FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Chapter 27

I slept throughout the rest of the day, only waking once to eat something when my stomach's grumbling finally became persistent enough. I stumbled along the floor still half asleep, before my new height and body length made me hit my head against the doorframe.

"Ah!" I yelped silently, whining afterward and I rubbed my forehead gently with my paw. I backed off from the doorframe and glared at it. I was head level with it now it seemed. My new body added a few feet onto my height. I had to stoop down a little to fit out the doorway, but I was able to stand back up in the hallway.

It was near dusk, the entire pokemon center was bathed in the orange twilight, as the sun was setting on the horizon of the coast that I could see outside the mountains from the windows of the lobby. There was no one else in here it seemed, everyone had retired to their own rooms or were examining the interiors of Team Flare's base.

I approached the windows that looked down upon the coast, and I could see the destroyed island in the waters. The mountain was crumbled, the town nearly gone. A few large looking cargo ships had surrounded it already. I wondered if the people living there were going to try and rebuild, they could probably build onto the mountain now. Yveltal's emergence had blown open the hills.

I sighed loudly as I remembered that the island, many many years ago, had once been Raze's home. The water that made the peak an island once did come up that high, kept down by his presence in the chaotic world.

"You're awake, you scream loud enough?" A dark but light voice spoke to me, and I turned my head upward to see Rook, perched up on his post as he had been when I first met him. He was still in his mega form, he seemed quite used to it. If he stayed in it all the time, it was probably what had made him attract Team Flare's attention and got his gem stolen. It was pressed tightly around his neck right now, a chain collar holding it tight on his chest.

I nodded lightly, ignoring his joke about my earlier yelp, turning my attentions back out to the sea, "Yeah..." I felt my head tendrils brush my paws as I moved, they hung low enough that I could hold them with just a slight turn of my paw. I held it tight, holding it and bringing it up to my view, rubbing my other paw along the red fur.

Rook studied me a moment longer as I did this, his head lifting up from his fur spiked legs, those large wings he had pressing against the wall behind him.

"You are new to that form, aren't you?" He determined after a moment of silence.

I shook my head then, "No, not new to it just...the first time I've been able to actually look at it without something trying to hit me." I chuckled lightly and looked back up to the glass, which now, as the suns ray's faded, started to show my reflection back at me. Pangs of sadness attacked me as I only saw Raze staring back at me from the windows. I couldn't see myself just yet I suppose, this body didn't feel like mine.

"Then tell me, what troubles you right now?"

I looked back at him, his eyes still seemed so dark, but the way the light reflected off them I saw the concern he had for me, a fellow mega.

I turned to him and I asked, "Do you know where your gem comes from Rook?"

He tilted his head at me, "Do you know where yours comes from?" He asked right back, and I had to grimace at how he did it, and he chuckled softly before actually answering, "My gem comes from my old pack, we coveted it for years. The Alpha male used its power to keep control, and it was passed down from son to son through their bloodline."

I imagined then, given what I knew, that the Absols of old had been one of the pokemon that decided to keep their Mega Gem to themselves when Xerneas had come and told them to secure them.

"Are you of that bloodline?" I asked him, and he shook his head.

"I stole it in the dead of night, and ran away."

"Why?"

"Power." He answered simply, shrugging his shoulders, "The power inside the gem. The same reason you have it."

I shook my head, "No..."

"No?"

"If that is the case why you have your gem," I growled lowly, "then I would ask that you give it to me. Now."

He actually sneered, his teeth flashing as he grinned, "Excuse me?"

"A living being used to be in that gem." I pointed at the dark black stone on his chest, and then grasped my own with my paw, "Just as...up till today, one used to be in mine..." I glared at him in turn, "To be using their power for no reason but just cause you wanted it...is not acceptable to me."

Now the Absol looked more interested. "I see...I'm sorry." He apologized, but made no notion that he was taking my request seriously, instead letting his interest in what I said carry on. "They used to have something alive in them? What do you mean?"

I looked out the window to the destroyed island, "Have you heard of what happened on the island town?"

"Me and Veren heard yes. A monster pokemon exploded from it. It tore up the town before a legendary pokemon came down and fought it back. No one knows where it went."

"That pokemon is Yveltal, otherwise known as Calamity. Thousands of years ago, the world was wild...it shifted and changed constantly..." I nearly whispered as I remembered back through all the memories Raze had shown me. They were now my memories too...and I realized then something, and I looked back at Rook, "Surely...you know...if you think hard enough and remember."

