FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

“What the fuck kind of Pokémon are you?"

Okay, let me back up here a bit before I answer that question. I'm no poke arena trainer, I've never dealt with the creatures before other than to avoid walking into them on the street. People didn't walk around with satchels full of traps any more, not since they were deemed cruelty some sixty years ago, long before I was born. I'm only twenty-eight, after all. But the Pokémon, for lack of any more appropriate term, were still around. Now people have to go entice them, rather than trap them, convince them to partner rather than serve.

All well and good, right? I mean, for the Pokémon, more or less. Not so much for the arena leagues that had both grown in popularity but shrank in number as it became far too expensive to maintain more than two or three for any single individual. I had none.

Well, until now.

See, I was just enjoying a quiet Friday night at a bar down the street from my flat, when shit went sideways fast. Some half-drunk, probably drugged blind, lady all but bowled me off of my stool at the bar where I'd been eyeing Brody, the very good-looking drink slinger plying his trade and flirting mercilessly with anything that had a dick. That happened to include me, and we'd been circling around each other for months. I wanted to see what else he could do besides sling drinks and flirt, and he knew it, playing me like a fish that hadn't yet taken the hook.

Then this chick plows into me, laughing like a hyena, and near blasts me off the stool. Luckily I didn't have my drink in hand so was able to turn and catch her before she went sprawling face first to the floor. As I fought to keep myself upright and help her up some big drunk ass bruin wades in, bellowing about leaving his girl alone, and aims a haymaker at my face.

Stupid easy to avoid, that, merely ducking and leaning a bit even as I struggled with the boneless heap of tits, ass, and pussy squirming in my arms trying to find her feet. The second strike was a jab, short and low, as nearby bar patrons began to create space. I rotated away, slipping off my stool and helpfully lifting the floozy onto her feet… and ever so considerately right into the path of a drunken left jab which caught her squarely in the cheek.

She yelped and cursed, losing her feet again, and the bruin bellowed about ME hitting HER! Brody was calling for the bouncers and I just let the floozy go. She promptly collapsed to the floor and I squared up against the guy who probably had a hundred pounds on me, only a little bit of that fat.

Where he was stacked I was lean and, more importantly, sober. When he waded in, fists coming up, I stepped back, over his now forgotten piece of pussy and waited for his next move. Another haymaker, so telegraphed I saw it coming probably before it left his alcohol fogged brain. A quick twist, a slap at the meaty arm as it lumbered past, and a quick tap to the chin in reply. More to let him know I was more than a good-looking stool warmer and could sling fists, too.

Half turning in place when his swing was aided across its arc, and reeling from the light tap to the chin, he managed to square up again, face purple with rage. With a forward lunge he came for me, both arms wide for a grapple.

Of course, he forgot that his piece was on the floor and immediately fouled both feet on her, one on her hand and the other to her face. He tried to grab at me even as he fell forward and my second introduction of fist to face was less than a tap. An open palmed slap to the side of his face reported like a whip crack even over the sound of the screens above the bar, turning his lurching lunge into a spinning collapse against my now vacant barstool. I stepped in and, with a sweeping kick, knocked his knees out from under him.

And that's when the bouncers arrived. Or, rather, one bouncer with his Pokémon sidekick. A bloody fucking Snorlax who sleepily gazed at the chaos and… yawned.

Bruin caught the burnt of the potent attack, slumping between bar and stools while his strumpet simply stopped screaming about her broken nose and all the blood. I had just enough time to blink when the snorlax's gaze shifted to me and I felt a wave of Pokémon power roll over me with the overwhelming force of a tsunami… of five hundred count silk sheets and a warm comforter on a cold night. Lights out.

I woke up in a holding cell occupied by eight others. Five of them were noisily sleeping off benders. They all stank of piss, vomit, alcohol sweat and probably more than a few illegal narcotics. Three others were awake, pacing or sitting, looking morose and disgusted at the other occupants of the cell, including me.

My phone was gone, as were my wallet and belt and even my shoelaces. And I was barefoot. The only reason I knew they had taken my shoes was one of the shady, awake individuals was trying to hide them behind a heap of other pilfered items. He thought he could keep me from recovering them, but he thought wrong, soon joining the other eight in slumber with a new black eye and probably a couple of cracked ribs.

Twelve hours later I was paraded before a magistrate to explain my side of the fracas at the bar, which I did. The bruin was not in attendance nor had I seen him in any of the drunk tanks. For disturbing the peace in the fracas, despite being the victim of it, I was given a fine and fifty hours of fucking community service. On my way out I got my property back; my phone (undamaged, thankfully), shoelaces and belt, and my wallet two hundred notes short and missing all of my credit cards. I tried to file a complaint against bruin but he had never been brought in or booked so they had no information on him for me to even begin the complaint process; I would have to find out who he was on my own.

So, here's where the actual story begins.

I was tasked with collecting trash along a stretch of roadway so overgrown it looked as if it had not been used since the era of wheeled vehicles, yet there was litter and enough dumped trash to fill entire skid sleds which other crews had been tasked to deal with. I was given a bag and a set of collecting grabbers. Thrashing my way through the undergrowth choking a ditch I poked bits of trash into my bag until I came across a smudge of red in the dirt. Squatting down I used a stick to dig around it until I could free it from its prison.

