FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Chapter 3

The town outside was quiet right now, as the sun was rising. Everyone had yet to get up and start their business. I quickly found what I believed to be a doctors facility, built into the body of the largest hill of the town, and knocked on the door. I waited a moment, but as no one was answering I knocked again, this time I heard someone shout out to me.

"Oh goodness, I'm coming! Sorry! One moment!" It sounded very light and soft, so I assumed they were female.

There was a massive amount of rustling, as whoever was on the other side of the door moved around. I could hear her fussing over things as he she moved them.

The door opened then and I gasped as I was greeted by a large Milotic, her serpentine body taking up a large portion of the room within, but she seemed well accustomed to it, her body moved in such a way to take up a less space as possible but not be cumbersome.

"Hello Ruli, can I help you?" Her words were nice, but I heard the hint of annoyance in her voice. She probably didn't like Ruli that much either.

"Is Axel here?" I asked her while looking to her.

"Axel?" She tilted her head, "Oh, the Eevee boy! Yeah, he's here." Her eyes narrowed, "Why do you want to see him?"

"I'm kind of the reason he's here..." I shuffled and rubbed my paws together a bit.

"What do you mean you're the reason he's here? Did you do that to him?" She snarled at me a bit then, a tooth showing and gleaming at me from the sunlight outside.

"No no no!" I said quickly and shook my paws in surrender, "He protected me and got hurt, that's why." When she glared at me still I continued, "I-I swear it is."

"Hmmmm..." She hummed lightly a moment and then turned around, her body flowing behind her gracefully, "Fine, come in."

"Thank you..." I said and followed, her tail gently closing the door behind me even as she was moving forward.

We past up a flight of stairs, down a hallway, up another flight of stairs, and stopped at one of the many doors in the hall. This seemed to be some kind of hospital of sorts, but there sure were a lot of rooms for small town.

She opened the door with her tail gently like she had with the door downstairs, hearing the doorknob click open without being touched. Perhaps she was able to use some kind of psychic ability to open the doorknob?

I looked inside to see Axel wrapped up tightly in a small bed on the ground, only his head visible. Most of his head was wrapped in bandages, slightly bloodied looking but otherwise tidy and professionally wrapped. His nose, muzzle, about half of one side of his face and an eye unwrapped. Part of his neck was wrapped as well, probably to give the rest of the wrappings a firm hold.

I approached him slowly with the Milotic following close behind. I made to reach out and touch his head but she silently stopped me by putting her tail in front of my paw and shaking her head at me, so I stood close to him instead. "Axel...?" I whispered anxiously.

To my relief, he opened his eye, blinking slightly and groaning.

Milotic was instantly in a rush, "Easy there hon, are you feeling okay?"

"My head..." The canine groaned again, shifting slightly in the blankets.

"Relax, don't move so much." She placed her tail over him, the fin starting to glow a soft blue and Axel visibly relaxed soon after. "There you go."

The Eevee looked at me, "Ruli, are you okay? Sorry I shoved you."

I blinked, "You're sorry for-" I shook my head rapidly, "No way, I'm sorry you had to shove me...you got hurt..."

He smiled and laughed a bit, "Yeah, but I wouldn't let a friend get hurt if I could help it."

I smiled a bit myself and noticed my eyes felt really wet. Was I nearly crying? I brought an arm up and rubbed them as I laughed, "You scared me. Thought you were going to die."

"I've been through worse with my family." Axel said and then he looked up at the fin, "I'm okay now, the pain's gone."

Milotic moved her fin away and slithered across the room towards me, "Very well hon, just call if you need anything more."

She slid past me, "You're welcome to visit as long as you need to, just don't touch the bandages." She purposely slid her fin across my head as she left and I watched her leave, the door closing behind her with her telepathy.

I sat down in front of Axel, crossing my legs. "Why did you do that?"

"You'd have done the same for me right?" He asked back, and I frowned.

"If I wasn't frozen by fear...I would yeah."

He chuckled, "You were surprised, you couldn't react. It's understandable." He tilted his head then, "What I don't understand though, is what you said to them."

"Huh?"

"You told them you weren't Ruli."

I shuffled, I had forgotten the exact words that had been said, but I remembered now that he told me. "Oh, yeah. Well...I'm not Ruli." I shrugged.

"Then who are you?"

"I..." I sighed and closed my eyes, "I don't know."

"Oh, you can't tell me huh?" He sounded saddened and I quickly shook my head.

