Tour.”

Scavenger couldn’t quite grasp what was so “interdimensional” about this modified cartridge at first, but she knew for certain that she was having an absolute blast with the game, romping and frolicking through cartoony, pixelated cities as a fluffy, feminine, white-furred, purple-scaled dragoness referred to in the game menu simply as “Dex.” Dex was one of several new characters added to the game with this comprehensive ROM hack, including, but not limited to: a chubby black panther, a burly crimson bull, an allosaurus with scruffy blue hair, and even a three-tailed coyote with golden tummyscales. Each monster stood out in their own ways, and for Dex, their most striking feature besides their shapely, curvy frame and sleek jet-black workout clothes, was the bright-red heart-shaped spade at the end of their long, thick, fuzzy tail.

Dex seemed cuddly, gentle and perhaps a little bit spunky in both look and expression; furthermore, their soft color scheme and glowing tail-heart hardly suited the appearance of a stereotypical city-destroying monster. Whenever they growled, snarled or roared, it was far more coy and cutesy than it was vicious or intimidating, and more often than not, Dex would let out playful coos and giggles as they ran amok through the game’s various towns and cities. However, despite the fluffy dragoness’ outward appearance, they were nonetheless adept at trashing and smashing their way through each stage of the game just as much as all the other mighty monsters in the roster. With great ease and remarkable efficiency, they scrunched cars beneath their supple footpaws, pounded their way through the facades of high-rises with their fluffy fists, and crashed their jumbo-sized heartspade through the walls and windows of houses, apartments and office buildings alike. All in all, Dex was an unmistakably talented town-trasher, even if they didn’t quite look the part.

A new cast of characters was hardly the only thing added to this modded Rampage cartridge, for Scavenger quickly discovered that in addition to scoring points for every bit of gleeful property damage caused by her frolicking furry draconid, the game had a new way of rewarding the player for engaging in carefree acts of wanton destruction. With each crunched car, wrecked house and demolished building, Dex was given a small, yet noticeable spurt of growth. Not only did each jump in height give Scavenger’s dragoness a bit of extra resistance to damage from bullets, bombs, rockets and other such weapons, alongside some increased strength to more easily pound, pummel and pulverize any building unfortunate enough to get in their way; but each sudden surge of size and bulk caused Dex’s character sprite to seemingly grin with pleasure, blushing slightly and wagging their massive tail around each and every time it happened. As far as Scavenger was concerned, the feeling of elation and excitement was mutual.

With the way the growth worked in the ROM hack, it’d take somewhere between forty to fifty minutes for a player to double their character’s height, depending on their skill. Scavenger, on the other hand, had been playing for hours and hours on end. At this point, Dex’s sprite wasn’t even able to fit on-screen anymore; only their paws could fit within the bounds of the game’s camera, even when zoomed out as far as possible. Clearly, the growth mechanic was ridiculously overpowered, and Scavenger knew full well that this was the case, as all it took was one Earth-rattling stomp, maybe two or three, for Dex to completely annihilate each and every small town and bustling metropolis that the game threw at them. By now, Scavenger might very well’ve been spending more time watching loading screens and between-stage cutscenes than she did actually playing the game, considering how quick and easy it was to beat even the most difficult of late-game levels. The gameplay had reached a point where it was downright repetitive, and some might even say that it was boring, but the bat-eared vixen had a goal: see how big Dex can get before the game inevitably freezes up.

Indeed, she wouldn’t have to wait too long for her patience and perseverance to be rewarded, as after crunching Edinburgh completely flat under a fluffy white dragonpaw, Dex, along with the rest of the game, suddenly fell silent and still. No more music, no more roaring, no more rumbling footfalls or sounds of buildings crumbling apart; just faint, white noise as the frozen image on the screen flickered and distorted. “Oh my god!” Scavenger exclaimed, spluttering out into hysterical laughter, “Fuckin’ finally! Good lord, how long’d that take? Like, five hours? Six? Sheeze, that was crazy.”

“Yeah, you can say that again!”

