FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

  "Jason, we can't stop." Sweat poured from Shari's palms, glistening nervously by this point and slowly soaking her steering wheel, strangled in her sticky grip. She threw a fourth glance into her rear-view mirror. Jason at the front of the picture, arms crossed and really not giving a crap, but in the back of the picture her back window was an undeterminable blur of red and blue, intermitting steadily with a great blaring muffled by the ludicrously thick armour plating encasing the three occupants. "The hospital's just up here, we can't drop her off with all these bastards on our tail!"

  "We don't have to." Came Jason's level reply as he hauled the woman's unconscious body into his lap effortlessly. "Drive alongside the curb next to the hospital."

  Shari's eyes went back to her mirror momentarily, staring hard at her companion. "You can't just throw her out!"

  Jason sighed, looking down at the woman with an irritated grunt. "Fine then." He reached over the back and grabbed hold of something soft, then hauled it over the back seat and stuffed it up the back of the woman's shirt. "Here. She has a pillow." He kicked open his door.

  "You expect a pillow's-?" Shari fell silent as Jason's door slammed shut again, quickly cutting off most of the siren noise from behind. "You can't just throw people out of moving vehicles!" She yelled back red-faced.

  "Really?" Behind his shades, Jason raised an eyebrow. "Coz I just did."

  "You are hopeless!" Shari shouted back as she slammed the steering wheel right, throwing the huge vehicle's tail out into another powerslide, which she was very fond of doing. Sure, Shari was reckless- reckless enough that she lost herself the title she still bore a so fashionably stencilled on her red jacket, but put her next to Jason... she was nothing special compared to that psychopathic suicide missionary.

  "Hopeless, huh?" Jason asked as he recovered from Shari's manoeuvre and vaulted over the back seat into the trunk. "I just took care of problem number one for you." He paused to let this sink in. "You're welcome. And now I'm about to take care of problem number two..." A quick glance in the mirror was all Shari needed to identify Jason's strategy.

  She facepalmed, briefly murmuring about how she could have possibly managed to get herself in this situation. "Please don't tell me that's an RPG-7..."

  "Okay. I won't." Jason kicked the trunk open, filling the interior with the roaring of sirens once again as their pursuers gained ground on them, and lifted the heavy weapon, taking aim.

  A few quick-thinking drivers saw the weapon and registered and slammed their steering wheels desperately sideways, throwing their police cruisers into skids. Those unlucky ones behind them didn't think fast enough, and smashed into their sharper friends with jarring force. Metal piled up with rapid crashes and bangs, twisting and buckling with every ringing, sharp impact as more and more cruisers collided. A small grin rose to Jason's face as he lowered the weapon without even having fired. "Don't you love the smell of carnage in the morning, Shari?" His grin hung a bit as the flames of the wreckage behind flickered in his shades, wavering and dancing darkly on the heavy tint.

  "Meh. I prefer gunpowder myself." A nostalgic grin forced its way to Shari's lips. "Reminds me of home."

  "Remind me never to go home with you." Shari figured that as Keiomi. Much softer tone.

  "Yeah..." Shari chuckled, dropping a gear and realigning with the road markings. "Home was exciting, that's for sure."

  "You never told me where you came from..." Jason had already closed the trunk and leapt back into his seat. He leaned over the console between the front seats with a hopeful grin as he spoke. Shari kept her eyes on the road with a smug grin. "Huh?"

  "That's right." Shari nodded. Hopes only partly dashed, Jason's grin fell a little, but he caught himself.

  "Are you gonna tell me?" He tried again, offering a pleasant grin which to anyone other than Shari who was used to it, would have been rather strange looking.

  "Tell you what?" Shari asked innocently-as-could-be, cocking her head with a genuine look of enjoyment at teasing Jason.

  "Where you came from." Jason almost-whined.

  "No."

  "Aaaaaw..." Jason skulked back into his seat and crossed his arms violently, pouting.

