FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Chapter 24

"Welcome to Lodron Town!" A small child yelled happily at the gates to the city as we approached. Psy was still riding on my shoulders, and he peered down with me as I looked at the slightly smaller human.

"Thanks." I said happily, but of course, forgetting the child didn't understand me. He gave me a puzzled look at first in return, before he saw my smile.

"Wow a Lucario!" He said excited again, just as Zane followed up behind me, Shadow, Silver, and Blaze walking beside him. Silver's fur had all but become ice, sticking up like sharp little spikes.

He grabbed onto both of my paws, his fingers wrapping around the spike on them lightly and he held them in awe.

"Never seen a Lucario before?" Zane chuckled next to me as I felt myself starting to blush at all the attention.

The boy shook his head rapidly, "Na uh! I've only seen them on TV. But they all look so cool!"

He suddenly seemed to get really happy, "Man this is the best day ever, I got to see two of my favorite pokemon come into town today!"

"What was the other one?" Zane smiled and chuckled again.

"It was an Absol!" He told us while jumping up and down, still holding onto my paws.

"An Absol..." Raze thought in my head lightly and I flicked my ears as he did.

"An Absol huh?" Zane followed up and I looked up over at him with a slight pleading look, my arms and paws being tugged back and forth. "Hehe, why don't you show us where he's at hmm?"

"Absols are messengers of disaster..." Raze murmured still, "To go looking for one...Mega Absol was bad enough."

I blinked, as the little kid let go of my paws then and he made motions to Zane to follow him. Disaster? I thought to myself worriedly and then Psy's voice also spoke in my head to me.

"The nature of the "Disaster" pokemon Absol is different. Once upon a time, yes, seeing one with your owns eyes would mean disaster would soon befall you. Now that humans have tamed them, they are commonly seen. Does this mean disaster could still befall you? Yes, but they aren't seen as an angel of doom anymore at least."

I caught up to Zane quickly and tugged at his hand with mine, "Um Zane...is it such a good idea to go looking for a pokemon that signifies disaster...?"

"Oh that." Zane chuckled as he listened to me, still following the small child as he was leading us to the pokemon center. "If seeing an Absol would signify death or doom or something everyone would be dead, you can see them quite often in your life now."

"Yeah but, doesn't someone bad happen to someone who sees them, at least once?"

"Well sure, that's a gift of theirs. It's why they are called the "Disaster" pokemon." Zane shrugged. "But if you see them twice in your life, something bad will only happen once. Well so, if disaster is going to happen to me now seeing this one, might as well take it and get it over with. Whatever it is, no one has ever died from the disaster. Usually, it's like a broken leg or something else that's an inconvenience."

I whimpered lightly, folding my ears back, "That scares me..."

Zane chuckled and patted my head, as we entered the pokemon center, yet another exact copy of all the others we'd visited so far. "Relax Ruli, I've studied some pokemon myself, I know of a way to prevent getting hurt from an Absols sight actually."

"What's that?" I said while we walked with the little boy to a nearby trainer who overheard what Zane had said out loud and he answered for him without knowing.

"To stand as still as possible without moving for about three hours." he smiled and grinned at both of our surprised looks.

"Look!" The boy said excitedly and I turned my head only slightly to the right and gasped in surprise. There just up on a cleft on the wall, was an Absol. He laid across the cleft with his head on his paws, his red eyes staring right at me and I froze up a moment.

My heart pounded as I stared back into those red piercing eyes, my mind racing. What was going to happen to me? Would I suddenly have disaster befall me? My imagination ran wild.

"LOOK OUT!" I screamed and I ducked under the table the Absol's trainer was sitting at, and he had to move his legs quickly as I did. Psy teleported off my shoulders in quick reaction, just before he would've gotten smashed by the table. He reappeared up close by the Absol, who's only reaction was to shift his eyes to him.

"Hey watch it!" The trainer shouted at me as I turned around to look back out, holding tightly onto the leg of the table.