Scavenger fell silent after letting out a sharp, surprised yelp. At first, she thought she was experiencing some sort of auditory hallucination after such a long binge of gaming, but deep down she knew for certain that she just heard Dex’s voice rumble out loudly through the speakers of her TV. The fox didn’t do so much as let out a peep as she turned back to the television screen and saw Dex, or rather, Dex’s paws, facing directly towards her; huge, fluffy toes wiggling eagerly atop the crunchy ruins of what used to be Edinburgh.

“Hang on now, lemme get a better look atcha!”

The rumble-pak in Scavenger’s controller went absolutely berserk as the towering, titanic dragoness crouched down onto all fours, stretching their legs back before flopping belly-first onto the ground, their sheer weight alone forming massive cracks and ruptures in the earth beneath their fluff and scales. The last bits of Edinburgh crunched and crumbled into fine powder beneath Dex’s busty bosom, dirtying their black sports bra as they planted their hands down under their chin and gazed directly through the screen of the television, going to far as to look the amazed and perplexed vixen straight in the eye. Seeing the look of awe in her face, Dex chuckled heartily and casually remarked,

“Hey, don’t be so surprised! I called it ‘Interdimensional Tour’ for a reason, you know!”

Scavenger hesitated to speak at first, unsure as to whether or not Dex would even be able to hear her, but considering the sheer absurdity of the current situation, she figured it was probably worth a shot. “Well, I mean, uuuhh...” she stalled, letting out a short, nervous laugh, “Okay, seriously, what the hell’s going on here? You can’t actually see me, can you?”

Dex flashed a toothy grin and nodded, shuffling forward and casually remarking,

“Of course I can, silly! By the way, uh... You miiiiight wanna take a big step back!”

Scavenger let out a sharp, surprised yap as Dex reached their hands through the other side of her TV screen, the glass surface stretching against their clawed digits like a thin sheet of rubber. Eventually, their thick, fluffy fingers broke free from their two-dimensional space, sending ripples through the crystalline pane as if it were made of lakewater. The dragoness thrust both of their big, beefy arms through the television’s frame and dug their claws into the floorboards, letting out a soft grunt as they proceeded to pull themselves through headfirst. Dex nearly snagged their horns on one of the corners of the widescreen as their muzzle pierced through the thin veil of their freshly-rampaged digital world, and into a different realm of reality which was surely unprepared for the absolute mayhem they were about to cause.

Dex struggled to squeeze their chest through the slowly crunching and crackling TV frame, and their hips proved even more difficult, no doubt due to the extra amount of bulk required to support the weight of their gigantic tail. In the end, it was the dragon’s tail itself that proved the most challenging part to wedge out from the other side of the flatscreen; specifically, the wide, bright-red heartspade attached to their tailtip. The floorboards groaned as the jumbo-sized fluffdragon tugged away at their tail, cracking and breaking off pieces of the television’s plastic frame with every pull. “Um, uuh,” Scavenger gulped anxiously, “Do you need a hand with tha-”

The fox was cut off by the sudden sound of crackling plastic and shattering glass. The gargantuan dragoness who took up nearly all the space between the futon and the television cabinet gasped with relief as they finally managed to yank their tail-heart free of the TV, smashing the screen, the frame and the circuitry into smithereens in the process. “Whew!” Dex sighed, shutting their eyes and flashing a sly, toothy grin as a strange, stretchy groaning sound emanated from their body, “Now, that’s more like it!”

Scavenger kept quiet, wearing a flushed and puzzled expression as Dex rolled over onto all fours and lifted themselves off of the creaky wooden floor, rising up high enough that their crooked, pointy purple horns threatened to scrape against the plaster of the ceiling. Between the sudden emergence of the digital dragon into her not-so-digital living room, the complete and utter destruction of her TV, and the strange, yet familiar sound that the massive dragon had made after the fact, the vixen had many things to be perplexed over. “Hey,” Dex spoke softly, crouching down to meet the fox eye-to-eye,  as to avoid intimidating her with their impressively tall stature, “Now, now. I know you’re probably a bit confused, but it’ll all start makin’ sense real soon.”

“Uhh... Will it, though?” Scav asked, letting out a chuckle as she raised her brow and gave her head a smug tilt, “I mean, you kinda just Poltergeisted your way through my freakin’ TV! How exactly is any of this supposed to make sense to me, like, at all?”

