FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

The next few days were nice. I didn't do much the very next day - I didn't want to run out of food before another job came along, so I conserved my energy and lazed around my den. The day after that I ate the second berry, and with that in my belly I felt energetic enough to do some wandering around town. I waited until night and slipped out onto the street, slinking around street lights and through back alleys.

I wasn't looking for anything in particular, but sometimes people would drop things that Raticate found interesting. Keys, wallets, bits of plastic with pictures and scribbles, even occasionally a shiny earring or necklace. If I found enough of those I could earn an extra berry, so it never hurt to keep my eyes open for them. And if Raticate didn't want them, some of the other Pokemon I knew around town might want them instead - and sometimes I just flat out found food directly, either mixed in with garbage or just having been dropped by mistake.

I didn't have any luck that night, but it still felt good to wander around and get out of my den for a bit.

The day after that brought that hollow 'I could eat' feeling in my stomach, so after I spent another night wandering around and finding nothing, I headed towards the Raticate's 'office'. It hadn't been very long, but it wouldn't hurt to check in on him - maybe he would have another job for me, or, even better, the rest of the berries he owed me for the last job.

I was surprised to find I was immediately let in without any wait - I was pretty sure that even if he didn't have anything else happening, the Raticate enjoyed making me wait as some sort of message or ego salve - and was even more surprised to find the Raticate was agitated. He all but dragged me into the pawn shop and slammed the door quickly behind me.

"Good, good, you're here, good. There's something you need to do."

I frowned. This was not like him at all, and it made me nervous. I had expected I would have to beg a little, like I did most times he had a job for me; his directness made me worried. "Something I need to do? What's that?"

The Raticate didn't seem to catch my subtle emphasis and just dug through the desk. "The Mercers have become a problem; you have to go back."

"The Mercers? Go back where?"

"The Mercers! The house you hit just a few nights ago; they're raising a stink and threatening everything. You need to go back there. Burn the house down; that should take care of it. Then we can-"

"Do what?!" I wasn't sure I had heard the words correctly at first. Burn their house down? I stared at the Raticate in horror.

He finally focused his attention on me and stopped fiddling with the desk. "Burn the house down! You're a fire type; you can do that in your sleep. Start it beneath the stairs if you can, by the water heater; that way it will look like an accident. Or in the kitchen; you can make it look like they left the stove on."

"Look like an acci... no! I'm not burning it down; that's their home! There are kids living there; they'll be out in the cold if I did that!" I just looked back in disbelief. I would never do something like that! Taking some trifles that could easily be replaced was one thing, even if they might be expensive, but I had been chased out of my own dens far too often to even think about doing that. I liked where I lived and would be horrified if somebody destroyed it; there was no way I would put somebody else through that.

The Raticate stared at me like my tails had sprouted heads and started talking. "Are you seriously that stupid?! What kind of fox Pokemon is this dumb - what do you think you've been doing all this time?"

I glared back at him, feeling my ears flatten at the insult. "Stealing random sheets of paper or jewels is one thing, but I'm not-"

"Random sheets of paper?! Those aren't just silly notes, idiot, those are receipts! Records of payments they've made, the _only_record they had! You steal them, our Porygon in the bank system 'accidentally' deletes the bank records, and poof, they owe several months' worth of house payments! When they can't pay it all at once, what do you think happens to them?"

I blinked at the exasperated Raticate, trying to understand what he was saying but still not quite grasping it.

"They end up out on the streets, and we get to sell a house twice! We don't do it with every house you rob, that would be too suspicious, but don't pretend to be high and mighty or some goodie clean-paws now - you've helped us turn six families out on the streets so far! This isn't anything special for you!"

I just stared at the Raticate in growing horror. Six? I had hit more houses than that...

Which ones had it been? The ones with kids? The ones with Pokemon that hadn't noticed me or hadn't been able to catch me? I could barely remember some scents or glimpses of faces... which made me feel suddenly sick.

I had destroyed their lives, and I couldn't even remember them.

Then came the slow realization that on top of that, I knew I had enjoyed doing it. The challenge of sneaking in unnoticed, the pride at being able to get around whatever security they had, the thrill of getting away without being caught... my excitement hadn't been harmless; it had ruined lives.

"No..." I shook my head and tried to deny it. It couldn't be true; I knew the Raticate and his friends weren't exactly nice, but they wouldn't do something like that... and surely the police would notice, or the families would...

I grasped at that flimsy hope. "Why does this one need to be burned down? If you did this before, what's special about this one?"