A Pokéball, one of the earliest designs of poke traps from… gods knew how long ago. Before my time, certainly, probably my father's, too. But they were antiques, albeit illegal, so I figured I could get a few bucks out of it after cleaning the muck of years off of it. I found bits and pieces of others, but that was the only whole one. I stuffed it in my not-trash shoulder bag that I brought along for things I wanted to keep. The lazy ass crew supervisor didn't care if I kept recyclables or other things that were not considered potential evidence like the sidearm another crew had found on my first day. That had created quite the little shitstorm and I had managed to skate by that first day mostly waiting and doing nothing.

So I took my sparse haul of mostly recyclables home at the end of the day and dumped them in a basket to sort through at the end of the week. I had my job to do and, while my employer had been somewhat understanding, had still requested that I keep up the basics which I could do at home; answering mail, proofing schematics, zoning requests, and the like.

It was slow, arduous, eye-straining work looking for one missed decimal point or mathematical error on a hundred pages of structural schematics and vetting each one before they would be passed on to an intelligent machine reviewer and then to the final inspection which would be done by another human from the Board. I was only stage three of a five stage human review process, each step followed up by an AI examination, because a single missed bolt had caused the lower three floors of an arena to collapse when I was a kid. One hundred seventy three dead and two thousand wounded. Because of a bolt. No count was made of the Pokémon that had been in the same stands at the time.

They had been given some basic rights, chiefly to autonomy and no longer being hunted and ensnared in digital traps, but they were still animals, if intelligent ones.

I did some research on those traps, how they worked, how they were environmentally hardened, powered, the internal components, and the like. The one I had discovered was a mid-generation model, at least a hundred years old. Score! Quite the antique if was still in good shape. The body looked fine, there was even a dim little green light above the central button to activate it. Nothing I found told me how long the power supplies lasted, or even how to charge the thing, and I found no ports for any sort of charging or interface connection.

But, crusted with a century of dirt and roots it took me days to pick the seams clean to see if it could be disassembled for a proper cleaning. They were pretty well hardened against the environment so dunking it in a bath or running it through the dish cycler wouldn't hurt it.

After another week of tinkering with between the last days of my fucking community service, job duties, and trying to find out who the asshat at the bar was.

Oh, yeah, that side note. The asshat turned out to be Brody! Son of a bitch said I was flirting with the drunk bitch and pissed off her boyfriend. As if I would, and he well knew it. I had no time and little interest for tits or pussy. What a way to kill the interest, you fuckshit. He even blocked my request to see the security footage or the guy's receipts. I doubt that evidence survived the night if Brody, and the bodyguard come to think of it, was covering for the guy or is bitch.

So, here it comes down to what happened when I freed up enough encrustation to depress that Pokéball's activation button. It shook a little in my hand and a blue fan of light shot out from some unseen orifice to assemble whatever had been digitally trapped in there for a century.

At first blush it looked like some sort of canid type… thing. It was fox-like in general configuration but fluffier and certainly bigger. And it was a solid, unrelieved black. On the outside I thought it was maybe forty pounds, about as big as a mid-sized dog but with a narrower muzzle and sharply defined triangular ears that seemed narrower and taller than I would expect of a dog or even fox, but not rabbit-like. Jackal, maybe? It could fit that bill, too, with those tall, outsized ears. It was tall, too, freakishly so on legs easily twice the length of its body's depth.

And black. I didn't know squat about Pokémon, honestly, only what I'd seen in the community and there were thousands in the city. None were entirely black like this one. None, that I had ever seen, were a single uniform color. The most starkly monochromatic had at least two colors, most had many more, never one hue alone.

It stood there for a moment as if gathering its wits, then sat back and looked up at me. Its deep black coat fluffed briefly, a strange black mist spilling out and pooling about its paws. For a moment I feared it was about to unleash some Pokémon special attack but the mist withdrew and the fur settled after a few seconds. I stared back in a moment of silent tableau before it settled back into its haunches, raised its slender muzzle, and began to keen. I grimaced at the wail. It was a sharp, mournful sound that sliced into my heart with all of the subtle brutality of a spear tip. My breath hitched in surprise and empathy when I realized why it was making such a painful, wracking racket.

It was grieving. It was grieving terribly upon realizing that whomever had placed it in that trap was gone, passed away in the century of its waiting in that little digital prison. As I watched it slumped and curled up into a pitiful ball of black fluff, keening into the tail draped over its muzzle. Stepping forward I knelt and reached out a hand, but hesitated to touch. I did not know what type it was or how it would react. But the pitiful sounds of its animal weeping coaxed my hand down to simply rest it there at the nape of the grieving animal's neck. When it did not react I stroked it gently.

Poor creature, mourning the loss of someone it had obviously cared about or for. Shifting, I turned to sit on the floor beside it, slowly stroking its fur, until at length it passed from weeping into what appeared to be a troubled sleep. A deep enough sleep that it did not wake when I carefully scooped it up and carried it into the living room to gently deposit it in the big, soft embrace of my living room recliner. It did have some heft to it, when I picked it up, an easy forty or fifty pounds, perhaps more.

After watching it hitch and twitch and make muffled whines of distress in its sleep for a while I wandered back into my home office and returned to work. It was still in the chair when I came back out a couple of hours later to head for bed. The breathing had evened out, the soft whines and muffled keens had ended at some point, but I left it where it slept as I went to my room, stripped down, and slipped into bed.