  "Jason, for the tenth time-" Shari sighed as she saw him in her mirror. "You're over six feet tall wearing all black and have scary glasses. You cannot- cannot pout when you're that intimidating."

  Jason leaned forwards, face setting stone-cold, and whispered. "Tell me where you came from, or else."

  Shari stifled a short giggle, recoiling Jason with an embarrassed look. "Oh please, Keiomi. Or else what? You'll beat me up and throw me off a bridge?" She looked to her right and down, glancing at the rushing rapids churning a hundred metres below the bridge she had cruised onto.

  Jason leaned back. "No, she won't." His voice suddenly carried lethal venom, chilling to the sound of it. Shari gulped with a glimpse of his face hovering over her shoulder. "But I might..."

  "Unova." She replied, trying to keep her calm as best she could under Jason's heavy presence on her back and neck. "I came from unova..."

  "Eew." Jason's icy undertone slipped away again as he fell back into his seat,. Shari noticed that about him, he could never sit still. "Unovans so ugly..."

  "Hey!" She barked back at him with a touchy grunt.

  "Oh, not you Shari." Jason replied quickly and sincerely. "You're a pretty Unovan."

  "Are you always such a kiss-ass?" Shari called back with a softer grin at the compliment.

  "Only to people I like." Jason replied with a happy grin.

  "And you like me, huh?" Jason pulled himself out of his seat again, and before Shari saw his approach in her mirror, he draped himself over her seat and gave her a big, long lick up the cheek. "Hey!" Shari laughed and swatted him away, then proceeded to wipe her cheek against her shoulder and sleeve.

  "I lurve you Shari." Jason sighed cheerfully, melting into his hands with his elbows on knees. "And Jason kind of likes you too, but only certain parts of you that makes me question his motives...."

  "Well that's just boys, Keiomi." Shari replied in that girl-to-girl way. "That's just how they are."

  "Nuh-uh." Jason protested sharpish, shaking his head vigorously. "Not Jason. Jason said he will always love me for whoever I am, wherever I am, whatever I am. He promised me he loved me for who I am..." Jason's words trailed off momentarily, and a warm grin grew back on his face. "He still does and I will forever, I promise you that, Keiomi."

  Shari shook her head quickly to rid herself of the previous statement. It was awkward and difficult enough Jason having multiple personalities, add to that the stress of them both being polar opposites requiring completely different treatment and that just loved to switch around haphazardly whenever they felt like it... difficult enough as it was with all of this to deal with, she then had the mentally taxing and painful task of hearing them speak to each other and finish one another's sentences through different perspectives, tones dropping and rising everywhere and perspectives jumping around like catnip'd Purloins.

  Shari in private compared it to being mother, babysitter, teacher and girlfriend to a baby Arceus and baby Darkrai simultaneously with both of them in the same room, unsure of what toy they wanted to play with first.

  Jason was a handful for sure, but when push came to shove, there was nobody Shari would rather have at her side.

  "I think everything's calmed down now..." Shari decided eventually, seeing the countryside roll in around her from all directions, blanketing the landscape in lush forest soon enough with fields of spring green sprouting between anything else of interest, sectioned off into blocks by rusty, wiry fences looking like mangled webs of steel spun across the earth. "I'll call in for debriefing."

  "Whatever." Jason shrugged, back in his cool with his elbow hanging out his open window so the rushing air could flood around his face. Shari had already picked up a complex looking black device from the console and was tapping routinely at buttons without even looking at it, knowing where and what every press was. This device appeared to be one of those things the Pokémon rangers always had on person, but upon closer inspection, it was a little bulkier with a few more buttons, and underneath was something that could drive even the most cutting-edge computer geek to a tremendous nerdgasm. (I still remember that request you made.)

  "Hello- Jeremiah and sons rentals. How may I be of service to you this fine day?"

  "Hey Leanne." Shari replied, casually and out of context with the uniform query over her device.

  There were a few of silence. "I'm patching you through to Mr." The voice on the phone crackled out again for a moment. A short click and digital beep could be heard in the background.

