# Ice Cream Experiment
Oscar grumbled to himself as he splashed his wet cloth over yet another table, scrubbing hard, trying to remove the sticky remnants of spilled ice cream from the polished wood surface. It was just past closing time for the café, and the Emolga couldn’t wait to be finished. There was a sound across the room, and he turned. A large Glaceon was watching him with a wry smile, but it quickly faded as Oscar turned to look. The huge Pokémon beckoned him over, and he gulped. Oscar hated this job. The Glaceon, Sorbet, was the owner of the Glacé Café, where Oscar had been working for nearly a month now. His boss. In truth, Sorbet was more than a Glaceon, with beautiful pink and blue highlighting his cream-colored fur, and, standing at almost exactly five feet tall, much larger than average for any normal Glaceon. He positively towered over small Pokémon such as Oscar, who was short even for an Emolga, barely over one foot in height even while stretching upwards. The other Pokémon’s size wasn’t the only thing that made Oscar nervous, though. Sorbet also had a reputation for being rather…eccentric. Most people who knew him well only had good things to say, but few truly knew him well. And then there were the rumors of what kind of things went on in the member’s only area of the café… The café had the air of a place that served refined dishes to even-more-refined clientele, but there were few high-class Pokémon in New Littleleaf, and Sorbet rarely ever refused anyone service. In fact, on rare occasions the Glaceon had been known to waive the bill entirely for customers who were particularly down on their luck, as a show of generosity. “Because everyone needs a little more sweetness in their life,” is what he’d always reply when asked why he decided to retire from exploring and open the place. That didn’t explain the mysterious member’s only section, though… His curiosity had gotten the better of him on several occasions and he’d tried to sneak a peek behind those closed doors, but he’d never gotten very far before his nerve failed him. Oscar had never been allowed inside, of course. Even most of the senior staff weren’t, and his own track record was far from spotless. He’d first been hired as a waiter, but had been demoted to busboy after numerous complaints and violations of policy. But why would a café need a member’s only area? He was dying to know, and he was certain it was only a matter of time before he tried to sneak another look. He couldn’t tell what the Glaceon wanted with him this time, but from the look on his face, it wasn’t likely to be pleasant. Maybe he was finally being fired. Oscar straightened his bowtie nervously as he approached, but Sorbet didn’t speak, only motioning for him to follow. He was led back into the staff area, down a hallway and into a small private room. “Oscar, wasn’t it?” Sorbet closed the door behind them. That probably wasn’t a good sign. Oscar swallowed nervously and nodded in reply. The scent of chilled fruit hung in the air around the large Pokémon. “I seem to remember calling you in here once before…two weeks ago, I believe?” Oscar nodded again, cheeks flushing in embarrassment. The Glaceon’s voice was soft, but Oscar thought he could sense the displeasure behind it. He tried to meet his boss’s gaze, but couldn’t, so he busied himself staring at the Glaceon’s thick chest fluff instead. This proved to be a mistake, and Oscar tried to shove the thoughts of burying his face into it out of his mind. “What am I to do with you? If I recall, you were demoted previously, for…substandard work. You know by now how I feel about our customer experience…” Oscar tried not to follow the swaying of the large Glaceon’s ears, or the way his hips swayed as he paced around the room. He tried to ignore the soft sounds of paw pads on carpet. The huge Glaceon was captivating, somehow. “It seems like your heart just isn’t in this, Oscar. You’d rather pry into our private areas than do your best for us!” His eyes widened at that, wrenching him away from his other thoughts. He was certain he hadn’t been seen! “Surprised? I would have thought you’d known that I know everything that goes on in here! Oh dear, oh dear…what am I to do?” The large Pokémon continued pacing back and forth, eyeing the smaller Pokémon up and down. Oscar felt overwhelmed by the Glaceon’s presence. “I’m not sure you understand how dedicated one must be to work with us here. Our customers are of the utmost importance, after all, and I would be personally ashamed if any of them were to have an unpleasant experience!” “A-ah…I-I’m sorry, sir, I–” Sorbet put on a look of mock surprise. “Oh, you’re sorry? Well you know, I want to believe that…however…didn’t you tell me the same thing two weeks ago? You begged me for another chance, and I was so moved by your passion that I granted it…but I can’t have you only putting your heart in when your job is on the line! No, I think it might take more than that.” Oscar wanted to say something but he found he couldn’t. He wasn’t cut out for a job like this, and he knew it, but it had just seemed so tempting. He’d wanted to get closer to the