"No no, I really don't. Look...this will sound really crazy, but I want you to know, you saved me so you deserve it." I spent the next few hours telling him what had happened since I had woken up in the forest, answering questions as he asked them while he listened. I left out telling him I was once a human though. Connecting the dots, I believed it would probably be bad to tell an Eevee whose family protected this world from humans that I was once one myself. I felt bad for not telling him, but I had no way of knowing how horrible exactly being a human was yet or how he would react.

After we had finished, Axel laughed and he shook his head, "You're right, that all sounds absolutely crazy...but, I believe you."

"You do?"

"It explains things. You did seem like you were really out of place in this area, I didn't hold it against you back then, thought maybe they had paired me with a new student, but you really did have no idea how to traverse the forest at all did you?"

I shook my head, "No, not even a little bit, it was unfamiliar to me." I sighed and relaxed on the floor, stretching out my legs and staring up at the ceiling a moment, "Everyone here seems to dislike me because they think I'm Ruli...and until they can figure out something more, as far as I should be concerned, my name is Ruli."

Axel tilted his head, "Perhaps you should try and see if you can repair Ruli's image. Cleaning up his room was a good start. Until they can try and help you figure out wherever it was you came from you can help the townspeople to pass time."

I thought about that, it would probably help so that everyone wasn't giving me glares whenever they saw me. "That sounds like a good idea actually, I can maybe find out something along the way."

"And I'll spend my time resting until Milotic says I'm good enough to go." Axel chuckled and smiled. "Well you might as well get out there and see then huh?"

_________________________

Leaving the building I decided the best place to start would probably be to go to the marketplace and see if anyone there needed some help.

For a small town the marketplace was about the same, there were only three stands. One was manned by a single Treeko, the other two were not yet filled as it was still fairly early in the day. I approached as the Treeko was busy rummaging around behind the stand and tried to get his attention.

"Excuse me." I said while on the other end of the stall.

He jumped up at the sound of my voice and saw me, his eyes narrowing, "Oh great, it's you." He began looking around himself at all the sacks he had back there, "What do you got this time?"

I tilted my head, "What?"

"Don't play dumb again." The Treeko glared at me once more, "Give it back to me." He held out his hand toward me.

"I'm sorry..." I shook my head, "I really don't have anything." I held up my paws.

He stared at me, then moved around the stand and proceeded to walk around me, looking at my tail and legs, then he grabbed me. I jumped as he started patting down my fur at my sides and I blushed a moment, feeling a sensation of touch for the first time in this body that wasn't my own. Pokemon were sensitive creatures.

He stopped patting me down as he reached my hips and stood back up behind me, "Huh, guess you really don't have anything. That's a first."

"I'm sorry..." I started and tried to think of how to go about this, "But...have I taken things from you before?"

He gave me a very confused look as he returned behind his stand, "Uh, yeah. Pretty much every single day."

The Treeko picked up a couple empty sacks and stuffed the rest of filled ones back into a cabinet under his stand, which he then locked with a key he produced from his tail, which I then realized was holding a key ring with three other keys on it.

"Do you operate this stand?" I asked him, and once more he gave me a very confused look.

"Are you feeling okay?"

I rubbed the back of my head, "Um...not really..."

He sighed and threw the two empty sacks over his shoulder, "Look, I don't have time for your games Ruli, I have to get ready to open the stalls today." He started walking away.

I kept up with him however, looking back at the three stalls, "You mean you work all three of those stalls?"

"Of course. You really are starting to bug me by acting like a fool." He growled and I looked at my feet as I walked.

"Sorry...I'll leave you alone then."

I turned and walked in the other direction, but the Treeko stopped and watched me. I got about twenty feet away before he called me back. "Hang on, get back here."

I looked back at him and he held the sacks, "You can help me out probably."

Quickly I returned to his side, taking the sack from him, "S-sure!"

"This is for payment for all the apples you've stolen though." He clarified quickly, "Don't you try anything funny or I'll make sure Pangoro finally kicks you out of this town."

I nodded quickly, smiling cautiously, "Okay...I understand."

He stared at me a moment before he hummed, "We'll see, come on then."

_____________________

"So," The Treeko started as we entered the forest few mintues later, "Why you acting a fool?"

"What?" I asked back while skipping over a tree root and he huffed.