  "Shari."

  "Mister." She replied levelly, much like how Jason would speak.

  "Status report on Transcendent-13." Shari turned over her shoulder to Jason and mouthed: "How are you?" with a shrug.

  Jason shrugged back, and raised a thumb to her briefly. Shari nodded and turned back to the road ahead. "He's okay."

  "Kills?"

  "One shadow Dusclops, gender unknown, one shadow Rampardos, gender unknown., both confirmed." She replied professionally before adding: "And maybe a few cops, some unlucky civvies and a poor bitch he dumped outside a hospital while we were moving...." Shari shot Jason a brief but accusing glance in a period of silence over the radio. Jason replied with his "I don't fucking care" look.

  The awkward radio silence continued.

  "Put Jason on." The voice was not pleased.

  "Jason." Shari passed the device back. Jason leaned forwards and took the device, then sat back in his seat.

  "Jason, what the fuck-" Jason casually tossed the device out the window as soon as he landed back in his seat.

  "Oops."

  A loud, roaring blare grated through the vehicle's open windows as Shari facepalmed on the steering wheel. "Jason..." Her teeth gritted, eyes still hidden against the wheel: "I swear to Arceus... you are THE SINGLE MOST FUCKING ANNOYING-"

  "Road." Shari's head jerked back up as she threw the steering wheel left, swerving around an incoming big-rig with a short squeal. "You're welcome." Jason crossed his arms and a leg over his knee, nodding blankly.

  "You're such a pain!" Shari barked at him, face flushing red with anger and embarrassment. Her onslaught was cut down before she could even begin as a soft buzzing filled the air from somewhere. She looked around the front of the vehicle quickly, then remembering, reached under her seat awkwardly and drew out a second device, identical to the first.

  "Tell mister he should speak nicely to me or I might get upset again." Jason added helpfully as Shari flicked a button on the device with a wary "hello?".

  Jason watched the back of Shari's head boredly as she listened. "Jason doesn't like your attitude."

  "Jason doesn't- Jason doesn't like my attitude!?"

  "He wants you to speak to him pleasantly, and to stop acting like such a high-and-mighty piece of shit." She added of her own accord, glad the other party couldn't see her smug grin as she spoke. If Shari said such a thing she would be fired in a heartbeat. If it was Jason saying those things, nothing would be done about it, so Jason quite frequently "spoke through her", so to speak.

  "Put him on." Came a cold reply.

  "Jason." Shari handed the device over much more pleasantly this time, smiling at him. Jason himself managed a meagre smile for just a second as he took the device, then fell back into his seat holding it to his ear.

  "What do you want now?"

  "What's this I hear about policemen?" Came the response, short and sharp.

  "There were some policemen pursuing us." Jason shrugged trivially. "Now there aren't."

  "Do you know what this is going to do with our public relations?"

  "They'll raise our threat level from "assholes" to "wankers"?"

  "That's not funny."

  "Knock-knock."

  "Go away Keiomi."

  "It's not Keiomi; I said: Knock-knock."

  There were a few seething seconds of silence. "Who's there?" Came a reply sounding very much like it was coming between gritted teeth.

  Jason flicked the device off and dropped it on the seat beside him. "Nobody." His eyes were now fixed on a small building coming up at the side of the road with a few cars parked up in front. "I'm hungry." He decided.

  "Yeah, same here."

  "Then let's get some food." Jason decided ultimately, reading the big sign advertising the diner ahead.

  "We can't." Shari murmured as she glanced in the rear-view mirror to check the highway behind her, empty of any sign of modern technology or man-made constructs. "We're only minutes out of Saffron city, they could still be on our-" Jason's door clapped shut. Shari swung her head out the window as she passed the diner, seeing Jason roll on the pavement behind and leap to his feet.

  With a scowl, she jerked the wheel and put the vehicle into one of her famous slides, spinning around 180 degrees, then gunning it back towards the diner where Jason was striding towards the entrance. She pulled onto the gravel parking lot just beside the entrance as Jason waited at the front door for her, grinning a bit. A Keiomi grin.