enigmatic owner of the café, maybe even discover its closely-guarded secrets, but the endless labor ate away at his soul. The Glaceon seemed to know what Oscar was thinking. He had a strange, mischievous look in his eyes. “No, no, don’t beg for me to keep you again, when you’re so clearly unhappy! Unless…” “Anything! I’ll do it, please just don’t fire me!” the Emolga blurted out. Sorbet’s smile grew a little wider. It made Oscar nervous. “Anything, you say? Oh I was *so* hoping you would. You see, there’s…something I’d like you to assist me with. In fact, perhaps we can help each other…” --- Oscar was led out and around, through a small, unassuming door he hadn’t seen before and down a flight of stairs that opened out into a long, unfamiliar hallway. At the end stood a large, thick wooden door, reinforced with metal plates. Frost had begun to creep out from the cracks around it. The door was quite imposing, and a similarly-imposing padlock kept it held firmly shut. What could they be keeping down here that needed such secrecy? Sorbet winked at him, and lifted the padlock, blowing a kiss into the large, old-fashioned keyhole. Ice spread over the lock, filling the interior, and there was a soft click as it sprang open. Sorbet pulled the heavy door open, cold radiating out from the darkness inside, and Oscar found himself being ushered in. He shivered as he stepped through the doorway, unable to make out anything in the deep shadows of the frigid room. Strange shapes seemed to lurk just out of the light of the door, but even as Oscar squinted at them, Sorbet pulled the door closed behind them both, plunging the room into absolute blackness. Then, a light clicked on, and Oscar had to blink for a moment before he could make out where he was. He stared. The room was filled with various instruments and devices, from ice cream machines to lab equipment to weird glass globes with colored liquid inside them. A beaker of something pale and pink gently bubbled on a hot plate, while next to it a mixer slowly and rhythmically stirred something thick and lime green. Oscar’s breath clouded in front of him, but Sorbet didn’t seem bothered by the cold. There was a gentle click as Sorbet replaced the padlock on the inside of the door. It took Oscar a moment to register that he was trapped in here now. The huge Glaceon grinned again. “Welcome to my secret laboratory!” “Y-your…” he trailed off. “You were dying to see some secrets, were you not? Well almost no one but me has seen this one!” The Glaceon let out a giggle. Oscar let out a flustered squeak as he found himself being lifted off the ground, his face mashed into the large Pokémon’s soft chest fluff. “You’ve always wanted to know, haven’t you? What goes on in this place, yes…but more than that.” Oscar shivered. His brain refused to believe this was happening. Sorbet’s fur was warm compared to the chill of the room around him. “You’ve been dying to know what this fur feels like, haven’t you?” He must be dreaming, of course. He must have snuck off to some shadowy corner of the café and had a nap. He’d always thought the large Glaceon was pretty, beautiful even. But he’d never seriously considered– “I told you, dear…I know *everything* that goes on in here.” Oscar didn’t move at all. His poor brain was overloaded. The Glaceon was very soft. “Is that why you wanted to stay here so badly? Couldn’t go back to being a customer again? You wanted to be…closer?” He gave the Emolga a little squeeze as he said that last word, and Oscar stretched his arms out, hugging onto the front of the much larger Pokémon. It was all the confirmation Sorbet needed. “You poor thing…working yourself to the bone every day for a boss that won’t even look at you. Well perhaps I can do something to fix that for you…” It took Oscar a moment to realize he’d been placed down on a chair. All his reactions seemed delayed. He watched attentively as the Glaceon busied himself with various pieces of equipment that Oscar didn’t understand. Oscar stared. He couldn’t help it. Sorbet was humming quietly to himself as he worked, adding the boiling pink liquid to the lime mixture, taking down a colored jar from a shelf with several dozen more and adding a teaspoon, increasing the speed as he poured in milk and syrupy sugar. Sorbet’s movements seemed practiced, expert even, and Oscar was impressed despite not fully understanding any of the process. Sorbet took the mixing bowl and blew over the mixture gently, his freezing breath chilling it, before he took a spatula and began to stir by hand, whipping the mixture as he held the bowl close against his body. Little by little it began to freeze, but the Glaceon worked it expertly, keeping it soft and smooth as he chilled it with his breath, frost spreading over the rim of the metal bowl. Soon, he seemed satisfied, blowing a kiss over the top and winking at Oscar as he produced a large ice cream scoop from somewhere. He dipped it in, running it in a circular motion around the bowl and dropping the resulting scoop directly into the center of a shallow dish, topping it with a shot of chocolate and a sprig of mint. “Would you be a dear and…taste-test