FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

The angry Infernape pulls me by my arm through a few miles of woods until we reach a coastal ridge, then tugs me roughly along the pathway there to a small hill with what appear to be multiple wooden structures built into the sides of the hill faces.

I continually tried to explain to the irate ape as he tugged me along, that I had no idea who he was, that my name wasn't Ruli, or what this class he was saying I skipped out on was too, but he would ignore me or tell me off for lying. His pace and the fact I had to run had me too out of breath to put up much more of a fight than that. I was pretty sure now though that this wasn't any dream, the sensations and awareness I had was too intense and no I knew it wasn't lucid dreaming or whatever that is cause I clearly had no control over this situation.

As we got closer to the hills he slowed his pace enough that I was able to run at a much easier speed, but I noticed it was only because other pokemon were now around us and bustling about the street. On either side of us there were buildings built into the hills, multiple different kinds of pokemon shopping or chatting here and there. It was amazing to me, I had never seen so many pokemon in one place, but it was so strange. I had never heard of a pokemon town before, or anything like this. Pokemon were a rarity to have anymore.

The Infernape pulled and tugged me through the crowds until we reached one of the larger hills and he opened to door briskly and tugged me inside, closing the door quickly behind him and finally letting go of my sore paw. We were in a hallway with six doors, and a set of stairs set at the opposite end leading to the upper level.

"Now, you will go to the principal's office and explain to him, once again, why you're so late."

I rub my paw and whimper softly and the Infernape gives me an odd look a moment, but quickly replaces it with contempt, "Don't whine! March! I'll trust you won't try anything else, I have a class to teach and can't afford to babysit you anymore."

With that, the Infernape moves past me and enters one of the other rooms. I hear a dozen shouts and cries as the Infernape yowls for everyone to sit down before the door closes and I'm left standing alone in the middle of the room.

I try to take in the situation now that I'm alone. Okay, I'm not dreaming as far as I know. I'm a human that's been transformed into a Riolu. From what I gather so far now, I'm a resident of some kind of pokemon town, and a student here at this school. My name is apparently Ruli, even though in the back of my mind I know for a fact that that's not really my name but I can't remember it at all.

I shake my head and sigh softly. I suppose the only thing I can do is go with what is happening, so let's find the principal's office. I glance at each of the six doors, ruling out the one the Infernape charged into earlier. Another sigh leaves my mouth as I look at the ground, I have no idea which door it is...I suppose the best thing to do is check each one till I find it.

Common knowledge makes me look at the far doors first, thinking if it's an office it must be the furthest from the entrance. The first door I look at has the word "Hypno" written on the window. A shiver runs down my spine. A Hypno? Is this the principal?

"Come in." A voice calls from inside the office and I jump in surprise. He knew I was here? Well duh, I realize and mentally slap myself, Hypno are psychic type of course he knew I was there.

I reach up and open the door, tip toeing in as I push it open. I look to the desk there. The yellow colored pokemon sits on top of the wooden desk, even though there's a chair behind it. His legs crossed and holding that ring of metal in the air in front of himself, staring straight ahead at the wall in front of himself.

"Evening Ruli, got yourself in trouble again?" He says without glancing at me and I rub my arm nervously.

"Um...yeah, I did...I guess." I start and think about what was happening to me again, before realizing I probably shouldn't be thinking about things like that around a psychic type. I was unsure what it would mean to be a human here, even a human in a pokemon body. Did humans even exist anymore?

"You're thoughts are heavily troubled...that's not usual of you." The Hypno's eyes move to stare at me, the coin in front of him never stopping it's movement though as I look up to stare back but soon find myself adverting my gaze. Man Hypno are creepy...

"I'm just a little...confused?" I offer and sigh lightly, and the Hypno actually chuckles.

"Hmm, have you spoken to the principal yet?"

I blink, "You mean you're not...?"

"What? Of course not Ruli, I'm the counselor to the principal..." He stares at me more intently and I realize I've made a horrible mistake. Surely he sees my thoughts and knows I'm not actually this Ruli everyone says I am.

He peers at me intently for a few minutes and I just stand there, waiting for the inevitable, but it never comes. He turns his gaze back to the wall in front of himself and his coin and waves his other hand at me lightly.

"The principal is in the room adjacent from here Ruli. Please try to maintain yourself."

I blink in confusion again a few times, and nod slowly while taking hold of the door again, "O-okay..." I say nervously still and turn away and close the door behind me.

I breath a heavy sigh of relief and lean against the door a moment to calm myself. Guess he couldn't see my thoughts after all.