  "You are so stubborn!" She scolded as she stomped towards him, flicking a button on her keyring and locking the Humvee's doors.

  "I'm hungry..." Jason whined helplessly, fingers playing on the doorhandle as if asking for Shari's permission to open it.

  "Fine." Shari sighed, walking to his side. "But if we get arrested, you're taking the blame."

  "Sure." Jason pushed the door open and stepped in.

  The easy momentum of the place only rippled slightly on the newcomers' arrival. A few heads upturned from newspapers, a couple of patrons at the counter glanced idly over their shoulders, staring curiously at the strange man dressed in black for a moment before deciding it would be better to ignore him.

  A waitress was already upon them as soon as they touched the table to their booth, springing to their side with an enthusiastic look of indifference, chewing a piece of gum with a Mr Mime trailing close on her heels, a similar expression adorning his face.

  "Hey huns." She drawled, chewing a piece of gum with extravagant emphasise. "Can I take your order."

  "I'll just have some waffles." Shari replied with a shrug, sitting down and sliding across.

  The waitress ceased her chewing and fixed a stare on Shari. "Read the menu, we don't have waffles."

  "Oh..." Shari's face lit up a rose shade as she picked up a card in front of her printed with food items and prices.

  "Let me guess..." The waitress pressed ruthlessly. "You see a diner, so it just has to have waffles, right?"

  "I was just-" The waitress interrupted with a brief, but loud chuckle, stopping Shari mid-sentence.

  "I'm playin' wit' ya." She laughed, scribbling on her notepad with a stubby pencil. "One... plate... of waffles... you?" She turned to Jason.

  "I'll have the same." He shrugged, dropping his menu.

  "Alright then." She tucked the pencil away behind her ear and turned back to the counter. "Hey Jerry! Two plates o' waffles! Pronto!" The tables' occupants watched on as she walked away, Pokémon in tow after playing no significant role in the conversation.

  "Wow, and here I was thinking stereotypes were exaggerated."

  "They are." Jason replied calmly. "She's playing an artificial face because she thinks it the customers enjoy her little role. They do, but it's all fake. She doesn't even like the flavour of gum she's chewing on."

  "Stop it." Shari murmurs as she watches the woman disappear through a doorway into a kitchen.

  "Is it scaring you?"

  "No, I'm pissed off that I can't do it." Jason grinned a little more at Shari's confession and proceeded to scan through the other occupants of the diner with intent to prod at Shari.

  "Those guys." Jason pointed to a pair of men, both wearing hunting caps with a Smeargle and a Mightyena between then. "they've just had their first homosexual experiencewith one another..."

  "Okaaaaaay..." Shari looked away from them quickly, a pang of guilt twitching at knowing the two's personal secret.

 "And those two guys." Jason turned his attention to a pair of men sitting a few booths across from him. "Those two guys really like your ride, and they're thinking about stealing it."

  "They shouldn't." Shari's eyes narrowed as she patted her sidearm hidden under her ranger jacket.

  Her train of thought was once again interrupted, this time by a shrill buzzing in her pocket. She slipped one hand in and pulled out her device, frowning. "I'm not answering it this time." She placed it on the table between them and gave a push, sliding it across to Jason's side.

  "I'll handle it." He sighed, picking it up and putting it to his ear, and beginning in his best "fake happiness" voice possible: "I'm sorry, but Jason is currently unavailable at this time. Please call back later or leave a message right after he starts giving a fuck-"

  "They're coming!" Jason stopped.

  "Who's coming?" He asked calmly, voice low and monotonous. Shari heard this and was doubled over her side of the table, listening intently as the men in the booth behind her snuck a glance over their shoulders at her ass, staring for some time at it.

  "Police, SWAT, they're coming your way! Get out of there!" Jason flicked the device off and dropped it into his pocket, snatching Shari's keyring off the table.

