FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Author's Note: Hello again! I hope you guys are enjoying this story. If you are (and if you are not due to some rookie mistake of mine, please let me know what it is. Constructive criticism is always welcome) please leave a fave, watch, comment, or vote. Or all four of them. Yeah, do all of them. It makes me feel good inside to know you guys enjoy what I am writing. Makes me want to write more. In fact, the one comment I got yesterday made me spend the rest of yesterday writing this instead of playing Dark Souls and/or Pokémon X. Anyways, have fun!

Legal Jargon: Once again, I do not own Pokemon or any other intellectual property besides my original characters, they are property of Nintendo, GameFreak and whoever else might have ownership of them.

***

"Here you go," said Nurse Joy as she set a tray laden with food on her patient's lap. "We have an egg salad sandwich, oran, pecha, and sitrus berries, and some pecha juice." She pointed at the sandwich, blue berries, pink berries, and yellowish-gold berries in turn, stopping finally with the glass of pink juice.

"The pecha berries cure poison. Even though I already cleared it out of your system, it's still a good idea to eat some. The juice loses most of the curative properties but retains the sweetness, so I brought some of it anyways."

Nurse Joy watched as her patient started with the sandwich, wolfing it down like he hadn't eaten in days. When he got to the berries, however, she noticed that he picked up one of the orans warily. Almost as if he hadn't seen one before.

Before Joy could admonish him however, he popped the whole berry into his mouth and began to chew. His taste buds were assaulted by what seemed to be a dozen different flavors at once, each of them indescribable. It was spicy and bitter. Sweet and sour. Juicy at first, then dry. It was wonderful. He didn't even bother swallowing the first one before shoving the rest of them into his mouth.

To his delight, the sitrus berries tasted very similar to oran berries, only minus the spiciness that the oran berries had. The pecha berries, however, were much too sweet for his taste. He was about to leave the lot of them on the tray, but a single look from Nurse Joy found him finishing off the lot. He did leave the juice alone, though. It was even sweeter than the berries themselves.

As he opened his mouth to thank her, Nurse Joy cut him off and said "Now that you have eaten, I would like you to meet someone. Alakazam, come in please."

At her words, the door opened and a strange creature floated in. It walked on two legs; or rather it would if it decided to walk. As it was, it was floating in the air with its legs crossed. Its skeletal yellow body was covered in a number of brown armored areas. One on the chest, as well as two on the knees and forearms. It had a long, thin snout with a remarkable moustache at the end of it. There were two long spike-like protrusions on the back of its head and it held a spoon in each of its three fingered hands.

Before he could even think the words "what is that thing?" a voice in his head said, "I am Alakazam. A Pokémon, in case you didn't know. Nurse Joy told me everything you told her and has requested my assistance in determining the veracity of your words. If you want the procedure to be as painless as possible, then you will do one of two things. One, you could empty your mind of all thought, granting me easy access to your memories. Two, you could walk yourself through the memories Nurse Joy wants verified and I will 'tag along for the ride.'"

The Alakazam waited for him to make his decision, but when one was not forthcoming, Alakazam decided to simply begin exploring the mind in question. The first thing he noticed was that, though he was human, the patient experienced almost as little pain as most Pokémon would experience from the treatment. This discovery emboldened the psychic type Pokémon, who proceeded to look through all of the man's memories from the most recent back.

After a few minutes of mental probing, the Alakazam turned to Nurse Joy and said "He speaks the truth. What he experienced was no hallucination, nor anything of the kind." At the surprised look on Nurse Joy's face, he smiled and continued,

"That is not the most astounding piece of information I gleaned from him, however. First off, the cave he entered and the cave he exited are two different caves. I have no idea where the first one is or how he managed to enter our Granite Cave, but the slant of the rock strata is significantly different once he enters the "section" of the cave with the Zubats. Second, he has no memories from before he entered his cave."

Catching the "I told you so" look and the mouth opening to speak those very words, Alakazam quickly explained "Even victims of amnesia have memories from before the time that they can actively remember; they are just unable to access those memories. A psychic type Pokémon, like myself, is capable of searching for and viewing those memories. It is difficult and painful, but it is possible. You however, have no memories prior to those you told Nurse Joy, they simply are not there. Not even your name is present in the empty expanse that is your memory bank."

"So what," inquired the patient, "Someone or some_thing_ stole my memories?"

"That is the only conclusion that makes sense to me," responded the Alakazam.

After letting the two humans digest that bit of information, Alakazam turned to the nameless man and said, "May I examine the emerald that you removed from the wall? Perhaps it will answer some questions."