I peer at the at the other end of the hall then and approach it. This one reads "Pangoro". Oh cool, that's a little better feeling than a creepy Hypno. I open the door readily and with a bit of a smile of my muzzle.

"GET THAT SMILE OFF YOUR FACE YOU LITTLE TROUBLE MAKER!!!" The Pangoro's tremendously loud voice knocks me to the ground and I shout out in surprise. "WAHH!"

"How dare you continue this rebellious behavior! After everything we've done for you here at this school." The Pangoro punches his desk, smashing it clean in half and scattering dozens of papers in the air.

I stutter slightly as I'm on the ground, mouth open as I shiver in fright from the display of such powerful strength. He growls in annoyance and kicks the pieces of his desk away, making them bump against the wall. "Great..." He breaths in deep in rubs his temples, chewing on the piece of shoot leaf in his mouth a bit before he opened his eyes and glared me down again.

"This is the way you repay us for taking you in from the cold and rain Ruli, by wasting our time chasing after you in the forests?" His voice is calmer, but I can still feel the anger in his voice.

"Um..." I shake a bit and slowly get up to my feet, again grabbing hold of my arm with my other paw as I look away. The Pangoro follows my look before he growls again.

"I don't know what to think about you sometimes..." He grumbles and rubs his temples again with a paw, "Just...go to your room...and please be in class tomorrow..."

"Okay..." I reply meekly and turn around, closing the door behind me and again leaning on it, this time not in relief, but of fear. What kind of pokemon was Ruli? What did he mean he took me out of the cold and rain?

Then I realized, I had no idea where the room he told me to go was. Was it upstairs maybe? I made my way up the stairs in the middle of the building. There were only four doors up here.

"Has to be that one." I said as I saw one door that had a few words scribbled onto the wood in paint that I didn't really want to acknowledge.

"What is going on..." I whined softly as I reached up and opened the door slowly. I gasped in surprise as I saw the inside. There was garbage everywhere here! The floor was covered in cloth and half eaten food, and the bed was just as worse, the covers were scattered everywhere.

"Oh yuck! What a slob he must have been..."

I narrowed my eyes in thought; what a nasty pokemon he must have been at all. The reactions so far were not very favorable towards me. Whoever I had replaced here...I was a complete opposite to him in every way so far.

I spent the rest of the day cleaning the room, disposing of the garbage outside in a public trash can. I did my best to ignore the gazes of other pokemon, but I couldn't deny I could feel the untrust they had towards me. When I had finished the room looked at least like someone respectable lived in it and I nodded and smiled in satisfaction with my arms crossed.

"Great, now what else can I do?" The day was still not over, and I wasn't exactly tired yet.

Deciding I could try to get rid of the nasty words painted on the door, I went downstairs again to see if I could get some brown paint to paint over them. I approached the Hypno's door on instinct mostly, going off of how he had been the only reasonable experience I had thus far. I knocked on his door and instantly heard a bit of shuffling inside as his voice answered.

"Just one moment..." The shuffling continued on and suddenly stopped, letting silence creep on until he spoke again, "Enter."

I opened the door slowly and looked up at him, sitting on his desk as he had been the time before, just staring at the wall and waving his metal coin in front of his face. There was no indication as to what had been shuffling, no paper or anything was in sight. He glanced over to me and I looked back at him a moment before he looked back to the wall and said, "There's some brown paint in the drawer in Infernape's room. He's gone for the day you won't have to worry about seeing him, just put the paint back when you're done so he doesn't have reason to yell at you later."

"Thank you..." I started and shuffled my footpaw on the ground a bit and decided to take a leap, I wanted answers. "Um...you do know...right?"

He glanced back at me again, eyes peering into mine once more and they stayed locked like that for some time before he glanced away again, and I swear I saw the faintest of smiles draw on his lips. "Know what?"

"What do you mean know what? You know..." I huffed and pouted there, crossing my arms.

The Hypno chuckled and he continued, "I can tell you what you need to know for now young one. Your name is Ruli. Twelve years ago you were found alone in the forest, starving and lost. The pokemon here gave you a home here in the school, and you started going to class. You were an okay student, not great, but okay. The last few years though, you've been...obnoxious...to say the least."

"Why's that?" I tilted my head.

"Honestly?" The Hypno chuckled, "In my opinion, it's puberty."

"Ah." I nodded and left it at that, that said enough for me. I was a lucky one, puberty for me was uneventful. My body developed, but my social skills hadn't changed. For this Riolu, it seems it hit him hard in the brain.