  "What's up?" Shari whispered harshly, standing as Jason walked past her and along some more tables.

  "Nice ride, eh?" The two men with dubious intentions for Shari's car looked up as Jason came to a stop in front of them.

  "She sure is." The man on the left flashed a toothy grin, then turned his attention back to the object of his desire.

  Jason took a quick look around, then leaned over the table, voice lowering. "Hey, see that hot ranger chick in behind me?" He whispered quickly as Shari tried to get an ear-in on the conversation from a distance. "She's got this weird thing for big cars, y'know how those dames are..." The men nodded a bit, curious to where this was going. "Well, the thing is, she's a great gal, but I sometimes feel I'm taking second place to big red out there, so hows about I slip you two a couple'a twenties, you take red out there outta the scene for an hour or so, and maybe I can finally get somebody's attention without that thing distracting her from the real toys, you dig?" Jason flashed a knowing grin and winked, pulling a couple of notes from a pocket.

  The two men exchanged shocked glances, aura's revealing that their common senses were far too occupied by greed to know to question such a fabulous offer that any rational person should be concerned about.

  The first man nodded, and took the money with a grin. "Anything in the name'a love." He smirked, stepping out of the booth with his friend grinning in tow.

  "Sweet." Jason nodded, and headed back for Shari. "Yeah, sorry Mary, I owed these guys from a while back, and since I got no cash on me we worked out something."

  Shari's eyes softened instantaneously, cocking her head. "Worked out what, Shane?" She queried with impeccably genuine concern.

  "Aaw, it's nothing." Jason waved it off, letting the men slip past behind him and out the front door. "They took a shine to my ride, so we agreed to settle things for a ten-minute spin in it." Shari's eyebrow twitched, but not enough to let up her façade. "Hey, it's okay..." Jason, in an unexpected move, swept Shari's legs out from under her and lifted her up, holding her around the backside. She played her part and wrapped her legs around his waist with a falsified giggle.

  Jason grinned and leaned in close to her. "The police, SWAT, all of them are coming, and they're looking for a red Humvee with two occupants." He whispered, rubbing tenderly at Shari's lower back for a show to the onlookers.

  Shari smiled back, and leaned in closer. "We'll jump out the bathroom window out the back." She breathed huskily, murring into Jason's ear with unnecessary seductiveness.

  "Sounds like a plan..." Jason replied, just in earshot of the other patrons, and began towards a door marked "bathroom" on his left, still carrying Shari, both still carrying sly grins.

  Shari leaned close again. "I don't care how good you may or may not be at acting, we are not kissing."

  "Kiss you? Uugh..." Shari slapped Jason's shoulder playfully with a short, girlish giggle.

  "That wasn't nice Keiomi..." The doors shut behind the two. Shari unwrapped her legs, but Jason hung on. "Jason!" Shari whispered harshly, wriggling in his arms.

  "Aaw, but you're so warm!" He tightened his arms around Shari again, choking her a little with his hug. "...and Jason's trying to feel you up..." His arms dropped immediately, releasing Shari. "Don't worry, Keiomi's just playing. I wasn't."

  "Come on." Shari shot towards the woman's room door and charged through. Jason paused at the doorway briefly. "Hurry up Jason!" Shari called back as she pried open a window over a sink." Jason nodded sharply, but hung at the edge of the doorway. Shari couldn't believe this. Jason... afraid of going into a woman's room? "Jason, you're a damn woman on the inside so hurry up!"

  With a little sudden concern and that motivation, Jason jumped into action, dashing into the room after Shari and leaping through the window. Technically, he was mostly a woman on the inside... a rather confusing and concerning concept.

  "Where are we going?" Shari turned a 360 as the shrill ring of familiar sirens cut the air, noise bouncing and echoing all around in the forest the two had thrown themselves into.

  Jason slipped the device from his pocket again, a pocket which had been shaking and vibrating for the last ten seconds. He lifted it to his ear and flicked it on.

  "T-13, this is hydra one, over."