I hoped that maybe I had found a flaw, and that the Raticate would smirk and admit he had been playing some sort of cruel trick on me - he was a Dark type after all, and some of them liked to do that sort of thing... but he just got angrier instead, though now it didn't seem directed at me. He growled and glared out the window, as if he could see somebody else there to mumble at. "We overlooked something somewhere; we still don't know what or how. But they have money somehow - not a lot, or they wouldn't have needed a loan in the first place, or would have paid it off by now, but they had it. Somewhere outside the bank system - a relative with cash in a mattress, some investment that suddenly made money before we knew they had it, something. Whatever it was, they managed to hire a lawyer, a good one! He's poking around and asking all the wrong questions, and he's far too close to finding out far too much."

He whirled back towards me and jabbed his hand at me. "That's why you have to burn the place down! The Don is furious and wants this to go away, fast. And they're only doing this because they want to stay in the house - if the house burns down, they won't bother digging up anymore dirt - our guy in the insurance company will give them a nice payout and make it clear that only happens as long as any investigations are closed, and they go off to live happily ever after somewhere else. The police dogs get called off, things settle down again, everybody is happy. You'll even get the rest of the berries for the job, even though we won't make anything off it."

I still could barely believe what I was hearing. The growing hunger I felt from not eating since yesterday was replaced by a sick feeling in my stomach. I shook my head again, trying to ignore the hollow feeling of horror still gnawing at me. "I'm not burning somebody's house down."

"You're a fire type, burning things is what you do! It's just as simple as breathing for you; an exhale in the right place and the rest takes care of itself. This is the easiest job you've ever had; you _will_do it, and you'll get two berries out of it. Two! For breathing! This is a no brainer, Vulpix, even _you_can figure this one out!"

The Raticate's eyes narrowed in anger at me, and I took a step backwards, towards the door. It would be hard to open - my paws didn't bend the way the Raticate's did - but I could open it and get out if I really had to. Maybe even before he hurt me too badly. "There are kids living there; somebody could get hurt!"

"People get hurt every day! And if you don't do this, then it will be us_who get hurt - the ones who keep you fed, and then eventually you, when there's nobody left to keep the police dogs from hunting you down! Why do you even care about them; show some loyalty to your friends..." The Raticate stepped towards me... then paused, glancing out the window. A look of satisfaction and triumph crossed his face for a brief instant before he forced an impassive expression in its place. He took a deep breath and calmed down, though I could still see the anger in his eyes. "Here I am, expecting a fox Pokemon to understand _loyalty. Stupid of me. Go home and think it over. We have some time to work with and I'm sure you'll make the right choice in the end. Take this with you; I can't be caught with it." He fumbled through the desk again, though more deliberately this time, and tossed a small sack towards me.

I caught the bag in my mouth on instinct. It jingled when I did, and I remembered the sound from the last time I had seen it - the bag I had stolen along with the documents. I frowned but gave a shrug of my tails before I stuffed it into the sack at my side. I looked at him suspiciously, confused and a little worried by his sudden change of attitude, but he just stared back at me and lifted a paw to point towards the door. "Just remember - there's two berries when you do it. And there will be more jobs after. Take a day to think it over."

"Fine. But my answer is going to be the same." I turned and fumbled with the door, eventually managing to turn the slippery knob enough to push out of it.

I was fairly sure I heard the Raticate mumble 'we'll see about that' as I left, but the sound of the flimsy door bouncing against the outside wall made it hard to tell for certain. I passed a Sentret waiting in the alley as I hurried away - I didn't want to outright run from the Raticate, but I still wanted to be far away from him as quickly as I could manage it.

I slunk straight back to my den, delaying only enough to stick to the shadows and avoid running into anybody else. I curled up on my blanket and stared back towards the door and tried to calm down.

I felt a lot safer just being back in my den, especially since I had been worried the Raticate was going to attack me. But I was still bothered by what he said. Now that I didn't have any immediate fear of danger, it was too easy to think back over all the houses I had robbed.

I didn't get to spend too much time thinking about it before I noticed a new scent among the other, more familiar smells of my den. I sniffed and rose back to my feet, searching around the small hollow to try and make it out. A Pokemon of some kind - I could smell fur, and a bit of dirt that wasn't found in this part of the city. A normal type of some kind... ah. A Sentret.

I glanced around the dim hollow again. What was a Sentret doing here? They were small enough to get through the entrance, but they weren't the type to go exploring in the sewers. They preferred trees, or spots in buildings that had a bit of height to them, at least that I had noticed. For one to come poking around my home...

