FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Chapter 12

When I woke up, I felt incredibly well rested. Having Silver cuddled up close to me in his usual canine sleep style, and the gem warming my chest. I rose up while rubbing my eyes clear, and groaned a bit as my side briefly flashed in pain. Looking at my side, I rubbed at it with my paw, parting my own fur. The wounds had healed and sealed up, but I could still tell where the teeth had pierced my body. The fur there wasn't full and the skin underneath was stilled brushed and scab looking.

It seemed to be healing easily, just as normally as usual. Still, battles were rough. Were pokemon always like this?

"Oh we were." The voice in my gem spoke to me as it read my thoughts. "We were all wild once, uncontrolled. Packs of pokemon claimed their territories, we fought each other, killed each other. Fire types burned down forests, electric types called down massive storms that destroyed hundreds of arches. The most powerful of packs were the ones who had been created by ones like me, the mega pokemon, our battles raged and destroyed even whole mountains..."

I listened to this in silence, watching Silver snooze still and I thought back, "You've looked at my memories before, can I see yours...? Show me the world you came from."

The spirit was silent a moment, "You can...but...well, just promise you won't judge me on how I acted..."

"I won't..." I nodded and I felt my mind get pulled into the gem with a small tug of aura power from the spirit.

I found myself in the gaseous world I had been in the first time I had met the spirit, the clouds swirled around me lightly and they formed a wall of clouds in front of me before splitting open and flashing a few pictures and scenes. It seemed to be rewinding or something.

"The world as it was back when I had a body..." The voice whispered to me as I watched the scenes, and one picture stopped on a dreary looking scene of a plain looking area, but it had giant volcanoes ripping through the ground, and streams of lava flowing through it. I saw many bright orange poekmon in the scene, as they breathed fire and attacked other pokemon who looked completely out of place, their bodies green and leafy.

"This is the group lead by mega Charizard, attacking a place that had once belonged to grass types..." The scene rewinded, the volcanoes receded into the ground, the streams of lava became creeks of water, and the scorched landscape grew grass and flowers, but now, the grass type pokemon were battling and fighting rock types.

"What's happening?"

"A cycle." The gem told me, and the scene fast foward again, but this time, it skipped foward with the fire pokemon to another point, showing many blue or similar colored pokemon spraying jets of water at the fire types, and a huge wave of water with an enormous whale riding the tidal wave.

"Pokemon fought each other constantly." The scene went foward again, this time showing many yellow colored pokemon firing bolts of lightning at the water types, the skies cloudy and shooting down jagged shapes of yellow lightning into the water, which retreated as far away as possible from the electric types, exposing the land beneath once again.

"One type versus another, fighting over land and territory, pushing each other back and forth. Elements clashing across the world..." The next scene showed the lightning types again, fighting large pokemon that were mostly a brown color, but their lightning was doing nothing to the ground type pokemon, who freely threw slaps of the earth at them.

As the next scene showed the ground types getting overgrown by grass types, the land returned to original form it had started at before, and then the fire types pushed back in, then water, electric, ground, grass. It was just a cycle, just like he said.

"Why was it like this?"

"It was pure chaos back then, the land was never the same, it changed and reacted to the constant battles and forces of nature."

"And where were humans in all this?" I asked worriedly.

"They were here..." The clouds swirled a bit as a new scene formed, this one actually moved like a the TV I watched back at Zane's home had, there was sound and noise and everything. The view was currently pointed down at the ground, but there were light sounds of snoring and grunting I could hear. In the picture, was a pair of large feet, black and red striped, and paws with spikes on them, black and red striped as well. Whoever this was was sitting, just staring at the ground.

"That is me..." The voice told me lightly and I watched wide eyed, as a voice in the memory whispered.

"Mega one?"

The view moved up, and I gasped. A human stood there, completely nude, his figure thin and clearly mistreated, brushed and bashed. Behind the fleshy human, was the entrance to a cave in the distance, the sky cloudy and dark. To the sides along the wall, laid many other humans and then what had made me gasp, dozens of Riolu and Lucario.

I heard the gem growl, but realized it was from the memory, and the human flinched.

"What is it?" The gem's voice growled out, clear and menacing.

"Do you mind if I laid by you...it is very cold..." The human whimpered to him in an almost primal tone, and I realized it was the language of pokemon he was speaking in. Did humans once know how to speak to pokemon? One of the paws lashed out and struck the human, a very small and controlled burst of power sending him off to the side as the gem growled again.