  "Hydra one, this is T-13 and Vulcan four, reading you, over." Jason replied uniformly.

  "T-13, we are inbound to your position for extraction and redeployment. Rendezvous one-point-four kilometres northeast of your position, ETA fifteen minutes, over."

  "Acknowledged Hydra one, we're Oscar-mike. Meet you there. Out." Jason flicked the switch on the side and dropped the thing back into his pocket. "We're being redeployed. Extraction's on the way." He recalled to Shari, walking to the north-east up a bank scattered with trees. "Fifteen minutes, we better start walking."

  Silence divided the two for a while, both of their lips sealed as they trudged up banks and hills steadily, Shari taking in the scenery all around as light scarcely filtered through the canopy above onto soil upturned by Pokémon's rooting around, Jason with his eyes straight ahead on his destination.

  But it was never silent and peaceful for long.

  "Can you hear that?" Jason asked quietly, still walking at a pace.

  "I probably can't." Shari muttered. "What?"

  Jason stopped short and turned one ear to face behind them. "Behind us. Mightyena."

  "Mightyena?" Shari stopped also, her expression dropping to concern.

  "The police found the guys in the Humvee." Jason realised, looking forwards again. "They're coming." As if scripted, both broke into sudden sprints simultaneously, charging away from the approaching sounds behind them towards their destination.

  "Hydra one!" Jason called into his device as he sprinted, dodging and diving around rocks and pine trees left-right-and-centre with Shari trailing awkwardly, stumbling and tripping as she struggled to keep with his pace. "Double time it! Cops are hot on our heels!"

  "Roger that T-13, ETA twenty seconds."

  "Jason!" Shari called. Jason spun around just in time to see Shari's foot snag a root spiralling out of the soil, pitching her forwards. He skidded and shot back towards her at an inhumane speed, shooting past and catching her around the torso as she toppled over.

  "Hang on!" He called as he turned again, holding Shari over his shoulder, and shot back the way he was going.

  "Mightyena!" Shari cried as a pack of the Pokémon exploded over the crest of the hill behind. Over their torsos, blue wrappings with SCPD stencilled under the logo of a badge.

  "Take them out!" Jason cried as he darted for a clearing he noticed up ahead, a clearing which must have been the extraction point.

  Still draped over Jason's shoulder, Shari slid her hands under her jacket and whipped out two Desert Eagle handguns, opening fire erratically as they arced their targets.

  The Pokémon dived about randomly as the forest exploded into frenzy about them, ringing with every shot and crashing as chunks were ripped out of trees everywhere by all Shari's misses. Back further a pine tree toppled in slow motion after having a significant piece removed at the bottom, crashing down into the undergrowth surrounding.

  "T-13, we're at extraction point! Where are you?"

  Sunlight erupted all around as Jason burst out of the bushline into the clearing. He covered his eyes briefly as he dashed for the centre, but took it away quickly. Above, a black helicopter churned the wind, rumbling steadily and hanging in static like an ominous nimbus overhead.

  "Hey!" Jason waved one arm to the helo, stopping short. "Here!"

  "LZ's too hot, incoming tangos!"

  "Dammit!" Jason dropped Shari and spun around to the bushline as it shattered, leaves blowing out everywhere as the Mightyena leapt from the insides. "Shari, behind me!" He ordered, sliding between the ranger and the attack dogs, holding one arm outstretched.

  The bandages wrapped around his palm split open, and by extension, the furry skin underneath. A silver-grey blur flashed from his palm for a moment before striking one of the Pokémon's head. The Mightyena tripped forwards and fell from the impact, landing on its side with a howl of pain. The grey thing slowed on impact, revealing what at first appeared to be a ray of silver energy, to be in fact a chain. A silver chain, one end protruding from a gash in Jason's furry palm, the other end lying behind the fallen Pokémon, limp.

  Jason's grip tightened around the chain, and he heaved it sideways, flicking it like a whip. The long chain rippled haphazardly, flicking out left then right as the movement surged through it, smashing one part into the two Mightyena on the left and sending them flying as they were struck across the torsos and tripping the one on the right as the links lashed its hind legs.

