FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

'Cassidy said my flame charge and ember are strong, but I'm still so nervous.' Fenny sat on the couch's arm while waiting for Cassidy to get her outfit together. After a week of beneficial training, Snowbelle had finally arrived.

'Because you may lose the battle?' Garna asked. She stood by the dining room table.

He nodded. 'But not so much for me… for her. I have to win for her.'

'Then where is your confidence?' Garna walked and stood a short distance from him.

'I dunno. Still barely there.' He looked back after Cassidy's bedroom door opened.

'Take in what she tells you. She will guide you proper.'

"Sorry I took so long. I had to bundle up." She wore a black button-up parka, tight gloves, two pairs of jeans, and boots.

"I'll see you guys soon." Cassidy returned her pokémon, excluding Fenny. She grabbed her pouch and badge case, then headed out the door. "I am kind of excited."

'I think I'm just nervous…' He held his tail while walking beside her.

"Fair. You will be the one battling physically, but I'll back you the entire time. We'll win this."

They entered the city in around fifteen minutes since they walked quicker and soon stopped as they neared the center.

"The air will get colder the longer you are exposed; you'll deal with that enough while battling, so I'm returning you for now." She crouched before him and caressed his cheek with her gloved hand; Fenny tilted his head against her touch while looking into her eyes.

When she spoke, her exhaled breath was visible as a mist. "This is our last gym, but I will repeat... We'll win. Save your worry for the League."

'Okay…'

She kissed him on the cheek. "Je t'aime, ouais?" She then nudged his cheek with her nose, which was a shade of bright pink.

'I do too.'

Cassidy stood. She took his pokéball out of her bag and returned Fenny, then dropped it inside and closed it. The gym was located north past the Center.

She adjusted her parka while trudging through a wintry landscape. The weather got to her already. She hugged herself for a moment and let out shaky breaths as piercing breezes whisked past that struck her core with the most frigid chill.

Cassidy looked around and saw locals living as if it were a casual climate. She'd really have to try to ignore the cold, as she had to spend half the day inside a gym that would be the epitome of such.

She stopped at the Mart on the way and bought a few potions, full restores, and revives since this was a major battle, then was back on track.

Cassidy would never return to Snowbelle after today unless she absolutely had to. She wasn't made for this weather. She couldn't even feel her fingertips.

After minutes of walking, she noticed a large, hexagon-shaped building ahead near the base of Snowpeak Mountain.

It hit her that she was walking into the last gym and that she was technically qualified for it. She was, right? If she won her eighth badge today, her journey would be over, minus the Elite Four.

She entered after arriving at the open doors. The conditions were seemingly colder inside the gym than outside. Cassidy couldn't even tell. She was completely numb regardless.

She looked ahead at vibrant multicolored tiles making up the walkway, then at the double set of stairs with a platform beneath that would take her down into the gym. With another small shiver, Cassidy ventured into her eighth big battle.

She stepped onto the platform leading to more tiling, a long pink one stretching from left to right and stopping at the walls. They then led to two more separated ones in front of them on each end: a pink and a blue one, both holding a trainer ready to battle. Cassidy would have to fight them both to advance to the next blue tile and repeat the process.

She decided to take the trainer on the far left first, so she walked across and minded the gaps between the flooring that would lead to an unpleasant fall onto hard ice, and there were no safety nets this time. "Safety hazard..."

Cassidy stepped on the pink floor and approached a female trainer in a thin black jacket and a skirt? "I must be the only one who is cold here."

She smirked and put her hand on her hip. "Imelda. They call me the queen of the ice rink!"

"We'll see about that," Cassidy murmured while backpedaling. The lines couldn't get cornier. Then again, they probably could. She couldn't imagine what other regions' gyms had to say.

"Come out, Sneasel!" Imelda shouted and tossed her pokémon onto the field.

"First battle." Cassidy threw out Fenny.

He glanced at his surroundings upon being released but focused on the sneasel in front of him.

"Ice shard on that braixen!" Imelda commanded.

The sneasel hastily prepared its attack, creating sharp flash-frozen ice crystals with its mouth.

"Try to dodge and follow up with a quick flame charge!" They'd worked on his agility for the past week after he failed to dodge three out of five attacks from Añu, so she hoped to see the same improvement she'd seen during their sessions.

Just after Cassidy had given him orders, multiple chunks of ice flew in his direction. Fenny darted to the left, dodging all but one of the projectiles, which hit him in his chest. He shut his eyes and grunted lowly after the initial impact, keeping tense so he wouldn't flinch.

