FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

  Damn you 2.0! I had to install Firefox just to post this...

  Before someone asks, yes. I do like Linkin Park. A lot.

...well, mostly the older songs...

  Hybrid theory's my fave album.

  It was a calm day, an eerie feel of emptiness hung heavy in the street, greys of path and pavement unadorned with the usual pattering of boots and feet as Pokémon and people would play as usual. It was quiet. It was too quiet.

  A stray piece of litter tumbled across the street, solely animating the lifeless, desolate road. There was just nothing else. It was the calm before the storm, doldrums hung in the air patiently, ready to explode into a frenzy at any moment.

  Around a corner, a red shape crept over the tarmac, heavy and metal, engine humming just over earshot as loose gravel crunched inaudibly under the tires, heavy with the vehicle's load.

  The sun's gleam passed on and off the windows, so heavily tinted they were black mirrors to the outside world. But nobody from the outside world is looking, all hidden away in their homes, curtains pulled back and lights off.

  From inside the vehicle, a voice speaks up. A male, voice low and monotonous, but somewhat cautious. "This looks like the place."

  "Satnav says: yes." A voice replies, female, and a little concerned as she observes the detritus of a community, now retreated.

  "Good. I'm getting hungry."

  The female voice silences with a knowing nod. Just touching on the accelerator with her foot to keep the vehicle rolling quietly, she pulls over to the side of the road, bringing the vehicle to a gentle stop on the opposite side of the road to a white, wooden house with quaint parquet windows rising outwards from the walls. "Something out here's not right today...." She observes as she unbuckles quickly.

  "Ghost town..." The passenger door clicks open, but a hand holds it mostly shut. "Stay on my heels. Keep your piece hidden or you'll scare them. I'm scary enough as it is without a gun-slinging guard dog."

  "I know." The female replies with a distracted nod, still looking around out her window at the black-tinted world outside.

  "Keep the engine going; I'm not taking chances and we might need to make a hasty exit." The passenger door swings open, easily since it's facing just a little downhill with the left wheels sunk into the gutter a bit. The man jumps out with a low clap as his heavy boots hit the pavement, soles rigid and thick. Combat boots.

  He throws the door shut recklessly. The female inside cringes as his door slams, throwing a loud echo over the whole neighbourhood and disturbing the silence without regard for keeping a low profile. "Jason!" She hisses, stepping out and closing her door much more softly with a disapproving glare.

Jason

  "Sorry Shari." I murmur half-heartedly, waving off her stare and heading straight for the building on the other side of the road. She moves into line behind me quickly, slipping a small sidearm under the bottom of her bright red jacket into a holster, then patting the jacket to reassure herself as she looks all around. We're awfully exposed on the street like this, something Ms tactics-and-stuff doesn't like.

  I of all people know how loud my boots are, and I can tell the noise created is really putting Shari on edge as if it will wake something up. But each heavy strike on the ground just lifts me somehow, reminds me of what I am. Heavy, powerful, not nicely coloured or decorated, no. These boots are made for kicking ass.

  "Is the Viking fed?" I ask one more time over my shoulder as I cross the centreline.

  "The Viking is fed." Shari confirms for the fifth time, but nods calmly despite my constant asking. "Do you really think we'll need it? We're only on surveillance."

  "If we need it, it's ready. If not, we don't use it."

  A cold wind sweeps past, strangely dry of feeling on my face as it lashes me and slips through my hair without disturbing its short length. My hair hasn't grown since they did that to me... I look at my right arm as I walk, seeing what they did to me once more. White bandages, strangling my skin, coiling around my whole hand and up my arm to my shoulder hidden under a long black sleeve, where they come to a stop around my shoulder, under my body armour.

  Wearing Kevlar in public isn't a crime.

  "It scares people, Jason." My mind resonates with a distant echo, from way within.

  "I know it does Keiomi, I know..." I pause on the sidewalk, closing my eyes and raising my mummified hand to my face. "But they don't matter. Only you matter, only us, and this is a price I'm willing to pay." I stroke a finger down my cheek, like one would to a lover to comfort them. A warm feeling grows on my own touch, along with a little feeling of comfort.

  "You can't keep doing this."

  "Yes I can Keiomi, yes I can. I will do this forever, until my own death comes upon me."

  "But it isn't right..."