"Get back human!" The spirit of the memory shouted, "If you cannot survive here, you will die."

"Sorry..." The voice told me in the present, the movie disappearing. "Remember, humans were once considered just another form of pokemon, no greater and no different than us, but for some reason, they were so weak. Unable to use moves like us, they were just fodder..."

"But...how?" I whimpered, "Why?"

"Please...do not judge how I acted just then to him. I was the leader, I had to maintain a strong appearance or they would think I was weak. I really did take pity on the humans really...I was one of the few megas who allowed them to find sanctuary and live with my people. I gave them shelter, food, and protected them from my enemies. Though...despite that, hundreds of pokemon and humans died daily..." He sounded genially apologetic, so I moved on.

"Who were your enemies?" I asked instead.

"We are fighting and steel types, our natural enemies are physic, flying, fire and ghost types." A few pictures flashed across the screen of flying pokemon, one I recognized as a Pidove as I fought one before, another flashed of many small pokemon that looked weak, but their eyes glowed with bright light, a third showed many bright orange or pokemon close to that, many of them having flames on their bodies or patterns etched into their fur of flames, one of which I recognized Tepig, and the last one made me jump at the many scary looking faces and bodies, more than half of the pokemon were floating above the ground, slightly transparent.

"Ghost types are not a weakness of ours, their moves don't hurt us much, but our physical type moves are ineffective as we just fall right through them. Pokemon weak to us however, were normal, rock, steel, dark, and ice types." The voice told me as more images of many other pokemon flashed on the TV like projection.

"How did the world get from that to what it is today?" I asked in wonder at how it could be so chaotic and destructive.

"I do not know, I spent years buried under the ground where you found me. I am just as amazed as you, I expected to find the world still as chaotic as it had been when I left it. I was surprised just to find humans being the ones in charge of the world, even more so as I got to see the world from your and Zane's eyes and your memories."

I felt a lingering sadness as he spoke, and he sighed deeply, "I wish I had been around to see the change...to be a part of it...I loved my followers, and yes...I admit I was fond of the humans...but even more I wish I could be a part of this world, physically, like you. A world that has found balance..."

"What about the battling for the amusement of humans?" I asked him, trying to make sure my question didn't sound like I was being mean to him.

"I was still in shock that humans were in charge when I said that, it wasn't until I saw that wild pokemon, even those of different types, were living in relative peace in a balanced environment, that I began to see how things were. When you and Silver went out that stream, I followed you from Zane's pocket in your head, using aura. While I still slightly disagree with your attractions to males, I could feel the emotions of many different pokemon near that spot."

"Water pokemon swam in the stream freely, even while grass types watched them and they drank from the water. In my world, that grass type would've attacked that water type to force it into attacking back, to a grass type, more water is more power. A bug type pokemon munching on tree leaves was not even ten feet from that grass type. In my world, the grass pokemon would be the one being munched. In the canopy of the trees, a flying type fed its chicks with leftovers from human's food rather than catching the bug type for that same purpose."

"It astounded and confused me. And now, after your battle with mega Ampharos, and the way you seem to gather so much strength from Zane and grow even faster than living in the mountains could have, it tells me that humans are the cause of this balanced world. Somehow, after me and the other megas sacrificed ourselves against the Calamity, they tamed us, trained us not to fight each other, and gave this world a peaceful balance."

"The battles you and pokemon who fight for your "Trainers", keep the balance I believe. Never did a fighting type fight against an electric type when I had a body. The controlled clashing of power, in a test of wills, is different than the fighting I did. I fought for territory and food and glory. You fight to test yourself, to gain experance, and to fight tougher and tougher foes. Zane brings that out by making it a goal, with these badges and leagues. Trainers catch wild pokemon who in this calm world do not need to be too powerful, and train them to fight, then tests their power in battles of their own. This helps keep a balance of power as well as nature. It is a most interesting set up, and I'm eager to see where it takes you in the future. I wish I had seen this potential in a human before really, if I had allowed them to help my own Lucario and Riolu...more may have lived to have longer lives..."

I absorbed all this a moment, watching the swirling mists as they wafted around my body and arms. "You thought about this a lot."

"I have little to do inside this gem Ruli." He chuckled back at me and I smiled, then remembered something I wanted to ask.

"What was the Calamity?" I asked him.