I was awakened later in the night by a warm presence tucked close into the hollow of my chest and stomach only to find that it had awakened enough to move, now relocated to my bed curled up against the spoon of my body. It did not stir when I gave its back a stroke and I eventually drifted off to sleep again.

When I woke it was still there, curled up against my hip and thighs with its muzzle poked rather indelicately under by balls. When I rolled away onto my back it lifted its head and cracked its muzzle in a huge, toothy yawn. It certainly had canine enough looking teeth, with long, narrow, distinctly sharp fangs and cutting molars. At least its tongue was the expected pink, mostly, with markings of darker flesh here and there, as it curled up toward the roof of its muzzle before turning its gaze to me.

I was surprised to see that its cat-slitted eyes were a pale but intense shade of sky blue that, as I watched, slowly shifted to a brilliant shade of emerald green so intense they seemed to glow. I blinked in surprise, when it came out of the Pokéball its eyes had been the same unrelieved black as its fur. Now they were green, and had been blue. It had not been a trick of the light, what little light there as leaking in through my curtains, they had changed right before my eyes.

Multi-chromatic eyes? Deep black fur? I was going to have to do some research. Reaching up a hand I held it toward the fox jackal whatever canid type it was and when it did not shy away gave it a scritch along the jaw. “Yeah, little one." I said as it tilted into my gentle fingertips. “Not a good way to find out you've been gone a long, long time. Sorry about your master, or trainer, whomever they had been."

It gave a soft chittering sort of noise, not a purr or a growl but something sharper, a burring sound that defined easy definition. It did not identify itself, as some Pokémon did, by endlessly repeating its identity with only variations in tone or delivery to hint at whatever it was thinking. It simply burred and let out a short huffing sigh. I shifted my scritching upward to ruffle between those tall, tapered triangular ears before shifting one leg over the side of the bed and using it to lever myself upright. The Pokémon rose as well, its long legs and the height of the bed putting its shoulders several inches above my hips. Hopping delicately off the bed, where it still towered higher than my knees, it padded toward the open door of my room as I took a moment to stretch.

It did as well, standing in the door, leaning forward on its forelegs to stretch its spine and then shifting, bowing its forequarters low and lifting its hindquarters high in the long body stretch. Its lush tail naturally raised upward letting me know, in that moment, the exact gender of Pokémon it was. There was no mistaking the black diamond shape of its sex though, above it, fur shrouded anything else from sight. Stretch complete it - she - shook herself and padded out of sight down the hallway.

I crossed over to the bathroom to conduct my morning ablutions and get a shower, noticing as I did that a good quantity of black fur had stuck to me on the night, mostly about my hips and groin. She needed to visit a groomer and, likely, follow that up with a visit to a Pokémon clinic to be checked out. I didn't know much about Pokémon, even less about the old traps used to store them, and not a whit at all about what such prolonged storage might do to them.

After my shower I ambled out into the kitchen, passing the recliner where the Pokémon had once again ensconced herself, to prepare breakfast. She padded in while I was rifling through the refrigerator, mentally tabulating a list for my next visit to the grocery. I would also have to find some food for her, unless she chose freedom over being my… partner? Pet? People treated them all manner of ways, these days, from pampered pet to a seeming partnership, like the bouncer with his Snorlax in the bar.

Seeing that she looked pretty much canine, and having seen those gleaming teeth, I rather doubted she would enjoy the fruit I was slicing into my cereal. While the toast cooked I offered a chunk of sliced turkey. She gobbled that up, though delicately, her thick fluff of tail waving amiably. Cheese she accepted just as readily, and even a slice of banana though that only after dropping it onto the floor to sniff and lick before deciding it was edible and making it disappear. I filled a large mixing bowl with water and set it down for her and went about preparing my coffee.

That's when she chose to remedy my wandering attention by poking her nose quite solidly into my crotch, making me jump, and gazing up at me with those sky blue eyes again. “Still hungry?" I asked as I backed up a hasty step, covering my mug with one hand to prevent it spilling. Stepping forward she drove her narrow snout and cold nose under my balls again and nudged upward forcing me into another retreat as she nodded, eyes shimmering to a grassy green. “Turkey? Cheese? Maybe some toast?" Nod, nod, head cock and then a strange sort of sideways nod and a burring rumble. She wasn't sure about the toast, but she'd give it a try.

With a chuckle I set aside my coffee and went about preparing a plate. I know vets said it was bad to feed pets, or Pokémon, human food but it was what I had on hand. I had no idea what Pokémon ate, but there was an entire unexplored section of the grocery dedicated to them. Setting the plate on the floor I turned to my coffee as she walked up to it and sat, staring up at me rather than at the food in front of her.

“What?" I asked as I put together a turkey and cheese sandwich on toast for myself. She gave that strange burring sound and dipped her muzzle down, then looked up at me before dipping her muzzle again. “What? You want me to sit, too?" She nodded. “And, obviously, you can understand me, right?"

Her eyes shimmered from moss green to emerald to a deep golden yellow as she nodded, tail flicking across the floor behind her. With a roll of my eyes I took my plate and coffee to sit cross legged on the floor across from her plate. I set mine down and she watched alertly, eyes once again green, until I took up my sandwich and took a bite. Satisfied at whatever strange ritual she demanded the Pokémon dipped to her plate and began to eat as well.