  "Keiomi..." I pause for a moment, sighing. "If I was to lose you, the grief would drive me to kill myself." I silence her with this. "Do you want that?"

  "No! of course not!"

  "Which is why I do this. I do this because I love you, and I'm going to stay with you forever, and I will kill everyone in this world if it means keeping you." I drop my arm back to my side and start towards the door again. I look left and right as I tread along the footpath from the front of the section to the doorway, staring into the flowerbeds and bushes just in case there might be something in there. You can never be too careful with these.

  I approach the door slowly, glancing through a gap in the curtain of a window to my right, but I don't catch anything. I rap sharply on the door three times, then take a step back, leaving my fist hovering at knocking height for a few moments.

  The door remains still and lifeless for a while, as if it was just a wall not expected to move, but then a sound pertains from within. A few thuds, soft thuds, and a very quiet scraping. Shari probably can't hear it, but my ears can.

  At the edges of my peripheral vision, a soft blue glow fuzzes into life, then quickly spreads through my entire sight, cloaking everything in a blue tint. The door burns with an irregular shape, outlined by white but with a vast rainbow of colours inside. This is aura sight.

  I snap my head sideways sharply and blink, reverting my vision and extinguishing the shape behind the door. "Ma'am, it's okay. Please open the door."

  The door doesn't reply for a while, I see a little flicker and switch in colour of the peephole lens as the woman stares at me, then finally the door clicks heavily, and opens inwards. A head pokes around the edge of the door, open just enough.

  "What do you want?" Her voice shakes a bit, eyes darting left and right. Even her hair looks frazzled and electric, shaking with the rest of her.

  I clear my throat and take half a step towards her. "Ma'am, I am a representative of a certain party of individuals with an invested interest in your safety and wellbeing." I recite untruthfully. They couldn't give a crap about this lady.

  "I'm... sorry?" She queries distraughtly and grips the door tighter in her trembling fingers.

  "I have some questions to ask you." I say finally, and before she can reply: "Do you, or did you have any Pokémon in this residence?" The woman stares for a few more moments, but I keep my stare fixed on her eyes, keeping her still like a scared Bunneary. She nods a little bit, looking over her shoulder quickly.

  When she looks back, it is with a smile. "Yes. We do." She replies. She doesn't pick up on an impatient murmur in my throat as I continue.

  "Have any Pokémon gone missing in the last week from this neighbourhood?" I ask uniformly.

  "Well, yes." She gulps and nods, still holding the door, but a little more loosely. "Darcy went missing about seven days ago, along with several of my neighbours Pokémon, but he's back now."

  My heart leaps into my throat. The woman's eyes go wide and she tries to slam the door shut, but I grab the door and shunt through. "Stop!" I grab her shoulder and spin her towards me as she tries to break away, but I grab her and push her into the wall. "Settle down!" I shout unhelpfully into her face as she screams. "This is important! When did the Pokémon return?"

  "It was only ten minutes ago!" She bawls, breaking into tears and holding her arms up in pitiful defence.

  "Where is it!?"

  "JASON!" Shari yells as she runs into me and pushes, but I hold tight, growling and holding the woman into the wall.

  "Bathroom! Bathroom!" She cries. I let her go and break into a sprint into the house.

  "Shari! Get her out of here!" I spot a doorway open at the end of the corridor and charge for it. "Hey!"

  I almost slip as I stop in the doorway. My blood freezes in my veins. I've seen some fucked up shit before in my life, but this well and truly takes the cake. Inside the bathroom...

  "DIE HUMANS DIE"

  In giant letters across the back wall, painted messily in red, fresh and seeping down towards the floor still. At the bottom there's a girl slumped against the wall.

  Most of a girl. It's hard to tell since her head seems to be missing.

  "Hmm..." I murmur coolly, stepping carelessly into the bathroom and turning as I walk, searching for whatever is in here in every corner and cranny, doing my best to ignore the decapitated ten-year old. "Asshole.  There's supposed to be a comma after "humans"."

  A black thing explodes from the wall on my left, moving way too quickly for me to register what it is. I yell something incomprehensible as I do my best to dive aside, but something crashes into my side as the black thing passes, then it disappears into the wall opposite where it came from with a brief, ambient hum.