The swirls expanded again to show a new movie like memory, this time showing a mountain. The clouds were cloudy and natural lightning flashed along the sky and a few tornadoes were swirling in the distance. Hundreds of flashes and sparks and jets of flames, water, lightning strikes and loud explosions sounded from the mountain and over the loud pattering of the falling rain. The spirit in the memory ran around the rocks and occasionally jumped from the top of rock to rock, and then it looked up into the sky to a large, flying pokemon, red and black striped. It stopped in the air and it folded it's two wings and tail up together to the center of its body, and a large ball of red glowing energy formed before it screeched out and the ball shot forth a long beam of energy.

The spirit dodged, looking back as the beam slammed into rock he had just been standing on, splitting it and about six other boulders behind it apart into little pieces, and then a large orange flying pokemon I recognized as mega Charizard from the earlier pictures flew down along side him, which meant he was also a fire type.

"Get on! We need to get him in his blind spot!" The spirit jumped up and landed on the fire type's back. He flew up into the air high, the spirit shielding his eyes with his arm as he watched the large pokemon that has shot at him. Many other flying type pokemon were zooming in and out at him trading off attacks, I assumed they were all megas. Along the surface of the mountain, other attacks were fired up at the large red one. Lightning bolts and streams of fire and water shot through the air, as well as a few beams of bright white and beams of rainbow. Only one every so often would hit it, the others flying off wildly into the stormy sky.

I watched as the memory's vision focused onto one, a white furred canine with a pair of white fluffy wings sprouting from his shoulders, dived down at the large pokemon, bashing into one of its wings and making it turn around to focus on it.

"Now!" The mega Charizard roared over the wind, and the spirit brought his paws together in front of his vision as the flying fire type turned to fly straight over the pokemon, a ball of blue energy forming, which I knew had to be aura energy, forming between his two paws. He removed one paw and the energy remained floating above his paw, shining in his vision before he looked down.

He let himself fall from the back of the other mega, and he dived down while holding the ball of energy in front of him. The big pokemon was curled up, firing another beam of energy at the flying canine mega, distracted from the spirit as he dived bombed him, aiming at his back, but before he could get close enough to guarantee a hit, it noticed him and turned toward him. It folded its wings again, a shimmer flashing around its body that I recognized as the Protect move Rypherior has used when I had fought him.

The spirits attack hit the shield, the orb of aura energy exploding against it and shattering the barrier, but the pokemon itself remained unharmed. It flapped out its wings once, the gust of wind pushing back the spirit, and I watched in anticipation and worry as his gaze moved down below him at the approaching ground, his arms coming up as he slammed into the ground and the memory flashed off.

After a few moments, the spirit spoke to me again, "I blacked out right then, when I next woke up, the battle was still raging just as fiercely as you had just seen, and I ended up blacking out again about three or four other times. I have no idea how long the battle had lasted, but by the time me and the other megas managed to push the Calamity back into the mountain, we had used up every ounce of our power and pushed our bodies past their limits. We were exhausted, we could not move, our bodies' natural healing capabilites had long since failed. We slowly perished physically, our bodies died, but our spirits and our strong wills refused to give up, and we became bound to the rocks of the mountains, coalesced into the form of these gems."

"Natural elements and a few mishaps with pokemon carried us off the mountain and we became lost to the passage of time. Perhaps some of us, like mega Ampharos, had been luckier and were kept above the surface, and got to see how the world changed, while others, like me, were eventually buried under the earth and forgotten, believing our packs were perishing and dying out without us." The gem sighed again lightly.

"I'm sorry..." I whispered back, "You did a good thing for the whole world...but that pokemon, that red one you were attacking, that was the Calamity, I thought it was an event, not another pokemon..."

"The Calamity is what we called it, because there was no warning of it, it suddenly appeared, attacking all it could. It took no sides, no one could withstand its power. It was destruction incarnate. Begrudgingly, the mega teamed up for the first time ever to fight it at Mount Vazuvious. Our power combined matched its though, and if we were pushed so far that we only died physically, it's possible that it only died physically as well and became a gem too."

"And you can merge with others to give them your power...it's possible it can do the same too right?!" I made the connection for him.

"That's right. That is why we must get to Mount Vazuvious, or whatever it may be called now in this time and age, find it if it is indeed there, and make sure it stays buried forever."

I nodded eagerly, "Yes! If power like that was unleashed, this world could crumple back down to what it was before!"

I was pulled out of the gem just then, my mind returning to my own body and the gem continued, "I am not too worried about it..I have no idea of any kind of pokemon that beast could possibly merge together with...but it worries me just the same, this world is wonderful, and we must protect Ruli. It is important that we keep track of the other megas if we find them, wither they already have been found and are being used, like mega Ampharos, or yet to be found, but their help would be invaluable if it has found a way to return."