My eyes widened in a sudden worry, and I dashed to the corner where I had left my last berry. It only took a second before I confirmed my fear - my last berry was gone.

I flattened my ears in anger. This was too convenient - the Raticate needed me to burn down a house, and suddenly my stash of food got stolen? By a Sentret... had I ever seen one around him?

Yes - there had been one waiting outside when I had fled his office. He must have sent the Sentret out to take my food before I had shown up; that would explain his abrupt change of attitude, and his emphasis on the reward of more berries.

I growled a little under my breath and curled back up on my blanket, feeling my ears burning. So that's how he wanted to do this. That just made me want to refuse the job even more, and I thought about how his face would look when he finally realized I had no intention of burning anything down for him.

I carried that thought with me as the sun rose outside, and I drifted off to an annoyed sleep.

The Pokemon nurse frowned down at the baby Trapinch. "And you said he was doing this when he hatched?"

Sara nodded as she watched Phoenix 'run' in a circle on the small table. Run was a generous description - the Pokemon's heavy head was obviously giving him trouble with balance, and it wasn't helped by the leg trailing limply behind the Trapinch as he ran. "Yeah... he fell out of the egg, rolled over, and then walked around like that. I don't think I've seen him move that leg yet."

The Trapinch turned to the closest wall and let out a small roar as he charged towards it. He got about halfway across the table before his rear left leg thumped on the table and threw off his balance, causing him to fall to the table with a thud and a slight slide forward. He laughed and started to get back up, but the nurse reached out to grab his leg and feel along it. Phoenix squawked indignantly and started to turn his head back to try and bite at the nurse, but she just grabbed his head with her free hand and held him in place. "Hmm... it doesn't feel broken, and it doesn't seem any warmer like I would expect if something had been torn. Can you pick him up for a minute? I want to do a stimulus response test."

Sara nodded and scooped the Trapinch up, holding him against her chest. Phoenix squawked a few more times before he gave a final annoyed huff and settled down.

The nurse dug through the cabinet and drew out a thin metal rod with a point at one end. She rubbed it over the Trapinch's feet, starting with his left foreleg. He squirmed and pulled his leg back, then let out a yelp when she poked him right in the base of his paw with the sharp point. The nurse repeated the test two more times and he reacted the same way each time... and then she moved to his left hind leg.

The Trapinch stared blankly up at the nurse and didn't move at all while the rod moved over his leg. The nurse frowned and gave him a poke, right at what should have been the sensitive paw... and the Trapinch still didn't react, aside from a bored blink a few seconds later.

The nurse frowned and poked him again, this time on a different part of his leg, but Phoenix still didn't react. The nurse pulled the rod back and set it down on the counter. "Well... I'll need to do more tests to be sure, but it looks like there might be some nerve damage in that leg."

"Nerve damage? But... how; he hasn't been in any fights or anything..." Sara looked down and poked at the leg herself, frowning when the Trapinch just looked up at her blankly.

"It might be something genetic, or something that happened while he was growing in the egg. You said you found his egg out in the desert?" Sara nodded, and the nurse frowned and started digging through the cabinet again. "Hmm. Sometimes this kind of thing can happen if an egg gets too cold, but out in the desert he should have had plenty of heat. Could have been an infection, though that's..."

"Um... it had actually been really cold in the desert before that; there was a lot of rain. The other eggs we found were all cold, and... um..." Sara trailed off, not wanting to bring up Phoenix's dead siblings right in front of him.

The nurse stopped digging and nodded. "That's probably it then - we'll do some more tests to make sure, but that's probably what happened. If it got too cold his nerves wouldn't have been able to develop right. It might change over time - he might have new connections form to pick up for the damaged ones, or evolution might change things... but nerve damage is tricky. If it's as bad as it looks, I would expect he'll have trouble with that limb for the rest of his life. I don't know how many times I've had to tell breeders about this kind of thing; it's very important for Pokemon eggs to be kept warm..."

The nurse shook her head and looked back at Sara. "He's going to need a lot of special attention. Have you had any experience with Pokemon like that? I can give you some names of Pokemon Professors that might be able to give you some better tips for taking care of him."

Sara bit her lip and nodded. "Yes... I know how a Pokemon like this can be." She realized she was fidgeting with one of her PokeBalls and forced herself to pull her hand away. "That would be nice - I'm going to do my best to take good care of him, so I'd appreciate their help."