FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Chapter 23

I spent most of the night with Shadow then, until he fell asleep on top of me and I carried him with me back to the campsite. I laid him down to rest by the dying fire, adding a few more logs to it to keep it alive and burning. I sat down then close by him, staring into the flames and thinking.

The others were all sleeping peacefully already, Zane in his tent, Fredrick in his. Silver and Blaze were pressed up close together, a slight wet spot between the two of them as Silver's now ice covered fur would melt due to the fire type's natural body heat. Psy was perched up against Zane's tent, his head bobbing up and down as he dozed off, and Chris was curled tightly in a sleeping bag on the other end of the fire.

Our group was steadily growing it seemed, would this be the end, or would Zane still have to get one more pokemon to fill out our team? Probably, I guessed.

The future scared me. I was worried about Calamity, Yveltal, whatever he was called. The past worried me too, what had all happened over the years between then and now? I knew how Yveltal had ended up in Raze's mountain, but where were all the other Mega now? A hunt for them could take years...

"Excuse me?" A sudden voice snapped me out of my thoughts, and I jumped up to my feet in surprise, raising my paws up as I turned to the voice.

A green pokemon with a leaf coming from its head had appeared in the bushes nearby.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to startle you." She spoke softly, dipping her head lightly, the leaf waving in the air. On her chest was another bright green leaf, her legs were rather long, the ankles hiked up by spiky green tufts of fur. The rest of her body was mostly a slight greenish brown, like the color of the bark on a mossy tree.

I lowered my paws, and the bright pokemon continued to step closer to the fire, away from the bushes.

"My brother Flash told me I might find someone close to here...Are you Ruli?"

"I am." I blinked lightly, remembering suddenly then, all the eeveelutions that Steve had. We had only seen two of the six he had owned, "Are you one of Steve's other-"

"I am." She giggled back to me, "I was his Leafon, my name is Clora." her smile was bright and it made me smile as well.

"It's nice to meet you. I'm Zane's pokemon."

"I've heard a lot about you from Flash." She sat down beside me then by the fire, and I sat back down onto the ground myself.

"I visit him often." She continued, "He told me about how Zane had visited him not that long ago, and that if I hurried, I might catch up to him. I'm glad I did, took me a few days though."

"We kind of got caught up on the island too." I stated, "We would've been much farther than this if we hadn't."

"I'm confused though, Flash said Zane had a Riolu. You evolved that fast?" She looked at me, looking up and down my body and I blushed lightly.

"Y-yeah...that's a whole different story. I got kidnapped by a pack of other Lucario and well, the stress and pressure of the situation helped me to evolve."

Clora stared at me a moment, "There's more to it than that isn't there?"

"Well yeah but like I said...it's a whole different story." I blushed still and rubbed the back of my head a bit, then asked, "What kind of things did Steve do to you?"

"Oh..." She shuffled in place a bit, "Well, he didn't really harm me per say..." She stood up and stepped forward, into the fire.

"Hey! Careful you could-" I stopped as she sat in the fire like it was nothing, her body engulfed in the flames, and she looked back at me, tilting her head as she smiled.

"Could what? Burn up? Hehe, not anymore. Steve focused on preventing me from becoming damaged by elements usually dangerous to me rather than trying to increase my power." She did a little turn in the flames before stepping out close to me again, the leaf on the top of her head on fire. She flicked it a bit, making the flame go out. It didn't even singe, it was as green as ever.

"How did you do that?" I asked her in wonder.

"It...had something to do with strengthening my skin..." Clora tilted her head, closing her eyes as she tried to remember, then she opened her eyes and looked at the fire again, "Some trees in this world have bark that is so strong it can't be cut easily, and it takes days for it to burn."

"So you didn't suffer any kind of ill affect from this?"

"None at all, unlike most of my brothers. I'm perfectly fine, my body is intact, I could have children if I wanted. Nothing about me is damaged, as far as I know."

"What happened to all your brothers?"