"You know exactly what I mean, pretending you don't know I run all the stands, that you never steal from me." He looked at me a moment from over his shoulder, "What you trying to pull? Never known you to be tricky, just sneaky."

I thought once more, trying to think of reasons besides amnesia. "Um...trying to turn over a new leaf?" I said hopefully and smiled at him as honestly as I could.

"Hmm...I suppose...everyone deserves a second chance I guess..." He shrugged and looked back ahead of himself and I sighed inwardly. Hopefully I wouldn't have to exercise some kind of song and dance for every pokemon in the town to try and help them.

The Treeko led me through the woods for about thirty minutes before we stopped at a large tree, "Here we go." He said and left the bag on the ground before he suddenly began to climb. I looked up and saw dozens of apples in the tree canopy above us.

"I don't often have help getting these!" The Treeko shouted down to me once he was close to the top, "Try to catch as many as you can! Undamaged apples are way better to eat!"

I looked at the bag in my paws and understood pretty quick what he meant, and opened up the sack as wide as I could, "Okay! I'll try!"

And so the next hour was spent with Treeko picking out apples from the branches, and me trying to catch them in the bag. If one hit the ground, it was apparently no big deal. "Usually when I do this alone I just throw all that I need to the ground and then take that." He told me, so a few hitting the ground was fine.

I did catch the majority of them though, and when he deemed we had enough, both bags were pretty heavy with apples.

"All right! Looks like we got enough for now, this will last me a few days." He was smiling finally and took one of the bags.

"Thanks Ruli, guess I can forgive your antics now. Let's get back to town and-"

A sudden growl sounded from the bushes as a Houndoom appeared from them. Treeko stepped back next to me and I stared at the Houndoom, who growled loudly still and began to take steps towards us.

"Easy big guy." Treeko said and began to take steps back, and I with him while staring between him and the Houndoom. The dog's tail lashed as he kept growling and pacing towards us. We were half his size!

"What does it want?" I asked in a whisper.

"This is it's territory...I sometimes have run ins with him..." Treeko said back to me and he began taking steps to the right and I followed, the Houndoom starting to circle with us. "Usually I just run up the trees and use them to get to the edge of the forest, but I've got you with me this time and if I ran up the trees you'd be a dog snack..."

"Can we reason with it?"

"Can't reason with a wild pokemon Ruli...their minds are lost. They only operate with basic instinct. The only thing we are to him is intruders on his territory."

The Houndoom growled louder and suddenly jumped at us frow where he was. Treeko grabbed my paw and pulled me quickly, as we ran to the side and into the bushes. "Run! If we make it to the tree line he'll stop chasing!"

We began running through the bushes and trees, the Houndoom close behind us, barking and snarling. I panted heavily as I tried to see where we were both going, but eventually I wasn't able to keep up with it all and tripped on a tree root. I hit the ground, the bag of apples I was carrying falling open all around me. The Houndoom was all over it, I looked up to see him jumping at me.

Treeko suddenly jumped over me and intercepted him, spinning in the air to let his large tail smack the Houndoom across his face. "Get out of here Ruli!" He shouted at me while he and the other pokemon vanished into the bushes.

Panic drove me and I got up and continued to run, eventually making it to the close by treeline. I stopped once I found the path, the town in the distance. I panted and kneeled over with my paws on my knees.

I heard a loud barking in the forest behind me, looking back with my ears perked. Treeko had intercepted the Houndoom so I could get away, but could he get away himself. I couldn't just leave him in there alone could I? I had to go back.

I grimaced as I tried to draw up the courage to go back in and charged, following the loud barking.

Eventually I broke into a clearing, the Houndoom by a tree and circling it. I saw Treeko up in the tree, his bag of apples still with him.

Treeko saw me and he shouted, "You moron I told you to run!"

The Houndoom saw me then and he instantly started to run at me. I froze in place and time seemed to freeze as well as he ran at me. In my haste to try help Treeko, I had forgotten that I had no idea how to defend myself. I hadn't even thought about what I would even do to help.

I closed my eyes, preparing myself for the inevitable feeling of jaws and teeth, but I wasn't going to stand here and let it happen like with Machop and his goons, not this time. I kept my eyes closed as I shouted, and as I believed the Houndoom was close, I jumped and punched the air.

I heard an explosion, and the Houndoom yelped loudly. At the same time, I was blasted backwards in the air, landing heavily on my back on the ground. The Houndoom ran away into the bushes, yelping still and I opened my eyes and sat up quickly.