  Jason flicked the chain in a circular motion, pulling back quickly and pulsing aura down the length for control. The end flicked back outwards and coiled around the first Mightyena's neck, cutting its breath with a sharp squeak. Jason quickly gave the chain a smack up and down, whipping another surge across the length, snapping the Mightyena's neck with a sharp jerk as the movement reached it.

  He flicked it sideways again, then shortly upwards. As the movement hit, the Pokémon's corpse was thrown sideways forcefully by the chain whip, and the upwards flick uncoiling the chain from its neck, throwing the body into the Mightyena recovering from an injured paw. A short, sharp gunshot from Shari delivered the killer blow to the one receiving the impact as it bounced off the earth, and then fell limp. Dead.

  "T-13! Incoming enemy flying types! We need to get out of here now!"

  "I'm getting there!" Jason called up to the helicopter this time. "Give me a minute!" he turned back to the chain, and gave it a huge, heavy downwards flick, then an equally powerful upwards pull. The chain lurched up off the ground and high into the air towards the helo. A little aura control by Jason angled the chain towards the bars hanging off the bottom, and coiled the end of its length around it, holding it fast. "Shari!" Jason spun and threw his free arm around Shari's waist as more Pokémon escaped the bushline, barking and growling their various cries. "Go Hydra!" He screamed as he hugged Shari's' body to his tightly, coiling the bottom of the chain around his forearm.

  With a sudden lurch, the two were pulled off the ground. A rogue shadow ball fired from a spiteful Mightyena seared past Jason with a crackle as a Houndoom leapt and snapped at Shari's heels as she was lifted up, but they all missed.

  Shari, relying on Jason's grip around her waist, rained devastation back down on them with her pistols, forcing any officers who managed to keep up back into hiding where they couldn't fire back.

  "T-13!" Jason and Shari looked up from the clearing as they were lifted higher, seeing the door slide open. A young blonde-haired man grinned down at them, holding the doorway tightly. "You two okay?"

*

  "Nice timing, boys." Shari shared her grin with the few crewmen crammed in around her in the back of the helo.

  "Yeah, very nice." Jason added with a nod. "Any later and we would have had a lot of dead policemen on our hands."

  "We do have a lot of dead policemen on our hands." Shari reminded him with a glare. "Remember Fuchsia?"

  "All in the past." Jason turned to the blonde  man who had leaned out of the chopper previously. "Dad said we're being redeployed. Can you shed some light on that?" Not really his dad, but sometimes Jason felt like it.

  "Viridian forest." The blonde man replied, sliding a strange, long and metallic object from his pocket and holding it in front of him. He took the thing and pulled the halves apart splitting it down the length, expanding a sheet of blue material between them. He placed it on his lap, then used his fingers to press at buttons on the screen, changing the images on the material screen around. "Here we go. Mister has located a concentration of shadow Pokémon in Viridian forest-"

  "Let me guess-" Jason leaned forwards in his eat, staring unpleasantly. "He wants me to observe their behaviour and record anything of interest."

  "Uum..." The man's eyes dropped to the device uneasily. "No..." Jason sat upright again, nodding curiously all of a sudden. "he wants you to exterminate them."

  "Exterminate?" Jason raised an eyebrow. "Kill them? No sneaky shit or watching them? Just go in and kill them?"

  "By the sounds of things." The man replied with a nod. "Is... is that a problem?"

  "No." Jason raised just a faint smile at this, leaning back and crossing his arms with a satisfied murmur. "It's a nice change from being reconnaissance bitch." Jason looked up at Shari briefly, noticing her staring at his hands clasped between his knees, then followed her gaze. Blood dripped steadily from between his closed palms, pooling on the floor of the helo at his feet. For a moment, everyone was looking, but when Jason lifted his head again everybody suddenly found other things to occupy their interests. Everyone save Shari.