"Younger pokemon have a harder time with puberty, especially if they don't evolve first. You're a late bloomer in that regard, but don't worry, you'll get there."

"But what about-"

"You know all you need to know for now." The Hypno interjected, "Let what happens happen, and make your decisions based on what your heart tells you, clearly, you are what this world needs."

I tilted my head. Why did that sound so familiar?

___________________

I slept in the freshly cleaned bed that night after painting over the offensive words. I spent more than half of the night awake though, thinking about what had happened and where, what, who I was now. When the sun finally peaked high enough to sneak in the window and glare into my closed eyes. I grumbled and turned around in the bed, but then I heard a knocking at the my door.

"Young one," It was the Hypno again, "Class starts soon. Sunrise each day till mid afternoon. Don't be late." He walked away slowly and I grumbled again. It was way to early for this.

I eventually managed to drag myself out of the bed and sat my feet on the floor, rubbing my eyes and yawning while opening the door and made my way downstairs. About a dozen other young pokemon were clambering about downstairs, holding or carrying books and other objects for schooling. It was a familiar sight from my own school and it made me a little happy to see pokemon have a connection to human society.

"Good morning everyone." I said happily as I hopped off the last stair.

Everyone went quiet and began to stare at me instantly.

"Um..." I grabbed my left arm with my opposite paw, feeling everyone's icy glares. "Go-good morning?" I repeated softly and looked at the ground.

"A good morning with you around Ruli? As if." A buff looking Machop laughed, and a gang of four other pokemon around him laughed with him. "You'll probably go and start some trouble up like usual." He sneered at me, and I couldn't help the quiet growl that escaped my throat but I said nothing, only continued to stare at the ground at my feet.

Thankfully, that's when the Infernape walked in through the front door. He didn't even acknowledge the situation as he briskly started, "All right everyone, into the classroom for your assignments, we are going to have a field exercise today."

"Oh yes!" All the pokemon but me cheered.

"Awesome we get to go outside today!" Another cheered on as we marched into the classroom behind the larger adult. I brought up the rear, still holding my arm shakily and feeling a tightness in my throat. The way they stared at me...that was horrible. I slowly took a seat in the room, in the middle of front row of three rows with four chairs in each, for a dozen pokemon. One chair was left empty, one in the very back corner.

"Ruli." The Infernape said and looked at me and I jumped at the sound of the name coming from him.

"Y-yeah?" I managed to bring myself to look him in the eyes.

"That's not your seat." He pointed out like it was obvious.

"It isn't?" I tilted my head, confused.

The Infernape clearly just thought I was lying, the flames along his body momentarily flared but he controlled himself from having an outburst. He instead sighed and pointed to the chair in the very back corner of the room, "That's your chair, that's the one you picked at the start of the year remember?"

"Oh, yeah..." I lied, and I knew it was a pretty obvious lie as the Machop snickered. As I got out of the chair and made my way to the farther chair, the other fighting type whispered just loud enough that those around us could hear.

"Knew you were just gonna cause more trouble." He grinned at me and the other pokemon chuckled around us. I shot a look at him but said nothing again while getting into my assigned seat, sighing and grumbling silently. I didn't like the back row of a classroom, you could never see anything back here and it was where all the rotten kids liked to sit. Then again, I guess I was one of those rotten kids.

"For today class," Infernape continued once I was seated, "we'll do a field exercise as I said. I have hidden a dozen flags, one for each of you, inside the forest. You'll have until the end of the day to find your flag. Once you have found your flag and return it to me, the rest of your day is free." The pokemon in the room cheered at that prospect and the Infernape interrupted the cheer, "But!" He waited until the cheer died, "If you don't succeed in finding your flag before the day is over, you fail the assessment and will be spending the next week in after class lessons with me."

He looked at me and his stare lingered on me for a long moment. I swallowed anxiously. Did he think I would fail? Finding a flag shouldn't be that hard right?

One of the pokemon suddenly raised a hand, or that looked more like a green twig. A Phantump it seemed. It's body was smoky and dark while it's head was a tree stump. I was glad I knew a lot about pokemon.

"Yes Phantump?" The older pokemon asked..

"You said there were a dozen flags, but there's only eleven of us." It's voice was silent and wispy like the wind.

"Oh yes, I forgot to mention. A new student will be meeting us at the forest. He's from far away and has transfered here to learn from Pangoro." The students started to whisper to each other, while one spoke loudly to Infernape.