We finished at roughly the same time, her because what was on her plate was sized for her body and me because a sandwich is quick food, and she moved over to the bowl of water. She looked at it for several seconds, then back to me, back to the water, before turning and padding over to me as I sipped my coffee. Stepping around me she craned her neck up, being somewhat on equal level with me on the floor, and put one dainty black paw on my forearm.

The arm holding my cup of coffee.

After a confused second I lowered the cup and held it toward her and saw that bottlebrush tail lash rapidly as she shuffled up my wrist to the cup, then over the cup, before giving it a hearty lap with her slender tongue. I hastily moved my mug away. “Hey, now, little lass." I chided as she licked her whiskers and craned her head toward the cup I now held up a little higher. “That's not good for you, and it's my cup to boot."

Her eyes returned to the gold hue and she let out a series of stuttering burrs, something between a cat's greeting chuff and a growl. That's when I realized what it was, a 'gekr', the noises actual foxes make. Of course, I didn't know jack nor shit about foxes or their vocalizations but I'd seen enough tidbits on the cloud to know what that sound was. Most often I saw some domesticated fox rolling over and making those noises when its owner was present to offer a treat or belly rub. And different when two foxes were vying for the same owner's attentions.

Just how foxy was this Pokémon, anyway? It was sure as hell a lot bigger than even the largest fox I'd ever heard of, but the look and noises were damn spot on. Well, except for the ears which were taller in relation to her head than those of a fox and narrower in proportion as well, with little tufts of fur at the tips like some squirrels I'd seen.

Hooking a paw over my arm she sought to draw it down to get at my coffee again but I held firm. “Come on, now, off with you. Until I get a clinic to clear your diet I'm going on the assumption this is bad for you." Grudgingly she dropped down from my arm and wended her way around me from one side to the other, stopping with her head close to mine, eyes shimmering from a brilliant gold to blue and finally back to green. Turning her head slightly she gave a mock nip at my neck, only brushing the skin with the fur of her lips, and flounced off with her tail held high, disappearing around the far end of the counter island. I picked up our plates and levered myself upright to put them in the sink along with my now mostly empty mug.

She was once again curled up in the recliner, deep green eyes watching me over the fluff of tail hiding her muzzle. Washing the few dishes took me a couple of minutes and I went back across toward my room at the back of the flat. “I need to leave for work today, to catch up on my backlog. You'll be okay here, or would you like to roam outside? Pokémon are free, now, no one can attempt to stick you in a trap like the one I found you in." I paused with a shrug. “Honestly, all Pokémon are free now. Totally. You can return to the wild, if you want, stay here, or go out looking for… hell, adventure, I guess?" She did not move from the chair, eyes watching me, quiet.

I went into my room to get dressed. I was finishing up, adjusting that professional noose quaintly called a 'tie', when I heard the rush of the toilet flushing. I stepped out into the hall to look into the bathroom where the Pokémon was on the bath mat twisted about to lick herself. At least her upraised rear leg blocked that particular view. “Did you just… use the toilet?" I asked, incredulous. She raised her head from her own morning ablutions, peered at me, then glanced at the toilet gurgling into silence, then back at me with a flash of orange-ish bronze eyes and nodded.

Of course, that gaze seemed to say, that's what it's for, right? The gekkering chuff she offered was just an aperitif to the look, the fox-like Pokémon shaking her head as she padded back out to resume her post in the recliner. Well, Pokémon were said to have almost-human levels of intelligence so… it made sense she could figure out a toilet, or her past trainer had taught her how to use them. Just the mental visual of a Pokémon squatting on the toilet to do their business was… weird.

After gathering up my briefcase and made the final arrangement to my suit I returned to the living room. “Do you want to stay in, or go out? Once I leave no one will be here to open the door for you." She raised her head enough to offer a toothy yawn, half lidded eyes a shade of chocolate, and then made her muzzle disappear under her tail again. “Okay, then. I should be back in eight or ten hours, depending on the caseload. Tomorrow is a normal off day, so we can see about a grooming salon and clinic visit." She merely watched me over her tail until I closed the door.

Work was chaotic and left little room for cutting corners, what with an AI vetting the work afterward, but I made decent progress through the day. What it did not offer, however, was the opportunity to pick the brains of a few coworkers I knew of who were more familiar with Pokémon than I was, some exhaustively so. After eight hours I was mostly caught up, another couple days like that and I'd be back where I was before that stupid community service bullshit.

And I was still not closer to figuring out who bruin and his bitch were. The police were done with it, having arrested me and let the guy who started it go without even getting his information.

I stopped by the grocery on the way home and restocked my usual consumables, plus several extras for my impromptu house guest, and spent several confusing minutes in the Pokémon section looking at a truly dizzying array of 'healthy options' for Pokémon that I certainly wouldn't want on my plate. I opted for a couple of 'sampler packs' from different vendors and brought them along. She would maybe find something she enjoyed in them, or I'd be shelling out for the admittedly cheaper roast meats from the human side of the aisle.