“Oh, relaaaaaax!” Dex piped loudly, causing the fox to let out a yip of surprise as they effortlessly scooped her up into their arms and squeezed them gently against their chest, “You worry too much, foxie! C’mon, cheer up! Aren’t you happy to see me?”

“Mmmnph!” grunted the fox, tail flickering and toes wiggling as her giant, scaly-chested friend carried her over to the futon, each one of their footfalls rumbling the house like a bass drum, “Well, of course I’m happy to see ya! I just… I’m just really confused, that’s all!”

“Awwwh,” Dex snarkily responded, curling their tail up around their hips as they planted themselves onto the fox’s futon, their sports-shorts-clad rear easily taking up a good half of the cushion, “Poor widdle foxie-woxie!”

“H-hey!” Scavenger exclaimed, her face reddening up as she wriggled about in Dex’s clutches, pinned against their big, bouncy bust without a smidgen of hope to break free, “C’mon now, I mean it! How the hell did ya do that?! What the f-”

Scavenger yelped as the giant dragoness thwumped down onto the floor, the wooden futon frame scrunching helplessly under their rump, floorboards cratering inward from the impact and the cushion’s fluffy insides exploding out all over the floor. Dex’s grip on the fox remained firm, however, and as she smushed up snugly against their soft, pillowy chest, she could hear that strange groaning sound once more, except far louder this time. What’s more, Scavenger felt a strong vibration and an intense surge of warmth from within the dragon’s bosom, and as she began to put the pieces of the puzzle together within her mind, the sight of Dex’s tightly-fit clothing stretching out at the seams all but confirmed every suspicion that she had.

“You feel that?” Dex whispered softly, hunching over and planting a smooch onto the vixen’s forehead. Scavenger snickered and smiled, swishing her tail around, answering, “Ooooh, yeah.”

Dex ruffled up Scavenger’s scruffy blonde hair with their heavy, furry handpaw, dragging their hefty, heart-tipped tail across the floor as they turned around and laid the comparatively tiny fox onto the smushed-up futon cushion. “You’ve had a lot of fun, foxie,” Dex remarked, lifting their tail to give the fox a good view of their rump as they strutted their way over to the television cabinet, “But now it’s my turn.”

Scavenger lounged back and fixed up her mussed-up hair, asking, “Whatcha gonna do?”

Dex flashed a toothy grin and replied, smugly and confidently, “Set a new high score.”

The dragoness spun into action, immediately and literally, twirling their hips around and swinging their heart-tipped tail through the air like a ball and chain. Dex’s tailspade smashed down onto the TV cabinet like a flyswatter, crackling the wooden planks holding the shelves together, crunching Scavenger’s dusty old N64 and the rest of her gaming consoles, new and retro alike. Scavenger bounced as the impact made nearly every object in the room jump up off the floor, wagging her tail with excitement as Dex hunched over and began to rummage through the wreckage, plucking the miraculously intact purple game cartridge out of the scrunched-up Nintendo and tossing it onto the fox’s lap, giving her a quick wink before turning their attention towards the bookcases propped up against the back wall of the room. Scavenger couldn’t help but notice the degree to which the dragon’s stride grew weightier after smashing up her precious collection of old-school video game systems, and with that in mind, she knew full well that her house wouldn’t remain standing for much longer.

Dex clenched their fists and let themselves loose upon the poor, defenseless shelving, pounding and pulverizing the bookshelves one by one, grunting and growl-rumbling as their clothes clung tighter and tighter to their steadily-enlarging frame. Wood boards crunched up, decorative plates and vases shattered to pieces, and dozens of books, hard and softcovers alike, came tumbling down onto the floor as the shelves slowly crumbled and fell apart under Dex’s passionate assault. The soft, smashy, surging dragoness grabbed a handful of novels, journals, biographies, textbooks and other such tomes from the bottom shelf of one of the bookcases, sinking their claws through their covers and bindings and shredding them into smithereens, tossing the ripped-up covers and torn-up pages into the air, laughing joyously as they scattered in all directions, fluttering through the air like dry leaves in the autumn. As the paper scraps fell to the floor, Dex twirled themselves around like a ballerina, crashing their tail against the ransacked shelves like a baseball bat, that huge tailheart of theirs clobbering the bookshelves with the force of a charging bull, splintering them into complete and utter shambles; each and every cracked board and broken plank adding yet another notch of height to the draconid’s looming figure.