"What kind of pokemon is he?"

"He is an Eevee, his clan has sent him on a journey to pick what evolution he is to become. It's an honor to have him here, his family is a well known group of pokemon."

The students whispered more and now I was also intrigued. Choose his evolution? That would be difficult from what I remember, Eevee had eight different possible evolutions.

"So, giving how out last student has been...away, and that has left Ruli without a team partner for the last three years, the Eevee will be placed with him on a team." Infernape looked at me again and I blinked.

"P-partner?" I stammered.

"Yes that's right, I hope you're okay with that, yes?" The Infernape's glare told me I didn't really have a choice, but I nodded anyway.

The other pokemon were glaring at me again though too, and I sank low in my chair as I tried to hide from the glares. What was going on here? Why did I feel like everyone hated me?

"Oh! That also means that both you and your partner must find yours and their flag or you don't pass, so don't skimp out on your partner. Teamwork is important."

_________________________

We grouped up close to the edge of the forest, along the same coastline that Infernape had pulled me along when I first woke up in this world. There was a table set up with small backpacks, and Infernape handed one to each of us, giving me one and another for my soon to be partner.

As the others all rushed into the forest to begin the assessment, I was told to wait until my new partner arrived.

"He should be here soon." Infernape told me sternly, "Wait right here and don't run off to take any naps, understand? You'll have plenty of time to find the flag even after waiting."

I nodded briskly as I looked up at the older pokemon, trying to show him as much respect as possible. Infernape left me with the two backpacks and I sat down at the edge of the trail, leaning against on of the table legs. I kept an eye on the trail to see when the Eevee was coming, but after waiting for a bit I grew bored.

Opening my pack, I peeked inside to see what they had given us for this assessment. It seemed pretty straight forward travel gear. A cowl of rope, a metal hook to tie to the rope if needed for grappling, probably for climbing trees if we needed. There were also four apples in the pack, which I guessed was meant to be our lunch for the day. I continued to examine the rope and hook for a bit before I heard the shout come from down the path.

"Hey! I'm here!" I looked up to see the oncoming brown blur running towards me, and rose up onto my feet while packing the rope and hook back into my pack. I held his pack beside me as I waited for him to get closer.

He arrived soon after, and began to pant and heave tiredly. I tapped my paw on his pack as I waited for him to catch his breath, "A little late huh?"

"Yeah..." He panted and looked back up to me, a grin on his muzzle, "My apologies, the time change is still new to me, I'm used to being up much later in the day."

"It's all right, I suppose." I smiled back at him, it was good to have someone acting different towards me at least, I was getting tired of everyone giving me death glares.

"Help me get that pack on friend?" He smiled still and lifted up one of his forearms, and when at first I looked confused he giggled and told me to hold the back in front of him. I did so and he carefully stepped in through the strap with his forepaw, then turned away from the pack while sitting down. He wiggled his tail under it with a little effort, and with his tail he lifted it up enough to kick his leg under it.

"Here...we go!" He huffed and kicked the back up into the air, then quickly spun as it flew over his back, sticking his other forearm through the vacant strap as he landed on all fours. The pack now lay on his back perfectly, the straps under his forearms.

"Yes first try! Usually have to try more than once to get that to work. Tighten the straps for me?" He asked then, wiggling and showing how loose the straps were on his body.

I nodded, impressed at his dexterity while taking hold of the tightening buckle and pulling the strap tighter on his body, doing the same to the other side of him.

With his pack ready to go, he jumped in apparent eagerness as he turned to the forest, "All right! First day of school! We're looking for a flag right?"

"Yeah that's right, Infernape said it was hidden here in the forest somewhere."

"Pretty big forest. We'll have to use tracking skills to find the flags probably. Good thing they teach you all that stuff right?" He grinned at me and I blinked. Was that what they teached here, wilderness survival? I never thought about what it was I had been to preoccupied trying to figure out why I was here.

The Eevee was waiting for my response and I started, "Y-yeah, right..."

"Well I'll be counting on you then, I just started training to be a Explorer, so I don't know the tricks yet." He said and giggled, "Though I doubt this will be too hard to find a flag in the forest, it's not that big right?" He started walking forward into the forest, following a beaten pathway in the ground.

I remembered when Infernape had dragged me through the forest, it had been like two miles long. How deep in did Infernape hide the flags? Maybe they were super obvious and we really did just have to find a trail to them? I shook my head and sighed, following my new partner. I wasn't very confident about this, but I had little other choice right now.