Rook stared at me. "I've...had dreams...a red and black pokemon with three wings, a massive battle...I've dreamed of looking over dreaded peaks of mountains, staring across the land while behind me, dozens of Absols worked to keep our home from our enemies." He moved to step up beside me as he looked out the window as well.

"After I first saw you and you left, I dreamed again while our trainers talked. I dreamed...I was staring down right at that island, but it was a mountain among a forest...I recognized it instantly and I saw you walk out of a cave there, so far away but still easily seen..."

"They are memories of Mega Absol, who once resided in your gem. The Mega once owned the land, the earth would shift and change depending on the closest influence of one of them. Water types made oceans flood and rise, fire types rose volcanoes from the earth, electric types brought with them never ending storms. They fought each other over territory, for food, for the best areas they could protect themselves at."

"When Calamity came, they realized the only way they were going to protect themselves and their families was to team up. They fought Calamity, the pokemon in your dreams, together. The battle was harsh, and lasted for days...they defeated Calamity, but it came to the point that the Mega pushed themselves so much that they died, their bodies unable to move. Their spirits, however, were not so defeated."

I held my gem up from my chest on its chain, "In their place, they left these gems. Their souls resided in them. Xerneas appeared after Yveltal was defeated, and advised that humans and pokemon should now live and work together. Many of the packs of pokemon kept the gems to themselves instead, others, headed the warnings of Xerneas and hid the gems among the humans."

"The gems were lost to time. The world developed into what it is now, the society of pokemon living and working peacefully together and with humans. Nature is in balance, the world is as it is intended to be."

"Your gem." I continued now, "Was probably taken by the Absol of long ago, who refused to work with humans for probably the obvious reason that they might harm them. They drained Mega Absol of his power, killing him, and now your gem operates off of your own energies instead and can operate fully."

"Mega Lucario...he got buried in the earth, forgotten by his pack...eons spent underground until the day I felt and discovered him..." I sighed softly. "He was the greatest pokemon I've ever known...if you only could really know the stories...but it'd take much to long to tell."

I swung my arm in an arc, "And that is why, I won't let you keep a mega gem, if the only reason you have for keeping it is because you want power." I said this sternly, glaring at him again.

Rook stared at me calmly, before he said, "I don't keep it for power anymore..."

"What? You said you did."

"I just said what I believed was the most obvious answer as to why I had it..." Rook closed his eyes a moment.

"I did steal it a first for the power yes, but...I realized soon after that the gem would not work for me. I carried it with me for a few years, but it never opened to me and gave me the power that hid inside it." He sat down pointedly, "I thought maybe it was because I had stolen it, it wasn't really mine, so I thought the power wasn't going to let me use it."

Rook looked down the hallway towards Veren's room, "I got careless one day, and Veren captured me. I hated him, hated being his pokemon, like a pet. Then came one day...well, I saved his life. We were camping in a cave in the mountains, and an avalanche happened. Rocks blocked up the exit. We were trapped and then the air started to get really thin...Veren fainted and I was probably going to soon after him."

"All I could think about for some reason was that I had to save him, had to help him, had to protect him, and that it was probably me that was doing this to him, you know, disaster pokemon and all that...Suddenly, the gem opened to me, gave me its power, and with it, I destroyed the blockade, then carried him to the nearest center...Its worked for me ever since then. Veren told me I could leave when he woke, cause I had saved him and what not and he knew I didn't like being his pokemon but...I didn't leave. The gem opened to me finally, the power was there but it seemed...it only wanted me to use it to protect him...so that's what I'm doing."

"You and your trainer have also been chosen for a greater destiny Rook..." Psy's mystic voice suddenly spoke once more, and we both looked up to see the small physic type on Rook's ledge, peering down at us through his closed eyelids.

The Abra's tail made a slight motion on the ledge, "You know your feelings in your heart...it is those that get the gem to work for you. Mega Absol may not exist in your gem, but it's the protective heart that he died with that still beats inside it. Only through using the gem to defend those you care about can you unlock it."

"Humph..." Rook grunted and closed his eyes, but as I looked down at him, I could see the faintest hint of a blush on his muzzle.

"Ruli." Psy returned his attention to me, "You have a visitor..." he said the last word after a small pause.

I tilted my head at him, "A visitor?"