When I arrived back at the flat and fumbled open the door with both arms laden with grocery sacks the Pokémon was standing just beyond the kitchen, peeking around the countertop island cautiously, eyes a soft sunshine yellow. Upon seeing me on the other side of the door her gaze shimmered to green and she stepped out with a happy vulpine gekker of greeting, ears erect and forward, tail high and waving slowly side to side.

She didn't gambol around my legs like a pet dog might, or rub herself against me like a cat. She merely stood and watched as I thunked my load onto the kitchen table, adding my briefcase in one of the chairs. I squatted and ruffled the thick ruffs below her ears. “Hope you weren't too bored here by yourself." She cackled a few of those odd neither cat nor dog noises and leaned into my scritching, lush tail sweeping slowly in the air behind her. “I picked up a few things humans think you Pokémon might like, I'll let you try them and see how that goes." Standing I began emptying sacks and storing away the groceries. She moved to the relative safety at the end of the island while I moved about, to and fro, stuffing things in cabinets high and low or into drawers or the refrigerator. When I was done I hung the sacks from their customary hook by the door to be returned to the store.

“I suppose we'll have to figure out your name." I said as I made my way through the flat toward my room to change out of my work suit. There were already bits of fur clinging to my slacks from knee down. Luckily my penchant was for darker colors, brown today, so the black fur didn't stand out. “'Lass' isn't really a good name for you." She hopped up on the bed, sat, and watched as I shed my clothes. Down to my briefs I turned from the closet toward the dresser when she hopped down off the bed. “What do you think? Is 'Lass' okay?"

Her head cocked, one ear rotating and laying back a bit, then shook her head. I rested my hands on my hips and looked down at her. “Okay, not Lass. Blackie?" An emphatic shake of the head and harsh gekkering growl, both ears back. “Midnight?" A less emphatic shake as she paced around me, snuffling at my legs. “Okay, how about… ehh, Night? Nightshade? Nightshadow?" Shake, shake, shake. “Ebony?" She stopped before me and looked up, head cocked, but did not shake her head, nor nod. “Close, then. Ebon?" A nod before she resumed sniffing around my hips. And, of course, being a creature whose senses were as much olfactory as visual, her examination was rather pointedly close to my backside and crotch. “Just Ebon?" She shook her head. “Okay. Ebon… what? Shadow?" A snorted gekker and backed ears.

Turning, she paced a short distance away and turned to face me. I watched as she seemed to… swell. Her fur puffed up like an angry cat, tail doubling in girth and a ridge of raised fur traced down her back. And then, abruptly, she burst into flame. I let out a gust of surprised breath and took a reflexive half step back.

There was no heat, however, nor smoke. Nor was it fire in the traditional sense; it was black. The core was deep and dark, like her fur, growing lighter further away like firelight would be brightest on a burning log and grow less so the further away it was. “Ebon… flame?" Abruptly the fire winked out, vanishing back into her ink black fur, and she nodded with short, clicking burrs of pleasure; I had discovered her name. Whether it was her type name or one given by her long-lost former trainer I had no way of knowing, but it was the name she accepted.

Prancing forward she ducked her muzzle, shoved it between my upper thighs, and slid upward to stop rather snugly under my balls, tail wagging energetically. A friend I had as a kid had owned a big galumph of a dog, a golden courser, who would do that to taller people, much to their chagrin, to get neck or back scratches. With a grunt at the same action I responded as the adults had, back then, leaning over to give her neck and shoulders a thorough scritch… while also backing up a step to withdraw her long muzzle from my crotch. She responded by simply bopping her nose forward into the front of my briefs, clearly enjoying the scritches. Blue eyes gazed up at me, slowly shifting toward a pale leaf green as my fingers worked through the fur from shoulders to haunches and back. Then I straightened, recovered my sweats from where they hung from the footboard of the bed, and slipped them on.

I took my tablet into the kitchen while I prepared food for myself, increasing the portion slightly in case my impromptu houseguest did not find the Pokémon meals to her liking. While the chicken cooked, I perused what information I could find about Pokémon, specifically canid types normally black in color. The sheer volume of information was truly daunting, with hundreds of overall types and nearly sixty of some canid conformation or other. Most were wolf or wolf adjacent, many analogous to domestic dog breeds, and almost twenty fox or fox adjacent. Several of those were primarily black, but none entirely so. None had the strange black flame powers, usually elemental Fire in a rainbow of hues but none black, and Dark which was not flame like.

And the color changing eyes was not an actual ability any possessed, merely using illusion type abilities to alter such aspects as eye or fur coloration. This strange foxy creature, resting full length on the couch watching me cook, seemed to be unique. I already knew that her eye color changes were linked to her moods, though I had no idea how they aligned.

I could only find a few scarce historical references to an all black Pokémon with flame abilities but they were anecdotal mentions to material that had not been put on the data cloud.

Setting aside my admittedly shallow research I opened one of the samplers and warmed it in the heatbox according to instructions. While it warmed, I completed my own meal and portioned it out into two plates.

“Okay, lass, let's start with this." I said as I pulled out the sampler and tested it for hot spots but found none. “See if any of them agree with you." I set the platter on the floor as she hopped off the couch and padded into the kitchen. The plated food I had prepared I set on the table. “I hope calling you 'lass' is okay. Ebon flame is quite a mouthful to say." When she looked up her eyes, a soft jade green, shifted briefly to blue as her tail swayed and she let out a soft gekkr, nodding. Those feline slitted orbs shifted back to that soft green as she sat and looked up at me expectantly, not bothering with the food before her.