this for me?” Oscar took the dish and gazed down, almost missing it when the Glaceon offered him a spoon as well. The ice cream looked smooth and perfectly round, and Oscar almost lost himself watching a drop of chocolate slowly running down onto the dish. He used the side of the spoon to cut into the scoop, and he met very little resistance. It was incredibly soft, almost silky. Sorbet watched him intently as he lifted the spoon to his nose and sniffed, and then took a bite. Oscar’s eyes widened as the flavor melted immediately over his tongue. Was that…mint, with a hint of pistachio? The Emolga almost swooned. He was taking another bite before he could even think, and then another. It wasn’t even a flavor he would have thought to order for himself, but somehow Sorbet had guessed his tastes better than he could. Or maybe everything the Glaceon made was this perfect. Oscar wasn’t sure which was more impressive. “Good, I take it?” The Glaceon giggled again. “You don’t need to answer, your reaction already tells me enough. I should probably have warned you that I put a little something special in that ice cream, though…but you seemed so eager!” The cold wasn’t even entirely off of his tongue yet when Oscar’s body began to tingle. Sorbet took the dish as he lowered his arms, breathing harder. His body felt warm and his head was swimming. “Wh-what did you…?” He closed his eyes for a moment as a wave of dizziness washed over him. When he opened them again and looked up, the Glaceon was absolutely towering over him, even more than usual. The Glaceon seemed massive now! Looking down at himself, he found that he was standing at the edge of the chair he’d been sitting in only a moment ago. And he was tiny, maybe two inches tall, at most! “Ooh…very fast acting, just as I’d hoped. Good, good…but how long does it last?” The Glaceon put a huge paw over him and squished him into the chair’s seat. He let out a squeak as his entire world was suddenly hard wood under him and soft paw pad atop him. Those massive toes flexed as Oscar reached up, trying to hug that blue pad, nuzzling and rubbing his face against it. It smelled like blueberries. It wasn’t long before he was licking it, running his tongue over it slowly. It tasted like blueberries, too, faintly. Those toes squished down around him as the huge Glaceon giggled, and he found himself wedged between two of them, squirming as he was squeezed tighter. At this size, the short fur on the Glaceon’s paws felt thick and soft, and Oscar rubbed his own paws over and through it. It was warm, too, and he buried his face between those digits as they gripped around him. “Enjoying yourself, I see. Perhaps I owe you an apology for surprising you…” He felt himself being lifted up, and he clung hard to the Glaceon’s paw, though he was held firmly. The other forepaw came up behind him, and he was dropped onto it before both came together, sandwiching him between soft, blue paw pads. Oscar was in heaven. He could barely move as he was squished between blueberry pillows, but he didn’t care. Sorbet continued to toy with him like that for a moment, before finally placing him down on top of the counter. “No sign of the effects wearing off… Well, I hope you enjoy this next part as much as you did being my paw toy…” Oscar found himself resting on a dish, just like the one his ice cream had been on. He stared up at the large Glaceon, who held up a couple of squirt bottles. Two lines of warm chocolate slashed diagonally across the Emolga’s chest, and then two lines of caramel mirrored them. The scent was overwhelmingly sweet. Oscar felt his sticky fur and licked the rich sauce from his hands. He felt the saucer beneath him begin to move, and he was lifted up face-to-face with the enormous Glaceon. “At this size, you’re hardly even a morsel! But I suppose it is about the quality, not the quantity?” Sorbet giggled, lifting the Emolga up even higher, before the dish tilted, and he was sliding. Oscar squeaked and looked down to see a huge blue open maw beneath him, pulsing gently. His heart leapt into his chest as he dropped from the edge of the plate, but the massive, soft tongue caught him, breaking his fall. Sorbet’s jaws snapped closed around him, and suddenly he was sealed entirely inside the huge Glaceon’s mouth. Even with the Glaceon’s jaws closed, a faint blue glow illuminated everything, like light filtered through ice. Saliva began to pool around him, and the Glaceon “mmm”-ed at his sweet flavor, before that tongue began to roll him around. Oscar tried to cling to that tongue as he was tossed and rolled around, the sticky chocolate and caramel beginning to wash off of his fur as he was soaked in saliva instead. The tongue toyed with him like that for a while before it lifted him up, his drool-coated body sliding easily down. His heart pounded as he rapidly approached that pulsing throat, but Sorbet caught him at the last moment, pinning him to the roof of that huge maw before swallowing, washing down most of the chocolate and caramel. Oscar watched it vanish, shivering. Oscar felt adrenaline coursing through his body, setting every nerve on edge. He