  "How you continue to mutilate yourself, I'll never know." She sighed as she rose from her seat and fell across the floor to one knee in front of Jason. "Give them here." Jason sat still and shrugged uncaringly, and after a second presented his hands, palms up to Shari.

  The blood was all oozing from his right, matting short black fur on the inside of the cut, but with his hands clasped together the blood had seeped onto his left palm's bandages. It didn't really seem to faze Jason though. He just sat in his seat watching Shari's head blankly through his shades as she took a spare roll of bandages from a pocket of her ranger belt and proceeded to unwrap the bandages over his palm.

  As they fell away, Jason's true form was revealed. Uncoiling from around his palm and fingers and falling away, his entire hand was black. Black and furry. On the back of his hand a small ridge of silver rose a little from the fur, like a fin of metal.

  The men sitting in the seat opposite had seen this before, all of them familiar to an extent with Jason and what he was, and therefore showed little interest. But there was one thing their interests lay in, and they all took their time to stare at it, whispering filthy mentions to one another.

  "Hey! Cut it!" The men's heads collectively jerked upright, eyes wide and staring at Jason in shock. "You're a pack of filthy fucking pigs!" Jason snapped.

  "Keiomi..." Shari sighed, already onto what was going on. "Just let it be. I'm used to men staring at me, it doesn't bother me anymore."

  "Well I'm not sitting around here listening to their dirty bitching about you for another second." He growled, staring hard at the petrified men through his shades. "You mention another word about Shari like that and I'll slit every one of your throats and hang you from this fucking chopper by meat-hooks."

  Shari paused briefly, her own look of shock forming now at Jason's sudden outburst as the men scooted back into the opposite wall. "Wow, Jason..." She shook her head slowly, registering his exclamation. "Um... thanks..." She managed a warm smile as she went back to his wounds, him still seething in rage and staring at the men. "You know-" She started so quietly only Jason could hear, "-that's the first time anybody's actually stood up for my virtue... well, it's also the first time anybody's threatened somebody with meat hooks around me... but thanks Keiomi."

  "hmm?" Jason pried his eyes from the men with a look at Shari now. "Oh, no. it wasn't me." He smiled a bit as Shari upturned her gaze to him, con fused. "It was Jason."

  "Jason said that?"

  "I told you he likes you." Jason smirked wider, like at some incredibly funny personal joke. "He looks after the ones he likes. There are so few of them he holds them close to his heart."

  "The ones he likes, huh?" Shari took a seat beside Jason, still watching him. "Being, me and you?"

  "Pretty much." Jason nods pleasantly, the men in the seat opposite confused and scared by his random switches. "He sees you as a sister- that would be the closest comparison-" he paused, thinking. "Well, somewhere between a sister and a girlfriend."

  "I'm somewhere between a sister and a girlfriend to him?" Shari asked blankly, a little shocked and even flattered. "Should I feel privileged? Being so important to him?"

  "You have no idea." A further, somewhat dangerous grin rose to Jason's lips. "If any of these men in here so much as scratch you, I'm going to break their neck in three places."

  "Well... thanks... I suppose." Shari managed a meagre grin herself, turning it to the three men doing miserable jobs of hiding their sheer terror, seeing as their knuckles were white and shaking erratically. Underneath, Shari was actually hiding a little embarrassment at Keiomi/Jason's confession. She had just thought of them as work friends, in a sense. It seemed she had actually grown on Jason through his or Keiomi's all-consuming loneliness, however good they were at hiding it. "So-" She finally spoke up, alerting the three men with her sudden speech. "Viridian forest, huh?"

  Next up: Science and Religion (part 1 and/or 3.0): Collision- the Hybrid and the Hero.

  If you're quick enough, I'm taking suggestions for the evil shadow Pokémon. I remember Mehulk asking me for a certain Pokémon to be included in one of my stories- it will be.

  pulls tissue from box gives to Mehulk... y'know, if he's still out there... you might need it to clean up. You know what I mean.