I stared back for a moment. “What, you want me to eat down there with you, again?" A deeper green and a very strange drawing back of her muzzle that revealed only the edges of molars as she nodded. Was that a grin? I sighed. “'Lass, trying to eat sitting on the floor is hell on my back." She chuffed, sighed, and shifted her gaze to the table, then back to me.

I followed her gaze to the table and back, then let out a soft chuckle through my nose. “You want to sit at the table and eat with me?" With a wider 'grin', showing more sharp white teeth, she nodded, eyes a deep emerald. “Ohhkay." I laughed, bemused, and picked up the platter before crossing to the table and setting it across from my plates. I then returned and picked up the water bowl, rinsing it out and refilling it before setting it on the table beside the platter and drawing out the chair.

She primly hopped up and settled herself as I nudged the chair in enough for her to reach the food easily. I then circled around the table and sat in my own chair, taking up my utensils. The Pokémon lowered her head and sniffed at each of the small pockets on the sampler platter, all of which looked like rendered meat in a pasty lump or chunky like a stew. A few made her twitch away with an unmistakable moue of disgust while others she tentatively licked. She only ate four of the twelve offerings. I ate slowly while I watched her dainty inspection and selection. Once she had finished the ones she had found palatable I slid the extra plate across to her; a chicken thigh with some mashed potatoes with gravy from the chicken and mixed vegetables.

The look she gave me was pure thanks, unmistakable in the shift of body posture, slight sigh, and that toothy grin now stained with bits of the gravy from the sampler staining the front of her muzzle and long, plentiful whiskers.

And here we come to that opening line. “Just what the hell kind of Pokémon are you?" I asked, curious, as she poked a slice of carrot away from the string beans and nibbled it. She glanced up, licking the remnant gravy from her lip fur and whiskers. Her fur puffed up and she was abruptly wreathed in that shimmering black flame again. It lasted only a moment before fading and she cocked her head at me.

“Yeah, that. I tried 'Ebonflame' and got no results. 'Ebon' offered me a few different types, none like you, most of which used some sort of Dark as primary or secondary skills, but no flames and no canine or vulpine types. The closest I got was 'Ebonash', a badger type with Earth primary and Fire secondary, and the coloration was silver on slate gray in badger patterns." She listened as she licked the mashed potatoes away, getting more gravy on her muzzle, before turning at last to the chicken. “You're pretty unique." She daintily nibbled at the chicken, raising one of her paws and using it to pin the thigh in place while she picked the meat from the bone. Then she picked the bones apart and crunched those up, as well, cleaning her plate save for a few string beans and broccoli florets. I picked up the plates and returned them to the sink before coming back to check the platter as she hopped down from the chair. I noted which of the samples she liked, handily labeled at the bottom of each small 'dish' in the platter, and discarded the remains.

“And, honestly, what to do with you." I said as she watched me wash dishes from the sofa. “Pokémon cannot be captured, any more, they can choose a human, if they want, among those that offer themselves. To compete, which only a small number of Pokémon do, they require human trainers, which I am not." I rinsed the plates and set them in the drying rack. “I inspect construction plans and blueprints for the city zoning office." Setting the silverware and my glass in the rack I set the water bowl back on the floor. “So, you can return to the wild, if you remember where you came from, or stay in the city, too. There are plenty of parks and semi-wild green spaces where Pokémon live. Or find a human, and live with them." When I got done drying my hands to look up at the sofa she wasn't there any longer.

She was standing directly in front of me, dark eyes looking up at me earnestly. Then she dipped her head and poked me right in the crotch with her nose again, making me jerk my hips back. “Hey, careful with that nose of yours, Lass, it's cold, and pretty solid." Not that I had felt the cool of it through my sweat pants and briefs, only recalling that from waking up with it shoved between my thighs. Her eyes flickered a deep blue for a moment, then a softer green again as she looked up at me through the fur of her brow. She let out a short chuttering gekkr and raised one dainty forepaw to stomp it back down.

“Here?" I asked, raising an eyebrow and relaxing my hips. “You want to stay here?" A definite nod and that toothy canine grin again, her head dipping, leaning forward and rising up again between my legs as she leaned in, thumping the bridge of her muzzle right under my balls making me jump back again though the strike was not firm. Just that 'let me get close so you can scritch me again' greeting she had used earlier. So I did, leaning down to ruffle along the thick, lush fur of her back.

“Why me? All I did was get you out of that ball, lass. You no longer have a master, an owner, or a trainer. You're free." I explained as I stroked her back from shoulders to haunch just above the lazily waving tail. That thing was almost as long as she was, at least the measurement from shoulder to rump, making her seem far longer, and larger, than she actually was. “But, I guess, until you decide otherwise, I can let you stay."

Not that the flat was large, it wasn't small. It was plenty comfortable for me, a single bedroom with a smaller room I had turned into a makeshift office, if a cramped one, living room and kitchenette. Easily affordable on my salary and not far from work, shopping, or entertainment. That last usually consisted of one of the many bars and hangouts nearby, though Greene's Tavern was now out, as that was where the dick Brody worked.