He then surrounded himself with a wall of flames he charged briefly. "Brr..." He clenched his teeth and darted at the sneasel.

"What are you doing? Dodge that!" Imelda shouted at her sneasel.

It did at the last second, jumping aside to evade and rolling back onto its feet while eyeing Fenny rush past and skid to a stop. It winced against the searing heat from Fenny's distant attack.

Imelda widened her eyes. "N-Now's your chance. Use slash! Go!"

The sneasel extended its claws as the flames dispersed around the braixen, glaring at him.

"Zut... (Damn...)" Cassidy eyed its claws and shot her eyes from the running sneasel to Fenny. "It will slash from behind! Avancer (Move forward) and first watch for a low attempt!"

He looked back and saw the sneasel dip and slide across the ice, its claws scraping deep gashes in it while first aiming for Fenny's legs. Upon seeing the braixen jumping preemptively over its attack as it passed, it propelled itself off the ice, jumped, and lunged at him through the air from behind.

'U-Uh–' Fenny had just landed and stumbled in an attempt to dodge but the sneasel dug its claws into his back and tore his skin. "Brxenn!" He gasped and reached back while gritting his teeth, his eyes wide.

"Hm. Fenny, come!"

He held his breath with an arched back and went back to stand at his side of the field, peering at the sneasel, who wore a smirk.

"Flame charge and max it!"

Fenny built a wall of fire around him that he heated and cooked significantly.

"Attack but stop short!" she blurted.

Fenny glanced back at Cassidy. 'Fake it?'

She nodded once. "Watch it. Closely."

Imelda peered at the interaction. "Dodge that flame charge, b-but watch that braixen's movement too!"

Fenny ran at the sneasel, who, as he closed in, hopped to the right in anticipation to dodge the incoming attack; however, Fenny didn't attack and instead skidded to a stop before the sneasel, who was suspended in the air.

"Fenny, quick burst an ember!" Cassidy exclaimed. "Now!"

He created a flame with his mouth that puffed out his cheeks and shot it at the sneasel's face, who had just landed and recovered from its initial dodge.

No! Duck, hurryy!" Imelda grimaced. "What kind of cheap damn strategy is this?"

Cassidy watched the ember fly over the sneasel's head, who had fallen over after dodging the fire. "Fenny, instant flame charge into ember!"

Fenny ignited and built a flame charge as fast as possible while the sneasel scrambled to stand and lunged at it shoulder-first with weak flames barely pieced together.

"S-nea!" The sneasel fell back after seeing what darted at it.

"Braixen!" He hit its face point blank with a hot shoulder, creating a burst of air on impact and slamming the sneasel's body into the ground. It slid and lay lifeless, its leg twitching.

Fenny walked back to his original position and stood, watching the blacked-out sneasel get switched out by its trainer for a cloyster.

"That's it," Cassidy whispered.

---

They progressed through the rest of the trainers with little to no setbacks. However, Cassidy had given Fenny a potion and a break, using Añu in place for a few battles.

When it finally came time for her to fight the concluding one, she was ready to collapse with a perpetual chill. She couldn't bend or so much as move her fingers. She sighed, shivering endlessly. She couldn't feel anything, her face nor her legs.

"You are better..." she whispered and shut her eyes, stopping at two sets of stairs before her leading to Gym Leader Wulfric. "Than all of them." With a deep, chilled breath, she opened her eyes and trudged up, reaching the top.

There he stood.

The tall, burly white-haired individual was on a platform, ready to face whoever dared approach. Behind him was a massive battlefield made of ice with detailed stone walls. At the end was an icy throne encompassed by thick pillars.

The man's full beard and mustache granted him an intimidation factor.

He crossed his arms with a smirk. "Y'know what? Ice is both extremely hard and terribly fragile at the same time. You know what that means? Depending on which pokémon you choose and what moves they use, I could be your most challenging opponent yet, or I could be a total pushover, but that's all right. That's how it should be! Anyway, enough of my rambling! Let's get this show on the road!" Wulfric turned and walked to his end of the stage.

Cassidy could respect that speech, actually. She followed and stopped short. At least he was kinder than he looked, but she wouldn't do anything close to underestimating him. Not only was he the final obstacle in her path, but she wasn't looking forward to revisiting this indoor freezer.

She held Fenny's pokéball, tossing it up a few times before releasing him onto the vast battlefield.

Wulfric sent out his cryogonal. He wore a stern, humble expression complemented by his thick beard.

Fenny swallowed while staring at the huge pokémon on the other end.