"Well, you know what happened to Midnight and Flash." She said before sighing, "As for my other brothers and sister..."

Clora stared into the fire again, "My sister, an Espeon, was damaged mentally. Espeons are Physic types, so most of their powers rely on the power of the mind. As far as I know, she is in the care of a pokemon facility, where she keeps other injured pokemon company. She is still well aware of herself, what I mean by that she is damaged mentally is that, she talks about herself in a third person. When she would normally say 'I' she would instead say her name, Espa."

I tilted my head, "You mean like when she refers to herself she says her own name?"

"Yes." She nodded to me, "I think it's because Steve made her look into the future and past so many times that she just...lost track time and talks about herself like she's not in her own head. Espa's wasn't very restricting though, she could still fight well and her power was in fact magnified. Speaking just became a bit of a chore with her, to try and understand what exactly she wanted when she spoke like that."

She sighed and shook her head, "Besides Midnight, I think the next worst was probably brother Flareon, Faren." she looked at Blaze nearby, "His nickname comes from the term for temperature, Fahrenheit. You know how fire types are naturally very, very hot yes?"

I nodded, "Of course."

"Faren became, well, like a miniature sun. His body heat became too much for even the mechanism inside his pokeball to handle, it broke and things began to melt around him. Keeping him inside the ball was the only way to keep things safe. Even then though, the ball itself was red hot. So, he was trapped in it."

"Trapped in it, where is he now?"

She shrugged, "We did manage to retrieve the ball...but we couldn't do much with it except to leave it somewhere...I mean, what could we do? I was the only one who could handle the heat, I left it a pokemon research center, hoping that maybe they could help him. I'm not sure what happened to him after that."

I nodded lightly again, saddened once again at how harmful Steve had seemed to be to his own pokemon. "What about the last one? What was it...a Glaceon right?" I looked at Silver a moment, his fur still spiked and blue.

She looked with me, seeing Silver and she smiled.

"He's becoming a Glaceon eh? He made a good choice. Yes, my last brother is a Glaceon. He was one of the ones least effected by Steve, like me. Steve did not spend much time experimenting on him, his power was increased, but he didn't yet suffer any negative effect. But he did know Steve needed to be stopped just the same. Where he is right now, I cannot be sure."

"You all kind of went your own ways huh?"

"Yeah we did." She sighed slightly, "I've missed them, I visit Flash often though, he's the only one I was able to stay in contact with. He told me you met Midnight and had gotten him some help, so maybe Midnight will be fine now."

She stayed silent a moment, and I opened my mouth to ask another question, but right as I did she hopped up onto all fours and said, "Well! I'm sorry to leave ya so soon, but morning is coming soon and you should get some sleep. I might go try to find Midnight, by the time I get there it'll be another full moon I bet."

She turned and started to walk away, turning her head to smile at me, "Keep your family safe Ruli."

She started to run now, and I only watched as she vanished into the forest.

"It's a shame such good pokemon end up being hurt huh?" I turned my head towards the sound of the voice. Psy was leaning up against Zane's tent still, eyes closed and for all it seemed, sleeping.

"I could see it, her thoughts, memories of the times spent together with her brothers and sister and Steve." He continued on, "Even in this world there are those who harm pokemon, intentionally and unintentionally, trying to better themselves or the pokemon..."

I stared into the fire in front of me, not making any comment to him. Silence wrapped around the campsite, and I slowly laid down onto my side next to Shadow and the warmth of the fire, before drifting off to sleep.

_________________________________

We continued on the next day, reaching a terminal settled at the base of the mountains.

"Here we go!" Chris said, "this lift will take us up into the mountains, the rest of our region is mountainous, and the tree that we were talking about earlier is up there."

I looked up into the near horizon as Zane moved to make arrangements with the lift attendants. The huge mountains were daunting.

"I had thought the Till Mountains were bad..." I whined a bit.

"The Till Mountains are only a beginning to our region really." Chris said next to me as he looked up with me, the pointed down the horizon, "Look down there."