At the prospect of actually getting some answers, the patient scrambled to find his backpack. Upon finding it hidden beneath his bed, he searched frantically for the emerald he had stowed inside of it earlier. When he finally found it, he slowly pulled it out of his bag, a very confused expression on his face.

What he removed from the confines of his bag was not what he had described earlier. Instead of an emerald larger than his fist, he was holding an emerald almost as big around as his thumb was long. Nurse Joy waited until Alakazam was holding the gem to speak her mind.

"I thought you said half of it would fit comfortably in your hand?" Nurse Joy said angrily.

"I-it was that big when I found it" he stammered in reply.

Nurse Joy simply scowled at him until Alakazam said "It was shrunk. How this feat was accomplished I cannot guess, but it happened."

Knowing that the humans would ask him how he knew, he continued without pause pointing at a point on the gem and saying, "See here? That is a facet. It is such a miniscule facet that it appears to be a point. No one can cut such a small facet on a gem. Knowing this, it is quite easy to make the assumption that it was shrunk."

At this he turned to Nurse Joy to say something else when he stopped and stared at the stone with wide eyes. "Th-th-that's impossible. Simply impossible. Doubly impossible, really."

When he showed no sign of explaining what exactly was impossible, Nurse Joy cleared her throat loudly and said in her sweetest, most condescending voice possible "Mind sharing with the rest of us what you found out?"

"Well, it seems that this stone has the same exact psychic signature as our friend here" he replied, pointing at the patient.

"Psychic what?" inquired the man.

"Psychic signature," explained Nurse Joy. "It's like a fingerprint. Each individual has a unique psychic signature. They are actually more unique than fingerprints. It is impossible to share more than a sixty percent similarity with someone else's psychic signature."

"On top of that," interjected Alakazam. "Rocks and other inanimate objects lack psychic signatures. All of them. No exceptions. Which makes this emerald impossible. It is doubly impossible due to the fact that it shares your exact psychic signature. They are one hundred percent identical, which is more identical than identical twins are identical physically. Unfortunately, while it is very interesting, this rock provided us with only questions."

The three of them sat in a stunned silence for a few minutes before Nurse Joy was struck with sudden inspiration. "What if, what IF, our friend here became a trainer? He would be able to explore and possibly figure out what that emerald means. Maybe even return home. It's worth a shot, right?"

The patient merely sat there with a befuddled expression on his face. Alakazam however, looked horrified. "You do realize," he said slowly "That the only Pokémon in all of Dewford he would be allowed to legally take as his first Pokémon would be her, correct?"

"Sure she's a little feisty," said Joy, "but I'm sure he can manage. Worst case scenario is he catches a Tentacool or something and journeys with that Pokémon."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa," interrupted the possible trainer-to-be. "What's all this about being a trainer? The way you two talk about it makes it sound like some sort of slave trade. If that's what it is, then I want no part of it."

Nurse Joy and Alakazam both turned towards him with depressed expressions on their faces at this. "Unfortunately," began the Pokémon. "Many trainers do treat it like a slave trade, though they would argue that slaves are intelligent creatures forced into servitude. They see us Pokémon as nothing more than animals. Unintelligent savages whose only purpose is to be used to further the reputation and wealth of their owner. In this day and age, Pokémon who are unable to win battles are considered useless by the vast majority of trainers."

"It used to be different though," chimed in Joy. "Historical records have shown that in the past, Pokémon were seen by humans as equals and the two worked side by side, neither one more superior than the other." A tear rolled down her cheek and she fought back sobs as she continued "Today it is the rarest sight to see a trainer who actually cares about his Pokémon as more than just minions to win his battles. I personally haven't seen one who sees Pokémon as equals with himself, though. Not having been raised that way gives me hope that you will be different and that you will train and raise your Pokémon properly, the way it was meant to be."

If she had anything else to say, it was lost in the wrenching sobs that suddenly took hold of her. Her patient just looked at her, unsure of how to comfort her while the Pokémon at her side gently patted her back.

It was several long minutes before Nurse Joy regained control of herself again and said, "Come on, let's go fill out the paperwork and get you officially licensed as a trainer."

At this, she turned and walked out the door, not bothering to see if her patient was going to follow her or not.

***

Darn! That's the end of this one. At least, I hope that's what you guys are thinking. If it's not, please tell me what I can do better so that I can get you guys saying that next time :) One little thing before you guys leave. If you have any Pokémon that you want to see on his team, message me and we will see if we can work it in there. Right now, she is the only Pokémon I have joining him on his journey.

EDIT: Added the legal jargon up top, figured I should give credit where credit is due.