"What happened!?" I shouted and looked up at the Treeko, eyes wide in disbelief.

Treeko stared at me and he laughed, "Pretty sure you just Force Palmed his face!" He kept laughing for a bit, "I forgot you are a student at the school, you're trained to deal with this kind of stuff."

I didn't know what to say really. I stared at my paws as Treeko climbed down from the tree, wishing I had kept my eyes open to see what had happened.

_______________________

After saving Treeko, he thanked me and we returned to where I had tripped to pick up the apples that I had dropped, and returned to town. He gave me one of the apples and winked, reminding me, "Remember, this was all just payment for all the trouble you've caused me."

It was still the early in the day, it wasn't even noon, but I was exhausted after the adrenaline from the encounter faded. "Helping out one person is enough for today I think..." I said wearily and hid in my room at the school the rest of the day, thinking.

A few hours after noon, a knock on the door sounded.

"Come in." I responded and stood up from where I had been on the floor, facing the door as Pangoro opened it and entered.

"Ruli, Treeko told me what happened today with you and him."

"Oh...um...okay." I shuffled a bit in place.

"Tell me what happened, I want to hear it from you."

I recalled the events carefully, finishing with how I had apparently used something Treeko called Force Palm to make the Houndoom retreat, but that I wasn't exactly sure I used it.

"It is interesting, and it gives more proof that you could really be Ruli...no other Riolu would have had significant enough training to use the attack..." Pangoro started, "But with this...amnesia or whatever have you, at least it seems your training is still instinctive."

"I'm sorry sir..." I started, "But...what training?"

He smiled at me and chuckled, "Here at this school we train young pokemon to become Explorers. There are still many unknown things about our world Ruli, we train in the basic use of exploring equipment, survival training, and combat training against wild pokemon."

He crossed his arms, "I'll tell you some of the basic things, as a reminder since you probably don't remember at all. There are wild pokemon in our world, and there are intelligent pokemon like you and me. We are not sure what kind of change brought about the difference in intelligence, but that is how it has been for a very long time."

"After you graduate from here you and other graduating classmates are charged with a test." Pangoro continued, "Now, given the nature of the test I can't tell you what it is."

I tilted my head, "How close are we to graduating?"

He smiled again "That's why I had to come see you after hearing from Treeko. As long as you're able to at least defend yourself, I think you can take the test. That is why Axel was sent to us, to take the test. Axel was assigned as your teammate, and he should be recovered in a few days time. He remembers his survival training, but you didn't. Until now I believed you couldn't remember a single thing, not even how to fight, but it seems you can, at least on an instinctual level."

"So he and I can take the test to graduate?" I nodded, "What happens when we do graduate though?"

"That's another thing I can't tell you given the nature of the test I'm afraid." Pangoro said, "But, I can tell you that you'll probably do just fine as long you and Axel are together."

I nodded again, this all sounded fairly ominous a bit. "All right, though I wonder, is there somewhere I can try to practice my fighting? I don't want to have to rely on being in mortal danger for instinct to guide my actions."

He laughed, "Understandable, I will train you personally. Over the next week I'll put you through the same training regime I used when I was little. You'll be excused from Infernape's usual classes."

"Why?"

"Survival and wilderness is fundamentally much longer to learn and understand than how to fight and protect yourself." He shrugged simply, "It would take you years to relearn everything he teaches in his classes, but it won't take nearly as long for you to become proficiently able to fight. You are a fighting type after all."

I thought about that a moment and realized his point. Ruli had probably learned a lot from Infernape in his classes about the forest, how to navigate it, and how to navigate other areas of the world, but learning how to fight was simple and quick to learn and could be used whenever you needed it. Then again, perhaps Ruli didn't learn anything from Infernape's classes, given the general opinion of him, he probably often fell asleep in class.

"Okay." I nodded and smiled, "I'll do it then."

Pangoro nodded and he clapped his big paws together, "Good!" He turned and made to leave, but then turned before he closed the door. "By the way, I wanted to tell you after having thought about all this stuff. You may or may not be Ruli, and we never know if you are or what might have happened to Ruli, but you are welcome here still." He paused a moment, "And I'm sorry but I can't help but say this. From what Treeko told me today...I feel bad for saying it...but I hope the old Ruli never comes back." He looked at me and I tilted my head, and then he chuckled and shook his head, closing the door behind him as he said, "See you in the morning tomorrow for training."