I looked to the right, following the tips of the mountains, as they moved along they seemed to grow shorter and shorter.

"These mountains eventually come to the Tills, and right back to Apec. Inside these mountains rests about ten different towns and cities which all do most of our region's work and research, asides Professor Florence."

I turned my head back to the pokemon explorer, tilting my head a bit, "How is it you can understand me?"

He looked straight at me then, "Well it's certainly not the way Zane does." He chuckled as I blushed deeply.

Chris smiled as he explained, "During my travels, I came across a ruin. In it, was a colony of Unknown."

"Unknown?"

"Unknown are a type of pokemon that represent a form of language, they also have the ability to pass on the knowledge of any language on our planet, including the language of pokemon. I can understand any pokemon." Chris chuckled again as he smiled.

"Steve...he can understand me too."

"He can?" His smile faded as his brow furrowed in concern, "That's interesting...I was the only one who found that ruin...and the Unknown vanished to some so far unfound location. It could be that he found them before me, but that's not likely as it doesn't seem like he was an explorer of any kind from what Zane has told me of him."

"Hmmm..." I hummed lightly, looking back up at the mountains while Zane finished getting us our tickets up the gondola and we boarded one of the five sky lines. The car was pretty big, and a larger group of people than our own were already on board.

As I entered and moved to an empty corner to lean against it, I felt a sudden weight on my shoulders. I turned my head to see Psy suddenly upon my shoulder.

"Those people on the other end, look..." He pointed with his finger in front of me and I followed.

My eyes went wide, on the other side of the car, was three people, all dressed in bright colored orange clothing, like the suit Steve had worn.

"Team Flare..." Raze growled.

"Zane!" I thought out to him quickly, and he looked at me from where he had been about to sit, then followed my gaze, his own eyes sparking of surprise.

"Easy." Psy said to us both in our heads, his eyes peering at the three people as they just chatted idly with each other out of ear shot. "Just...pretend you don't notice them, they don't even know who we are."

It was unsettling, but I nodded and tried to relax, keeping my eyes locked on them as I tried to look relaxed against the wall of the car as Psy did the same, using my neck and shoulders as a chair.

________________________

It wasn't long after the car started moving up the rail line, and then another hour of silent waiting and watching the Team Flare people on the other end until we reached the top of the line.

The Flare members left quickly, and I watched them as they made their way quickly down the path.

"They're here for something." Zane said as he hopped down from the car. I followed down and began to help Blaze and the others as Chris hummed.

"Hmmm?" He was busy pouring over his notebook, standing there at the side of the path, oblivious to the Team Flare members.

Fredrick was doing something similar, pondering over a map, his head unseeable as he was holding it up in front of him.

"Those other people in the car with us, they were wearing the uniform of Team Flare."

"What?" Fredrick said now as he lowered his map, looking around, "Where?"

"Team Flare?" Chris followed up, "Who are they?"

"They're the people my dad joined recently...they kidnapped Ruli once, and he saved Blaze from them."

"Oh, they're the people you told me are after the Mega too yeah?" Chris tapped his chin, "I wonder what they were doing here..."

"If we follow them, we may find out." Raze told me, and I relayed that message.

"There might be a Mega nearby." Zane nodded.

"If that's the case, it's probably in the village just a mile away from here, down the path." He nodded at the pathway the Team Flare people had gone down.

"Makes sense." Chris said, "If they're gonna be searching for a Mega, I don't think they'll be very silent about it yeah? Team Magma had never been very silent anyway, if they're like them I expect they're been a big scene."

"Yeah," Zane nodded again, his face showing a determination and I felt it. Was he maybe wanting to find his dad, to set him straight or something?

"Let's go." Zane said and he moved past me and the others to lead the way. They began to follow but I paused a moment, looking down over the mountains and into the thick forest below.

I remembered Clora and all the things Steve had done to her and her siblings and I grimaced a moment, my own renewed vigor flowing through me. Steve needed to be set straight indeed, or at least, to have the hell beat out of him.