"Prepare flash cannon!" Wulfric commanded; his voice boomed.

"Flame charge, right away!" Cassidy countered.

But the cryogonal was already forming an attack. Fenny saw a dim white light emit from its open mouth that got brighter and brighter by the second.

Cassidy shielded her face with her arm against the blinding flash. "Fenny, dodge!"

By the time he even had a chance to process her words, the cryogonal's attack made him wince, then instantly hit him with the bright beam of white.

"Brhi!" The impact burst his chest and knocked him on his back, but he bounced back up off the cold floor and slipped a little before regaining balance. He rubbed his chest.

"You can't react to that attack, Fen. You have to react to the idea of it," Cassidy said. "Focus."

He rubbed and widened his eyes a few times, then prepared a flame charge that he charged halfway before combusting.

Wulfric told his cryogonal to dodge Fenny's attack, so he directed his release somewhat to the right and hoped for the best. "Rai!" He'd guessed correctly and slammed the left half of its metallic body with his shoulder.

Fenny ran back to his spot afterward. "Hn." He rubbed his shoulder and groaned under his breath.

It took another flame charge and an ember to faint the cryogonal, along with another attack Fenny had to endure beforehand.

Next came Wulfric's abomasnow, and along with the pokémon came its ability to make it hail on the battlefield.

Fenny folded his ears and covered his head with his arm while ice began to pelt him. 'Ow. Ih. Ow'. One hit the back of his head. He looked up at a thin cloud over the field. 'Can we get rid of this thing?'

"We sure can." Another flame charge could burn Fenny out, so Cassidy wouldn't put that on him yet. "Ember!"

While he prepared it, his foe brewed ice shard. The abomasnow's head looked to the ceiling with an open mouth as it glowed a bright white, forming huge shards of ice. 'Oh, come on…'

"Fen, focus on its projectiles!"

The pieces of ice flew at Fenny at high speed after the abomasnow spat them in his direction. 'U-Uh…' He tried to judge it and sloppily stepped to the right.

Two chunks pelted him, one on his shoulder and the other on his cheek. It made him flinch and stumble back, nearly slipping on the ice with a grunt, but he stayed on his paws. Fenny held his cheek while rebuilding his ember.

"Brai!" Fenny had charged the attack enough to shoot multiple small bursts of flames from his mouth at the abomasnow. They landed on the front of its chest, burning it a great deal and making it groan before the fire faded.

"And a flame charge! Do not charge!" A part of her wanted to command wish so Fenny could heal, but that would use his turn and gamble him fainting.

Fenny built a weak flame charge as quickly as he could and darted forward before the abomasnow or Wulfric could retaliate, slamming and fainting it with his second attack.

He looked back at Cassidy as Wulfric returned his pokémon, sulking a little while holding his shoulder.

"Do you need a potion?" Cassidy asked.

'Yes.' He glanced ahead and saw an alarmingly massive avalugg standing on the field. 'Does this guy just collect huge pokémon?'

Cassidy paced to him, waving her arm to compensate whenever she slid while pulling a potion from her pouch. She knelt to spray it on his wounds with his direction. "I can call you in, you know?"

'I want to see if I can do this.'

She nodded and stood, returning to her spot. Cassidy pointed to the avalugg. "Another flame charge!"

Fenny fully built the attack and charged the avalugg; it had a difficult time even attempting to consider dodging due to its weight. "Nbh!" Fenny slammed into it shoulder-first and winced hard on contact with pure steel. "Rhgg..."

"Lug," it groaned deeply without moving an inch.

Wulfric stood tall and cleared his throat, his deep voice bellowing across the field and off its walls, "end that braixen with gyro ball!"

"Av." It took heavy steps back that quaked the ground and stood still, then started to run— slowly at first.

Cassidy put her foot forward. "Fen, you have to dodge that!"

Fenny took a timid step back as the avalugg brought itself to a good enough speed to hop upward and spin in mid-air. While it rotated, a light blue aura faded in and surrounded its body. 'H-How? I...'

"V-Vous devez (Y-You have to)! Fenny!" she practically screamed with dead-wide eyes and pushed out her open hand.

Fenny turned his head, shut his eyes, and raised his quivering arms and forepaws to block his face, bracing for one thousand pounds of steel.

Cassidy turned her head as well and winced, clenching her palm into a fist.

Wulfric's avalugg slammed into Fenny with a resounding thud and shudder-inducing smack. It created a small shockwave upon immense impact.