I nodded again, "Should we go after Naru?" I said this outload, making Silver stir and I shut my muzzle. I didn't want to wake him and Zane up in my over excitement to this situation.

He seemed to consider that a moment, "No...I'm sure we'll see her again. Someone like her won't leave Zane alone now that he's beaten her in battle. She is a spoiled brat who got lucky and happened to have the right pokemon for a merge, and took advantage of the power. Mega Ampharos probably lets herself be used like that because she is really bored locked inside the gem."

"We need to let Zane know about all this! He needs to know everything so he can tell the humans who have the gems about it!" I told him eagerly again, making sure to speak with my thoughts.

"I'm okay with that, it will make things much easier, and I cannot communicate with the other megas at all even in their gem forms, I can sense them slightly if they are nearby, but I'm sure they will agree with me on this, we need to work together again and make sure the Calamity never returns...but um...can we keep that memory of when I struck that human away from him? I don't want him to mistrust my intentions."

He glowed against my chest again, warming me once more and I could hear him murr loudly, "Sleep though Ruli, there is no rush I'm sure. Get as much rest as you can before Zane wakes and you have to travel again."

I laid back down slowly as I held the gem to my chest, and I thought to him with a smile, "You need a name."

"A name? I was called only what I was, just as that human you saw said, Mega."

"That's a silly name though, I mean you need a real name."

The gem remained silent a moment, but the warmness increased, and I could tell he liked the thought. "I'll think it over..." He chuckled, "Now sleep, we'll be on the move soon."

I nodded and chuckled myself, closing my eyes and slowly falling back to sleep, dreaming what I imagined the spirit might have looked like from what I had seen in the memories.

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The mountains past Apec town were large and vast, at first, the trees of the forest surrounding the town had kept them mostly out of sight, but now that we stood at the base of them, it was obvious why Fredrick said it was going to take awhile to get through.

Zane whistled lightly as we all were looking up the large hills that waved through the even larger, snow covered peaks. The path in front of us snaked up the hills, curling around them in the safest parts possible.

"The Til Mountians." Fredrick said as he stood by us, "It's only five miles wide, but thirty miles long. Its faster in the long run for us to go through it than around it, but it'll be more difficult and uneasy. Gracel town is along this pathway on the other side of the range, it's named for the Gracidia flowers that bloom in the spring, just like Gracidea in the Sinnoh region."

"Have you been to Gracidea Fredrick?" Zane asked as he picked me and Silver both up and placed on either of his shoulders as usual. I would be sad when I evolved and couldn't do this anymore I knew.

"I had been once, for a moment, I picked one of the flowers there for someone...important..." He said before he just started walking forward and left me and Zane a little confused, but Zane didn't probe the subject and caught up to him as we started walking into the hills.

The further we got into the hills, the more I found myself looking up into the mountains. Something felt odd...I could feel the aura around me, only slightly as I still did not have a full grasp on it, but I could tell that something was watching us...

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When the sun fell too far to give us light in the high hills and mountains, we had to set up camp. The sky was still quite blue, only slightly orange, but the sun had fallen behind the horizon and we had to stop, as the light was not enough to stop the darkness from making the journey too dangerous.

The pathway we walked and now camped on was pretty wide, etched and dug into the side of the hill, but to try and continue walking in the dark was risky, as there was an edge to the path, and a very deadly drop down into the chasms below.

So, we made a campfire from tinder and wood from a mountain travel kit that Fredrick had purchased at the pokemon center back in Apec Town for trainers about to pass through the mountains.

We ate a meal and spent time talking and laughing, Zane helped me speak with Fredrick in this case. It was difficult to have to translate for Silver and to have Zane translate for us all the time, but it worked well enough, and Fredrick enjoyed it, as he said there was not many times he got to actually speak to a pokemon and understand them.

"One of these days Ruli, I'm gonna have to have you speak with my own pokemon, so I can find out what they think about me and stuff." He said at one point and I chuckled.

"I could, but that'd be a lot of translating going on don't you think?" Zane spoke for me after I did.

"Oh we will sometime when we have nothing better to do," Freidrick continued, apparently set on it, "but for now we had better get some rest. I wouldn't use your tent up here Zane, it could blow away in the wind since there's no ground to set it in."

"Right, guess it's just sleeping bag for the next few days then." Zane nodded and he started to get into his bag to set it out.