“I can see why you like this so much, foxie!” Dex remarked as they clasped their hands around the sides of a tall, slender grandfather clock, hefting it up off of the floor and turning it on its side before slamming it down onto their knee, cracking the whole thing in two. Dex took both pieces and crashed them together like cymbals, happily thumping their tail against the floor as the wood, brass, glass and clockwork smashed together and crumbled apart in the palms of their hands. Throwing the wreckage onto the floor, they trotted over to the fireplace, floorboards crunching beneath their stride whilst above, the dragon’s horns scraped against the ceiling, leaving a pair of deep gashes in the plaster, covering their head and shoulders with puffy white dust. Dex and Scavenger giggled in unison as the dragoness casually pushed several priceless, intricately-painted vases off of the mantlepiece, clattering them into bits and pieces before they clenched a fist and shattered the large victorian mirror hung on the wall with one swift, devastating punch.

“Mrrrrowlrr...” Dex growled excitedly as their body bulked up to an even more enormous scale, forcing the dragon to hunch over, lest their forehead smash straight through the ceiling, “Rrrrrrgh...” Scavenger eyed up Dex’s fluffy, imposingly muscular frame with her cheeks as red as the plumage of a cardinal, thumping her tail against the futon mat as the dragon began smashing up her china cabinet, both of their hearts pounding with thrill as decorative dishes, crystalline wineglasses and antique teacup sets clattered into pieces with a deafening and oh-so-satisfying clamor. “Grarr! Rarr! Raaarrr!!!” hollered the dragon as they tipped the bashed-up cabinet over and began to stomp on it repeatedly, smiling wide as wooden shelves loaded with fragile glassware crackled and scrunched up under their supple pawsoles, “Nyaaaarr! Raaahahaha!!!”

Scavenger was utterly dumbstruck by the sheer amount of passion the steadily-swelling dragoness exuded throughout their thorough scouring of the fox’s living room. Ever since she met Dex she had always wondered if she’d ever get to see them indulge in a playful bout of carefree wanton destruction such as this, and now that the chaos and calamity was unfolding before her very eyes, she couldn’t help but enjoy how spunky and chipper Dex looked while trashing and wrecking everything. After shaking a few pieces of broken oak and clattered porcelain off of the underside of their footpaws, Dex slowly whittled down Scavenger’s last remaining possessions in the room, struggling more and more to fit themselves betwixt the tightly-encroaching walls. By the time they were through smashing the leather recliners, the ceramic reading lamps and the antique billiards table, the dragoness was down on all fours with their back pressing hard against the brittle, crumbling ceiling, their wings folded tightly up as gashes and holes began to rip and tear through their miraculously still-intact clothes. Throughout all the shaking, quaking and breaking, it was hard to tell which party was having more fun with the predicament at hand, but it was certain that they both knew what was bound to happen next.

“Raah!!!” Dex roared as they punched their fists through the eastward wall and smashed their way into the kitchen; cupboards, appliances and countertops alike crunching and collapsing against their fists while their footpaws kicked their way into the dining room, ravaging the dinner table and crashing hard against more fully-stocked china cabinets which smashed and shattered gloriously against the dragon’s supple soles. The commotion was nothing short of immense: walls bursting open, the oven and microwave crunching into flattened heaps of scrap, several cabinets and shelves blasting open and crackling apart whilst glasses, bowls, dishes and other such pieces of glass and ceramic clattered apart en masse. Dex’s tail was causing its own fair share of damage as well, smashing upwards through the living room ceiling and into the bedroom upstairs, twirling around like a huge, fluffy morningstar, bashing and smashing against dressers and shelves, crunching the fox’s bed and computer desk as it thwumped and whumped all around, the excitement of all the destruction causing the dragon to wag harder and, most importantly, grow faster. Meanwhile, down below on that futon mat, a flustered bat-eared vixen stared upwards at Dex’s toned, scaly tummy and soft, pillowy bosom while they wrecked and ransacked her house with glee, utterly entranced by the sweet, sensational sounds of smashy-smashy-smashing coming from all around; indeed, she was enthralled to the point where it utterly overrode the often-absent voice of reason within her head which was likely pleading for her to cry out to Dex in hopes that the massive, house-trashing dragon wouldn’t forget about their small, fragile vulpine companion.