"Ruli whats wrong?" Zane asked me in surprise then and I reached out to grab his shirt and yank him down so my face was right in front of his.

"You did this!" I snarled at him and he blinked, "Who knows what'll happen now."

"Ruli relax." He took hold of my paw and made me let go of his shirt. "You're overeacting."

"Yes." Psy chuckled from where he was, "Absol do not affect pokemon, just humans. It is an odd thing."

I paused as I heard that, muzzle hanging open as I realized how much of a fool I had just looked.

"Wow, that's awkward." Raze laughed in my head and I blushed.

I wiggled my way out from under the table, blushing heavily and I coughed while standing up, "That would have been nice to know beforehand." I growled and folded my arms over my chest.

"Sorry about that." Zane apologized to the other trainer sitting at the table, "You're the Absol's trainer I take it?"

"Yeah." The trainer said while he settled back down to sit normally, "Name's Veren."

I turned my head lightly to look at the other trainer. He had dirty blonde hair, a lot like Zane's own just much darker. He wore a white jacket, the sleeves rolled up to his elbows about, as well as white pants, both of which were lined with black details. There was a black and white checkered bracelet on his right arm, just below his elbow where the sleeve was rolled up to. His color scheme seemed to match Absol's

"I'm Zane, it's nice to meet you." Veren nodded and smiled at us both, and it was then that his eyes locked onto me, and onto Raze's gem.

"Hey, that gem..." He said slowly, and then his Absol spoke.

"You, where did you get that gem?"

I yipped in surprise and jumped lightly as his Absol jumped down next to me, and I put my paw on Raze.

"It's my um...keepsake." I lied.

The Absol's eyes peered at me, squinting slightly. For having such shiny white fur and an overall elegant look to him, this Absol sure was scary.

"Remove...your...paw..." He growled at me and I gulped, removing my paw at his order.

He stared at the gem for a long moment, before he sighed loudly and closed his eyes, turning his head away and I sighed as well, glad that moment was over with.

"What was that about?" Raze asked lightly in my head.

"Zane." Veren spoke and I turned back to him again, "What is that gem your Lucario has?"

"Oh it's um...a mega gem." He said, apparently deciding to tell the truth in it.

"A mega gem...?" Veren repeated, "I've never heard of them called that before."

"You know of them?" Zane asked surprised.

Veren nodded, looking back at Absol, who nimbly jumped back up to his perch on the ledge next to Psy, the physic type leaning against the wall and looking almost as if he was sleeping.

"We used to have one, Rook could use it."

"Mega Absol." Raze determined, a brief image flashing in my mind from him. It was the white winged canine I had seen before in his memory of the fight against Calamity.

"What happened to it?" Zane asked hurriedly.

Veren stared at Zane a moment, his eyes showing a moment of curiosity. "Why? You seem suddenly very interested..."

"There's a whole lot of stuff that's happening." Zane said, "But that gem, it's more important than you realize, there's-"

"One moment." Psy called to us, and suddenly he appeared in front of Veren on the table, tail wrapped around his legs as he sat. "Veren, if you allow me to tap your mind a moment, I can show you everything Zane is about to tell you, it will be faster."

Veren was apparently accustomed to talking with physic types, so he only nodded his head, "All right."

The Abra's squinted eyes shined lightly as he used his ability to show Veren his knowledge and memories. A few minutes passed until his eyes stopped their glowing and Veren nodded lightly.

"I see, that is a lot of information." Veren turned to me then, "Forgive me for thinking ill, I had though perhaps you had stolen our gem when I first saw it there."

"Um...that's okay..." I said back, again realizing, he didn't understand me. But that didn't seem to matter, as he understood me by the situation.

"I come from Sinnoh, by the way, I'm on a journey of my own and just recently got to this region. Rook and I came to Lodron a few days ago. We suddenly got jumped by some gang wearing the ugliest uniforms I've ever seen."