The avalugg knocked him back many feet across the field's icy surface. He lay still on his stomach behind Cassidy's feet.

She opened her eyes and looked back. His eyes were shut, and his mouth was open. She turned and kneeled, touching his cheek while returning him to his pokéball. Cassidy slipped it inside her pouch and pulled out Añu's. "Close."

---

She finished off the avalugg a repeated serving of Añu's rapid punches and collected her badge from Wulfric.

It was a round, tan-colored piece with a blue outline of an iceberg at its center and water droplets circling its edges.

While leaving the city after healing her party at the Pokémon Center, an emotion lingered— an odd one she couldn't comprehend. She hadn't touched the League yet, but a part of Cassidy felt fulfilled. She didn't even know if it was fulfillment. The emotion barely existed.

What would help was telling someone. Anyone— even that nurse back in Shalour.

That would feel great.

Instead, she had to keep it to herself. There was no one to congratulate her— to tell her that she did well. No one was impressed by her feat.

No one even knew she existed, but why did that matter?

"What the fuck do you want, then?"

Happiness. To be content. She wanted to feel content because happiness outright led to complacency, but neither were present.

She had every badge in Kalos and felt no better. She felt stone cold.

---

After she arrived home, she took off her gloves and tossed her bag on the couch. Her fingers were still somewhat numb.

Cassidy paced to the kitchen and ripped open a cabinet above the sink, reaching to the back and grabbing a clear glass of unopened roseli vodka.

It was once her favorite drink, but it was now an unhealthy reminder of a broken past. Cassidy sat on the kitchen floor and stared at it with bloodshot eyes. "If you open this, you'll drink all of it... Amazing, but you will be drunk out of your f-fucking mind." She inhaled shakily, tears filling her eyes. She squeezed the bottle. "You'll fail Fenny, y-your party, yourself..."

Cassidy stood over the sink, untwisted the top, tilted the bottle, and poured. She stared at the rosy red liquid with a blank, lifeless gaze. It plashed and swished in the sink, going down the drain.

It dragged her back to her final night as a sex-crazed teen alcoholic surrounded by many more of them, the best and worst one of her life.

She was borderline drunk and had taken a thunder-psychic fused type pill that took her on the wildest high while her party was at home, where she'd always left them without a word of her whereabouts. She had 'consented' to most of what she'd gone through that night. She'd partaken in a filthy ritual involving a dragonite while her 'friends' watched in a designated home.

It felt like bliss taken without care while drugged up and on the highest high, but afterward, most of them split up or had gone to other rooms.

Meanwhile, Cassidy was left passed out on the floor after puking and exhausting herself, and when she woke up, she was in a bed inside a dark room, though everything was blurry.

She could recall the faint and helpless whimpers she made because she was unable to move a muscle. She'd tried to cry for help but couldn't because everything felt limp and numb.

She fell unconscious again.

The next time she woke up, she was in another bed in a bare room with dingy walls, though inside the same home. The door was closed; a young man sat at the bottom end of the bed facing away from her in a black jacket. Cassidy looked down and saw a sheet over her nude top, sitting up. "Elli?"

He turned slightly, then reached his arm behind him and tossed her shirt so it landed on her. "Put it on and go." His accent was of the Accord as he wasn't originally from Kalos.

He was three years older than Cassidy, tall and relatively muscular with curly blonde hair. He was the one who had brought her in and the first she'd met. Elliot knew everything pertaining to why she was here.

"What?"

He turned, watching her slip on her tee. "I want you gone. Don't come back. Your shoes are by the door."

"Phf, you do not control me. I'm okay where I am. I am not a wreck here."

"You're right. Somehow, you became even more of one. I don't think you realize what happened tonight. I don't control you. The rest do."

"No." She narrowed her eyes. "They do not. They embraced me when I needed it most. You brought me here because–"

"I regret bringing you here. I don't know what I was thinking."

Silence.

"It wasn't what you needed. You were a kid. You still are," Elliot continued. "They laced your pill with a higher concentration of thunder to force paralysis. The room you woke up in was one they'd put you in and had maniacs from a different group entirely on the way to abuse you some more.

I was able to take you away and convince them you'd had enough, but they don't respect me enough to allow me to shield you around the clock, and your current 'boyfriend' doesn't give a fuck about you. None of them do. He's grooming you, and you are just giving him and all of these dirty pokémon your body. Where's your self-respect?"

Cassidy sat up more, firming her lips. "You are lying, Elliot. M-Maybe I drank too much, but I feel safe around them."