And I don't mean dick in a complimentary way, despite having been leaning towards it for months. He was just a piece of shit.

She pranced in place a bit, tail moving more animatedly as she leaned into me, her muzzle fully between my thighs, gazing up at me with those wide, deep blue eyes, pupils dilated. I gave her fur a ruffle and stepped back with a smile. “But you're not my pet, just so you understand." She nodded, pink tongue swathing over her glistening black nose. “Though, really, I don't know exactly how to define this situation." I laughed, waving a hand to take in my flat. “Roomies, I guess." Then I laughed again. “With one bed." Of course there was the sofa and recliner which she fit in nicely, but she had sought me out the night before, after her grief induced slumber. She didn't take up much bed space at all so I guess we could share.

It was only awkward because she liked to curl up right in the spoon of my body, as I sleep on my side. Not near my head nor near my feet or behind my legs where there was a little more wiggle room, but right in the middle against my hips. It made me half-wake whenever I felt the need to roll over, feeling the unfamiliar weight against me. Then she would reposition herself again, stepping over my new arrangement to curl up in the same place again.

The sound of the toilet flushing finally penetrated my half asleep fog the next morning, bringing me to a momentary startled awareness that someone was in my flat before realizing I did have company when I found myself alone on my bed. As I lay there letting my heart slow to a normal rhythm and tried to shake the fog if being abruptly awakened out of my mind she padded back in and hopped back up onto the bed. Finding me awake she wagged her tail and nosed me under the chin. I ruffled the scruff of her neck and chuckled. “Good morning to you, too, Flame." I said before yawning hugely and arching into a stretch.

She padded in a couple of circles and then did the same, though turned now so her tail end was closer to my head and front paws nearer my knees. She dipped her back and arched her head and shoulders up, fur lifting along her back, then reversed the stretch, rear end lifting high, tail higher still as it bushed out, giving me a rather close and clear view of everything under it. The black flesh of her puffy, diamond shaped gender still glistened from her morning bathroom visit and I just shook my head.

“Not a complimentary view, lass." I laughed, raising a hand to nudge her hip lightly. “Especially that cl-" I let out a startled yelp as she swayed, turned her forequarters slightly, and gave my now exposed naked nethers a hot swath of slim canid tongue. “Heya, now!" I gasped and jerked my hips away, almost falling out of the bed.

The foxish Pokémon let out a short series of sharp, burring gekkrs that sounded very, very much like laughter and looked back up at me, slitted eyes a deep cerulean blue so intense they almost seemed to glow. With a flick of her tail that actually brushed my face she hopped off the bed and disappeared from the room. The fuck was that, I wondered as I shifted to sit up rather than fall off of the bed. One hell of a way to say 'good morning', to be damn sure. Was that a Pokémon thing unique to her already unique species, a general thing, or just a 'her' thing?

Still confused and brushing it off as some behavior quirk I ambled into the bathroom to deal with my own morning needs. She was stretched out on the sofa when I emerged a short time later, eyeing me with a toothy grin that made me feel like a mouse under the scrutiny of a cat or, well, fox in this case. I gave her a wary side eye before going to the kitchen and starting coffee.

“Hungry?" I asked as I pulled a carton of eggs and the second of the sample platters from the refrigerator. She gave a single burring sort of half-bark which I assumed meant 'yes'. “I've got eggs, and another thing of flavors to sample, you good?" Somewhere in my past I remembered hearing or reading or otherwise learning that dogs liked raw eggs. She responded with another of those burring bark sounds. “How about egg?" I looked up to find her stretched on the sofa, head up, watching me. Seeing my gaze she nodded. “Raw?" A pause for consideration, and a nod. “Cooked?" Another nod. “Any old way as long as it's egg?" I grinned, she flashed a toothy one back and nodded yet again.

Okay, she liked eggs. I would need to get more. I slid the sample platter into the heatbox and set about whipping up some breakfast, breaking two eggs raw into a shallow bowl and stirring the others into a froth for omelets.

Once more she ate with me at the table, happily lapping up the raw eggs before turning her attention to the sample platter, then turning her head away with a clearly disgusted look after sniffing each of the twelve offerings. I chuckled and slid her a third of my omelet. She daintily nibbled it from the plate making soft little growling noises of pleasure. Clearly, she really, really liked eggs.

“So, today I figured we'd visit the Pokémon clinic across the park." Her ears rotated back and down slightly as she licked bits of omelet and raw egg from her whiskers, clearly not pleased at the idea but accepted the necessity. “Then to a salon to get you groomed up nicely." At that her ears came up and she grinned toothily.

What girl didn't enjoy being pampered?

After cleaning the kitchen I wandered into the bathroom for my morning rites; brushing my teeth, shaving, and finishing with a shower. Little did I realize I was being watched until I turned to step into the bath to find her standing beside the tub. “It's a bathtub." I said as she looked from me to it and back. “You know what a toilet is, so I assume you understand bathing?" She nodded, ears twitching and tail lazily waving behind her. “You saying you want a bath, too?" She glanced at the tub for a moment and then shook her head. “Okay then?" She stepped closer, dipped her head, and shoved her muzzle between my legs again, eliciting a grunt.