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"Hiiiiiiii!" Meloetta said in her usual sing-song voice as I walked outside the doors to the pokemon center with Rook. Psy had gone back to the room, stating that Meloetta wished to speak to only the two of us. I had to stoop down once again to be able to get through the doorway.

"Meloetta." I smiled lightly, "What are you doing here?"

"Well, I felt your distress in the Aura again. What happened? Why I can't I sense Mr Mega?"

"Oh..." my smile faded and I sighed, rubbing the back of my head, "Well...Raze is gone and...he basically gave me his body and power..."

"I see, I'm sorry!" She shouted and she flew around in the air a bit, now singing a sad tune a moment before she continued, "But, I see you found another fellow Mega!"

"One of many..." I sighed and shook my head.

"Cheer up Ruli..." She said sadly and I looked back up at her. I couldn't stand to see her sad, she was too majestic for that.

"It's a start...but there are so many others to find..."

Rook stepped toward me, "Me and Veren shall help you, we shall search with you." I looked at him a moment and he continued, "You've explained much to me of things I've questioned for so long. If Yveltal is as powerful as you say, it is better that we stick together. I shall get Veren to follow you and Zane tomorrow." Rook determined, and he bounded away before I could answer or respond to his offer.

"Well then, my group keeps growing and growing it seems."

"It'll only grow larger." Meloetta commented, "The power of all the known Mega is needed to fight Yveltal. Of course, there is other power."

"Other power?" I asked her, turning towards her, "What do you mean? What other power?"

"If you don't know the answer, you'll have to find out for yourself. Though really you already know it, you just don't realize it hehe." She flittered about as she spoke, then took off into the air, starting to sing her melody.

"Wait! Meloetta!" I called after her, lifting my arm as if to try and catch her, but she only giggled as she continued to sing and fly away.

I watched her go, lowering my paw slowly, and stared up at the night sky a moment. My memory flashed. I was sitting on a rock, holding an apple in my paw, staring at the stars. A human scrambled up to sit next to me, my nose picking up his scent easily on the wind. Zul. I sighed deeply in the memory.

"Why do you try so hard Zul?"

I shook my head clear, sighing deeply, and turned around to go back inside the center and try to sleep the rest of the night away.

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The next morning, after hitting my head on the doorframes of the room three more damn times, we finally made ready to leave.

Veren and Zane shook hands as we stood at the town exit.

"Where are you going to go?" Zane asked.

"I'm thinking of heading to the island, help them rebuild a bit-"

"No!" Rook shouted out suddenly, and I realized this was how he was going to make his point to his trainer.

Veren jumped at Rook's sudden bark, and the Absol came over to stand by my side, planting his paws into the ground pointedly where he stood.

"Rook, what are you..." Veren said and I spoke.

"The Mega need to stay together." I said and then looked down at my trainer, feeling so odd about this new change in height between us. Zane had remembered nothing of last night, nor did he apparently feel one bit of pain from it, but I assured him, what had needed to be done was done.

"The Mega need to stick together, he says." Zane said lightly and he looked back at Veren.

"I see..." Veren looked to Rook a moment, the Absol and human staring into each others eyes before Veren said, "Well, where Rook goes, I go."

Fredrick suddenly seemed to move, "If this is the case, I think I might go to the island instead." He stepped free of our group and he took a pokeball from his belt, releasing Dragonite. He hopped up onto the dragons back as Zane called.

"Hey! You're just gonna up and leave?"

The mercenary trainer looked back at us, "I'll be back. Herb hired me to protect you, but with Chris and his legendaries, and now Veren with his Mega and you with your Mega, you should be okay if I go for a bit yeah?"

Zane saw this point, and so did I, and he said, "Oh well I suppose when you say that."

"I'll be back in maybe a week or so." Fredrick said, and he lightly gave Dragonite a tap with his foot, the dragon type's wings flapping and kicking up dust a moment before he soared up slowly into the air, building speed, and headed down to the coast line.

"Well that was sudden." Chris said, "He never showed interest in the island before, wonder what he's up to..."

Veren walked up to us, "Well whatever it is, I guess he saves me the trip and I can really go with you then." He smiled, "Hope you don't mind the company."

"Course not." Chris said he took the first step, exaggerating it by lifting his leg up high and stomping it down before walking normally, "Group stays the same after all!"

I chuckled lightly, grinning a bit, as I moved to follow him as Zane did, and Rook and Veren quickly behind.