"Bright orange? Flame symbol in the middle?" Zane asked, circling his chest with his hand to show where he meant.

"Yeah." Veren nodded, "You know them?"

"Team Flare." Zane nodded back and I suddenly remembered we had come here following close behind a few members of Team Flare.

"Team Flare?"

"Yeah, bunch of bad guys trying to do bad things with the Megas"

"Like what?"

"Well," Zane started and he sat down across from Veren, "At first, we had thought they were trying to revive Calamity and try to control it themselves, but we found him on the island, which means they had no idea about Calamity, or at least, had no idea he existed."

Zane looked at me, "Ruli was kidnapped once by them, and they did some experiments on him and his gem, they were saying there were trying to like, copy the power inside them or something."

"If they managed that, they'd be a force to be reckoned with." Veren grimaced, "I can only imagine the havoc they could cause if they had more than one with the kind of power these gems hold."

As Veren and Zane continued to keep talking, Raze spoke in my head to me, "Ruli...let's take a walk around..."

"Hmm? Why?" I asked him, but made to turn away from the area anyway.

"I can sense other Mega, remember? Let's see if we can't find Mega Absol."

I nodded quickly, " All right."

I walked away slowly, giving Zane assurance I'd be back at the same time, but I didn't notice how the Absol on the cleft watched me, and jumped down to follow.

I took a casual walk through the town after leaving the pokemon center. The area wasn't very big, if anything by the looks of the stores that lined the few streets, the towns business was derived from selling souvenirs to people visiting the region.

I reached the edge of the town quickly, staring down a path that went into a lightly wooded way. A forest apparently wove between the mountains of this region, providing good sources of oxygen at this high altitude.

"This pathway is like a snake." I heard Fredrick comment behind me soon after, again, his face buried in his books and maps. "Look." He said and showed me as I turned toward him.

The map showed the mountainous region in full detail, clearly it was taken from a high place over the planet with a satalite or something. It did give a good scope of how the path worked though, from where we were now, at the beginning of the path, it moved through the mountains like a snake. It crossed left and right around the mountains and hills, until it emptied out right back at Chrom City. About a dozen towns and cities lined the pathway, the biggest one very visible from the picture ,right in the middle of the mountains. There were a few tall buildings and the area looked very populated, but the largest structure visible there wasn't a building, it was a huge, enormous tree.

"That must be the tree Paragon left behind." Raze said as he was looking through my eyes at the same time.

"Scientists have discovered." Fredrick said as he took the map back and started to fold it up, "That the large tree in the center of the mountains provides over seventy percent of the oxygen in this region. It has incredible rejuvenating power as well, the bark of the tree is flame resistant, and the wood is stronger than most steel."

I remembered what Clora had hinted at, "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."

Fredrick moved away as I pondered to myself, searching through the windows of the shops lining the street.

"Could it be that Team Flare is here trying to get to the tree?" I wondered to Raze, who hummed.

"It would be hard for them to do that unseen, that city around the tree is enormous."

"We should maybe keep looking for Team Flare themselves...I wonder where those members we had followed went to once they got here."

"I don't even know if they even got here..." Raze said, "I've been trying to feel for them too, as I remember what their aura was like when they were on the car up, but I haven't felt it since we got here."

"Maybe they kept going down the path?" I looked out to the forest in front of me.

"Hmm maybe, or perhaps they have a base of operations here in this town too."

I looked around myself dryly, "Here? This small little place? Where would they fit any facilities?"

"Under the ground." Raze commented, "I can feel a few humans under the ground, it seems all the buildings here are connected with underground walkways."

"I guess we can try to get down there then." I said while being puzzled. "But I don't think they'd just let us down in there even it was just a civilian area."

"Go down the path a bit, I think there's an entrance on the side of a hill." Raze said.

"All right." I nodded and began to walk down the pathway, not noticing the large man in orange watching me from the other side of the town.