Not wearing a shred of clothing left my junk and stones resting atop her muzzle as she gazed up at me with deep blue eyes. “Oai, scritches? Now?" I laughed, leaning down to ruffle between her ears. Her breath huffed between my thighs, hot under my balls, and then cool as she snuffled in powerfully. I gave her a good couple of minutes scritching along her neck, back, and sides before straightening and stepping toward the tub. “I'll be out in a few minutes." She watched me step into the tub and, after I pulled the shower curtain heard a soft of snorting sigh followed by low, grumbling churr-growls accompanied by the sound of claws on flooring as she left me to my business.

She was sprawled on her back taking up much of the bed when I came back across the hall, rear legs splayed to either side and forelegs folded to her chest. With her head nestled between the pillows I was presented with a view of her belly from hindquarters to chest and all of the assets not concealed by the tail laid out behind her. I leaned down and gave the end of that lush appendage a bat as I walked by but all it did was swish to one side. She lifted her head from the pillows and looked down at me with eyes the color of turquoise. When I just turned toward the closet she let out a soft chuff, rolled over to stand, and hopped off the bed.

I felt the cool inquisitive breaths on my backside as I was perusing what to wear from my closet and turned slightly to look down at her. “I'm not sure that smells great even after a shower." I quipped, dropping a hand to ruffle between her ears. Yeah, some of my male company had a penchant for diving face first between my cheeks to slobber at my back door, but it was not something I particularly fancied doing in return. I much preferred what was on their front side. Satisfied with her examination of my bum she simply waited for me to turn, ducking slightly as the garments in my grasp swung over her head, and then resumed her examination, now of my front.

“Silly lass." I chuckled as her breaths alternately warm and cool my flaccid nakedness but then she gave me the same parting shot from hours before, a hot lick from balls to cock. I started back and swished the clothes at her. “Hey, off there." I laughed and stepped around her, tossing the clothes onto the bed before turning to the dresser for briefs and socks. She didn't continue her rather tactile examination, merely sitting by the door while I dressed, glistening pink tongue lolling with a look of humor.

Like many of its kind, Needlam park is a sprawling semi-wild space some seven hundred or more acres in extent, stretching its green arms into all corners on this side of the city. People ambled about its periphery, using the vast lawns and playing fields to relax, exercise, and socialize. This is where Pokémon are the most evident, both bonded and not, some more wild than others. Passing the sports fields I heard the crackle of energy, the whoosh of flame, and felt more than heard the rumble of earth powers as teams competed in one sport or another. Some teams were purely Pokémon, a few entirely human enjoying less dramatic games, but most were mixed.

I enjoyed some of the same games when I was in high school and even college, though was never good enough to be on an official team. The Pokémon that joined us for pickup games of joust or thrash were as often unbonded as bonded and it was fun enough. Granted, having a Pika or Stonebones hurling their powers about the field could get risky, it was all in good fun. There were always Life wielders on those fields, as there were on these, to quickly mend any injuries.

All I ever suffered was a broken clavicle for being dumb enough to try tackling a Stonebones once it got up to speed. Catching them wasn't the problem, seeing as how their gallop was a sedate run for a human, but stopping them was an altogether different prospect. It was better to keep them from getting to a gallop in the first place. As we ambled leisurely past one field I saw one of the armadillo shaped Stonebones, lungeball in its miniscule seeming jaws, trudging across the field with four humans trying to haul it down, various Pokémon orbiting the mob waiting for an opening to use their abilities.

“Did your trainer put you in the Games?" I asked, glancing down at the night black, long limbed Pokémon at my hip. She glanced up and then across at the scrimmage on the field, and nodded, giving her lush tail a flick. “A little different than this, I bet." I motioned the field. Since the disbanding of the Pokémon combat arenas and the illegalization of trapping them those old gladiatorial arenas had become vacant almost overnight. Humans and Pokémon playing as teams was relatively new, growing over the past seventy years into formal, professional sports. “Humans playing alongside Pokémon?" Again she nodded, watching the field.

“Hey, that's one fancy looking Embreon you've got there." One of the spectators said, spotting is as we passed the stands. “Never seen one all black like that."

“Thanks." I replied, not correcting the man. Some sort of avian Pokémon stood beside him, its head almost even with the man's chest. It had a distinct raptorial look with piercing golden eyes. Ebonflame, whether that was her name or her type, pranced a little at the praise.

“You bonded?" The man asked, keeping pace with us though a few yards distant, his huge hawk-like Pokémon hop-skipping along easily.

“Feeling it out." I lied with a shrug.

The man chuckled and nodded. “Well, let her know the field's wide open. A lot around here who would bend over backwards to bond with such a beautiful one like that." He gave a jaunty salute and steered back toward the field at the far end of the stands to see if the Stonebones' team would score or just get buried under the opposition.

I chuckled and ruffled lightly at the nape of Ebonflame's neck, which was just within reach as she walked beside me. She arched her neck, tail up as she pranced her steps, showing off. “Well, he was right about that." I opined as I looked around the open lawns and fields that I could see of the park. “You are probably the prettiest one here." She gekkred a pleased sound and bumped her shoulder against my leg. “Bonding might be a new concept to you, but it involves a Pokémon accepting partnership with a human. It's pretty odd and complex, I'm not really familiar with the particulars, never considered such commitments." I had, once, though it wasn't the same type of 'bonding' as the other had been human.

But that was another subject, and a sore one.