He sighed while holding his temple, standing at the foot of the bed while facing her. "You won't find love or care here. You're delusional, and you'll end up dead if you stay with these junkies. You are the youngest in this group. They do whatever the fuck they want to you. It will get worse. I'm through watching them slut a child out. Ne fais pas l'idiot (Don't be an idiot)."

"D-Don't insult me in my language." Her breaths started to quicken as stirring irritation turned to anger. "I am nothing without this place. Leave me. I do not need you anymore."

"Then become something without it, Cassidy. The only one leaving tonight is you." He crossed his arms. "What would your parents think?"

She groaned under her breath, a short-lived wheeze as his words pierced her heart like a bullet. "N’osez-vous pas élever mes parents...(Don't you dare bring up my parents...)"

"They're gone. Dead, and the first thing you do is run to alcohol, sex, and drugs. You are ruining your life, and I'm halfway responsible for it."

Her lips quivered. "Ferme ta gueule... (Shut the fuck up...)" she seethed out through gritted teeth.

He walked around the bed and grabbed her arm, tugging it. "Up. I want you out of this house and across the region, or I kill you myself."

"Let me go! I'm staying!" Cassidy ripped her arm away and shoved his chest, but he again gripped and practically yanked her arm along with her other, making her shriek from how tight he held her. "O-Owha! Elli!" She could only stiffen her legs and drag her feet as he pulled her out of the room and snatched her shoes. He took her down gloomy corridors with peeling paint and closed doors for the night.

He kicked open the front door after reaching it and tossed her out with her shoes.

"Ahmf!" She hit the dirt, knocking the wind out of her and making her cough and wheeze while holding her stomach. She looked back and up at Elliot, rubbing her watery eyes while surrounded by nightfall.

"I don't want to see you back, Cassidy— ever, or I'll kill you myself. Go do something real with your worthless existence." He slammed the door, then sighed and leaned his head against it while hearing doors behind him creak open.

Cassidy shook her head as her vision fell back into place, shuddering. Life didn't care, or else it wouldn't have ruined her. She needed a constant escape, and today had been her last gym.

She dropped the bottle in the trash and wiped her eyes, sniffling, then went back to the living room and stood still for several minutes.

She sifted through her pouch and took out his ball, pressing the button to let him out.

He looked around for a second and sank his shoulders. 'I fainted?'

"You got us to Wulfric's last pokémon."

'I lost.' He pulled his tail from beside him and held it.

"No, we won."

'H-How am I supposed to help you with tougher battles?'

"That's why I have been training you–"

'I'm not cut out for this…' He looked away while squeezing his tail. 'I'll hold you back.'

Cassidy walked and stood before him.

He looked up at her with glossy eyes.

"Do you remember what you told me?" Cassidy held his cheeks and drew her digits over his fur. "You said if there was a battle you wanted to fight, it would be the League."

The tears welled, wetting the fur under his eyes.

She rested his cheek against her chest and held him. "I know you are upset. You lost a battle within yourself. It will sting, but our training wasn't for nothing."

Cassidy kissed the top of his head, speaking softly. "If you remember anything I have told you, remember that there's only one path to victory, and it's riddled with losses. Losing doesn't make you a loser."

'But I still failed.'

"Fen, I'm proud that you are holding yourself accountable, but never treat a loss only as a loss. Some losses will be small while others tremendous, but you only lose after you stop trying. When you see every decision you make as either a win or a lesson, you will never fail. You are better now than you were before."

'Okay…' He sniffled. 'How do you know all of this?'

"Because I 'failed' more than I ever would growing up. I started young, battling friends and acquaintances who were once better than me and reading or training on my free time. I would wait outside the gym for trainers who left with an earned badge almost daily, and I would challenge every single one. Some said yes; I asked for feedback after every battle... I even won a few against experienced trainers I shouldn't have."

'Huh? How?'

"I eventually reached the spot where I knew what I was doing enough to be semi-competent while being a newbie at the same time. I was unpredictable to trained minds and ran odd movesets, so I was hard to get a grasp on."

'Oh, that's kind of funny.'

She took a breath, keeping her eyes on him. "Do you still want to battle in the League?"

'I do.' Fenny looked up at her. 'When are we going?'

"We will have to train a lot more, then we'll decide. I want to teach you flamethrower beforehand in place of charge."

'How come?'

"If we pair that with ember, it will deal the highest damage per second, which will be crucial in The League. Every Elite member has optimized their kit." Cassidy kissed him under both of his eyes. "But let's forget about this for now, yes? I have to get everyone fed, including us two."