As the humans set up their sleeping bags, I was distracted again by the mountains. I could still feel eyes on us, watching us, somewhere. I tried to find them, see if I could see the light of the fire glowing in them, but I couldn't.

"Coming Ruli?" Zane called to me, Silver was getting up on top of Zane as he slipped into the sleeping bag.

"Yeah...coming." I responded back to him while still looking up at the hills, and I moved over to him and tried to ignore my concern, dismissing it as just being paranoid, and jumped up onto Zane with Silver, curling up next to him as best I could on Zane's body so we could all share body heat. My gem started to glow and warm us, and I gave the spirit a feeling of thanks as I closed my eyes and tried to sleep.

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Eventually, the fire died as we slept. The darkness of the mountains surrounded us. It wasn't this that woke me up again though, it was whispers I heard on the wind in my dream that caused me to open my eyes.

"Who's there?" I called out as I lifted my head from Zane's body, my chain collar clinking as I moved.

The whispers didn't stop, they kept going, and I poked Silver with my paw to wake him up.

"Silver, Silver."

"Whmmmmm?" He groaned as he was woken and he yawned and looked at me, "What's wrong?" he asked as he heard the whispering urgency in my voice.

"Do you hear that whispering?" I asked him as I whispered as well.

"Only you..." He stayed silent a moment and then shook his head, "No, I don't hear anything Ruli."

"You can't? But-"

"I can hear it." The spirit in my gem told me, "It's not normal whispering, you're hearing the thoughts of other aura users..."

"What? Other aura users?" I asked him as I tried to hear the whispers.

"Yes...those are the eyes you've been feeling on you. There must be a pack of Lucario and Riolu in these mountains."

"What do they want?"

"I would imagine they can feel me, like you could, and are being attracted to the presence of my own aura."

"Well then turn it off." I grumbled at him.

"If it was only that easy." He grumbled back and I growled and got down from Zane's body.

"Go away!" I called out softly yet loudly, "You can't have it!"

"Ruli?" Silver started tiredly, looking at me like I had gone slightly mad, "Who the heck are you talk-" he didn't get to finish as a sudden ball of blue energy struck him and blasted him off Zane. Zane snapped awake as Silver hit the ground, instantly knocked out from the power of the attack.

"Silver!" I cried out and ran over to him, as Zane jumped out from his sleeping back and Fredrick stirred awake as well.

"What's going on!?" He shouted and there was suddenly a loud commotion of feet stamping onto the ground around us, and I could see the eyes of a dozen Lucario and Riolu staring at us through the darkness.

"Wha-what are you doing?!" I yowled and a single blue ball of glowing energy formed, momentarily illuminating the surrounding pokemon, there were eight Lucarios and four Riolu among them, one of the Lucario holding the ball of energy before it threw it at me.

I jumped and dodged, the ball exploding against the the mountain behind us, and Zane jumped up close to me as he shouted as well, "Stop!"

The Lucarios growled, another one from behind shooting at Fredrick himself, who nimbly spun out of the way of the orb and it sailed off into the sky.

"There's no choice, we have to fight!" Fredrick shouted and he drew a pokeball from his waist.

"There's too many!" Zane cried, but Fredrick didn't listen, as he threw the pokeball. "Shaymin!"

A flash of white light from the ball formed into a small pokemon with green covering its white body with a flower in the green, like it was a walking garden, but there was little time to enjoy what it looked like, as now three Lucarios began to charge up different spheres.

"Look out!" Fredrick called out as one was thrown, we all jumped to dodge, having no way to know who there were aiming for, but the ball didn't even go at any of us, it hit between us, splitting us apart.

"Ruli!" Zane shouted over the resulting explosion, and I struggled to maintain footing as it shook the ground a bit, but I couldn't react as another one of the balls hit right at my feet, knocking me up into the air and very close to the edge of the pathway. Zane raced towards me as I landed.

"Watch out!" Fredrick yelled as one of the Lucarios shot at Zane.

"The sphere!" The gem shouted at me, and I looked up to see the third ball racing towards Zane's back. Instincts kicked in. I had to protect Zane!

I jumped towards Zane, but I passed over his chest, landing onto his shoulder, which I jumped from and into the path of the attack. The orb hit me, exploding as it made contact. I yelled out as I was blasted into the air, and flew over Zane and over the edge of the cliff.

"Ruli!!!" I heard Zane's voice echo through the mountains as I fell, and I saw him reaching out over the edge for me as I reached back up to him.

"Zane!" I yowled back, but before I knew it, I had already hit the ground, my head striking a rock and I blacked out.