tingled, and everything seemed to be in hyper focus around him. The warm dampness of the Glaceon’s maw, the slight texture to the huge tongue beneath him, the way the gums and inner cheeks glistened with light reflected from thin coatings of saliva…the way everything smelled faintly sweet and fruity behind the lingering scents of chocolate and caramel. He was really inside Sorbet’s mouth, being treated like one of the many, many desserts that he had once served to customers, the remnants of which he had just recently cleaned from tables. And he didn’t want it to stop. Oscar couldn’t believe his own feelings, but it was true. He’d thought he was being fired, and instead he’d found himself escorted to a secret room, and then played with and treated like food by his giant Glaceon boss, and somehow it felt like a dream come true. He didn’t want to be rescued or helped. He wanted to go further. Oscar lay on that tongue, panting, even as his body protested and told him he was in danger, he rubbed himself against that massive tongue, nuzzling into it. He heard the Glaceon giggling around him, holding still for him as he began to lick and kiss against the rough, saliva-covered surface. Sorbet somehow seemed to know his thoughts again, and his head tilted back ever so slightly, letting the Emolga gently begin to slide back down along that tongue towards that waiting throat. It swallowed, and Oscar could see it ripple and pulse ahead of him. Fantasies of feeling it squeezing around him flashed through his mind. He wanted it, maybe even needed it. He wanted to be food for the huge, beautiful creature around him. Oscar gasped as that tongue surged under him and he fell forward, tumbling down and landing in the back of the huge Glaceon’s throat. Sorbet held him there for a long time, breathing slowly, and Oscar lay still. His heart was pounding so hard he thought it might escape from his chest. This was the moment, and the anticipation was as agonizing as it was exciting. Those huge jaws parted again, and Oscar caught a glimpse of the world outside one last time, framed by the Glaceon’s pointed teeth, before, with an audible *GLLLLRRRKK*, he dropped down into that eager throat, pulled down by tight rippling muscles and sealed away. Swallowed. Sorbet giggled and traced the progress of the wriggling morsel with a paw, following it down his neck and through his chest, before he let out a sigh as Oscar dropped into his stomach. He lounged back in his seat, resting a paw on his belly and patting it gently. He muffled a small burp with a paw, flushing slightly. He closed his eyes as he concentrated on the feeling of the tiny Emolga moving inside him. Inside, Oscar could hear the booming heartbeat of the large Pokémon as he squeezed down that tight tube, muscles working him deeper and deeper in rippling waves before he finally dropped down and splashed into a pool of saliva at the bottom of the Glaceon’s stomach. The blue glow was dimmer here, but still present, and the air inside was saturated with a sugary smell, sweet and fruity. The walls were amazingly soft, and they rippled around him, the sound of gurgling loud in Oscar’s ears as they worked. It was so…active. He tried to stand up, but the squishy surface beneath his paws wouldn’t stay still long enough for him to get a footing, and soon he gave up, just laying at the bottom of the Glaceon’s stomach and basking in the warmth as saliva occasionally washed over him. He’d expected it to be freezing, but it wasn’t at all…not as hot as he’d imagine for any other Pokémon, either, but pleasantly warm. It was perfect. He felt his eyes closing slowly, and he struggled to keep them open, but the air was getting thicker and sweeter, and it was getting harder to breathe. He pressed his paws into the floor beneath him and rubbed as the fluids began to rise slowly around him. His body tingled, but it seemed so distant and far away. Resisting was so much effort. Too much. Oscar finally gave in, letting his eyelids slide down, and he drifted off dreaming about becoming part of something so much greater than himself… --- Oscar’s eyelids felt heavy as he blinked slowly. He shivered and glanced around himself. He was in one of the small private booths at the back of the café, laying on the seat. What time was it? Had he fallen asleep? He’d had the wildest dream… As he stood, a small card fluttered down to the ground, and, curious, he reached down to pick it up. His heart nearly skipped a beat as he scanned it. It was a note for him, written in pretty, looping handwriting in cyan ink. “Apology accepted! If you enjoyed our little dinner date, be here tomorrow at 7 AM sharp, and be ready to do your best!~” It wasn’t signed, but it was obvious who had left it. Oscar was trembling as he gathered his things. It was incredibly late, long past closing, and he needed to get home. He locked the door and turned to leave, getting partway down the street before he turned to look back. A chill breeze blew through him and he shivered. It reminded him of that secret underground room, and the Glaceon who owned it. Maybe there could be something to look forward to there, after all…