In the end, there was no need for Scavenger to worry, for in a swift and wordless motion, the dragoness scooped her off of the futon mat with a free handpaw and lifted her up to their chest, casually stuffing them between their soft, fluffy breasts, providing the fox with a generous amount of cushioning and protection from falling debris, along with the added bonus of flustering the helpless vixen beyond belief. “Rrrrrr!” Dex rumbled as if they were growling and purring at the same time, wagging their tail and wiggling their hips as their body pushed itself hard against the house’s “outer shell,” stretching out the roof and the outer walls like a crunchy wooden balloon. Windows shattered, planks cracked in two and roof shingles flaked off one by one before Dex’s massive tail crashed its way into the attic and bashed spade-first through the tip-top of the house’s roof, the humongous red heart glowing bright enough to light up the entire cul-de-sac. That small explosion of smashed-up wood and plaster was shortly followed up by a far more dramatic and catastrophic “kablooie” which must’ve been audible across several city blocks; the walls of the house blasted outwards and the roof cracked in two as Dex emerged from the absolutely-wrecked hovel with a smile on their face and a fox betwixt their boobs.

Dex remained on all fours for a moment, huffing and puffing heavily, completely and totally overcome by the overwhelmingly ecstatic sensations of their destructive growth-surge. Scavenger nestled up against the dragon’s chest, the heavy thumping of their heartbeat rumbling through her body as she snuggled up in the confines of their warm, fuzzy white cleavage. The small fox’s tussling caught Dex’s attention, and so, they lifted themselves up off of the wrecked and ruined foundation of her house, being careful not to send Scavenger tumbling too far down into the depths of their sports bra, or rather, what little was left of it. “Heyo, foxie!” they hollered, peering down at the flustered little vulpine tucked snugly against their bosom, “Ya like what I’ve done with the place?”

Scavenger giggled and affectionately nuzzled the dragon’s chest-fluff, charming, “Of course! Hardly coulda done better myself!”

“Oh, please, there’s no need to be so modest,” Dex sighed as they casually lumbered forward into the next-door neighbor’s yard, crashing their fluffy footpaw down through the roof of their garage, scrunching up the shiny silver coupe parked inside like an empty can of soda under their sole, “But I’m glad you enjoyed the show! Oh, and speaking of which...”

Scavenger yipped with surprise as the fluffdragon plucked her out from betwixt their boobs, carefully pinching her between fingers that were as thick as tree trunks. Dex dangled the entrapped vulpine in front of their snout, letting out a deep, rumbling chuckle before planting a gentle, jumbo-sized smooch right onto the fox’s fluffy mug. “Mmmnph!” Scavenger yelped, her voice muffled by the smooth, luscious lips smothering her face and smearing her fur with ruby-red lipstick. As Dex peeled her away from their utterly overwhelming kiss, they couldn’t help but chuckle at the fox’s new “makeup,” not to mention the dazed, perplexed and ridiculously flustered expression on her face. While Scavenger was quite flattered by such a massive display of affection, the true purpose of that titanic smooch was made perfectly clear when a sudden, yet familiar warmth began to radiate from her bosom.

“So, since the game isn’t over yet,” the dragoness muttered alluringly, “How about a bit of multiplayer?”

Before Scavenger could do so much as give a simple nod in affirmation, a powerful, electrifying heat began to course its way through her body from head to toe. With her heart thumping like a pile-driver, the fox could hardly do more than growl, groan and pant heavily as her black tank-top and tight-fitting khaki shorts stretched and strained against her bulging muscles and swelling curves. Scavenger couldn’t tell if it was the kiss, the lipstick or some other peculiar device which was causing her body to billow and “bwoomf,” but she couldn’t be bothered to find out. Dex wore an excited, mischievous smile as they cradled the slowly-embiggening fox in their palm, teasingly remarking, “I’ll take that as a ‘yes.’”