  I tumble into a roll and jump back to my feet with a growl, crouching and clenching my fists tight as my side spasms in pain. In a flash, the bathroom lights up blue, my aura vision flashing active. "Alright Mr scary ghosty..." I look around the room slowly, turning a full 360 and looking for anything suspicious. "...come get some..."

  "Dusc!" I don't even see it, but I know where it is. I dive forwards immediately and land in a roll, hearing floor tiles smash behind me and explode all across the room. I jump out of my roll to my feet with inhumane agility, twisting my body in mid-air to face the Pokémon. "Dusc-Dusclops!" The burly Pokémon roars, single blood red eye focussed menacingly on my eyes, obscured by my shades as I cross my arms with an amused grunt.

  "Huh. Just a Dusclops." I murmur, lips falling still and expressionless. "But that's all fine. You look tasty." The Pokémon growls lower and longer, crouching and preparing to strike. "Bring it." I encourage, making a "bring it on" gesture. "I'm hungry, so hurry and die so I can devour your soul."

  He lunges at me with a shadow punch drawn back, front hand leading palm first to throw me off. I grin and stand tall, not even flinching as the front hand flashes to the side to distract me and the back fist is swung at me.

  I sidestep with as little movement as possible, coat fluttering behind me like a residual shadow of my former position as I almost glide to avoid the attack. The Pokémon sees and sends his back fist at me, spinning to throw it harder. I dash back a single step, right hand unfolding from my left pit and gently, quite casually directing the swing short of my stomach with a little press on the Pokémon's wrist.

  I don't let go as the Pokémon's swing continues, and I swing my arm after it, using his own momentum against him, then twisting his arm up and over his head, spinning him around with a surprised grunt. I jerk down on his wrist behind his back and kick into the back of his knee, knocking his weight out and collapsing him to one knee. I step back a bit with a sadistic grin growing on my lips, then swing a second kick in, around and smashing the steel toe of my boot into his side, knocking the wind out of him and releasing him on impact, allowing him to fall to the floor wheezing in pain.

  "I knew you looked weak, but this is ridiculous." I step around the side and drive another heavy boot into his stomach, drawing a raspy, painful breath from the dazed and beaten Pokémon. "No problem. I like playing with my food." Another vicious boot to the face flips the Pokémon over onto his back, streaming blood from his face with a hoarse cry of "Dusc!". I step over the Pokémon, grin still dry and black on my face, and raise a boot, and slam it down. I hear something crack as my boot collides with his chest, black warped skin slipping a bit and tearing under my attack.

  I send one hand flying down and into the Ducslops' throat, cutting off his painful murmuring with a strangled gurgle. I grin and haul the Pokémon to his feet with one hand, flexing my fingers on my other hand quickly as their tone seems to fall a bit. Holding my hand clenched as a fist at my side, I wait patiently, holding the hapless Pokémon by the throat still. He pries his eye open eventually, partway as his eyelid flickers up and down a bit with pain. I lean close to him, my grin deserting for a moment as my cold lips move. "This is for the girl." His eyes snap shut as my fist flies into a throw at him directly.

  At the last second I halt it, freezing it centimetres from his face. He opens his eye warily, trembling in unruly fury and staring at my hand, cloaked in an ominous haze, blacker than the night and flickering and flaming so closely to his skin he can feel each lick of the darkness on his soul. I shunt him backwards a bit with the hand on his throat.

  He staggers back with a sharp wheeze of breath, ceasing with a pain stabbing his chest but still managing to keep on his feet. Good defence. Not good enough.

  I relax my stance a bit, turning side on and outstretching my arm levelly at him, still alight with horrible energy, like lining up a killshot.

  "You see this?" My voice glides like a slow night blizzard, cold as ice, and menacingly dark and calm with the doldrums of impending death. "This is my soul..." My fingers blur to either side as my vision unfocusses on my target, my attention going into pumping my attack full of aura. "This will be the last thing you feel as you die." My fist unclenches, a dark, unholy energy exploding from my fingertips.

• *

  "What's going on in there?" The woman's face presses into the window, pale skin invisible from the outside through the heavy tinting.

  The woman in the front sits silently, hands tapping nervously on the vibrating steering wheel and staring idly at it, lip bleeding with her teeth sinking into it. "Ma'am, did you notice anything odd about your Pokémon when it returned to you?" Shari asks, keeping her cool in that professional ranger way they do, her head bobbing impatiently to some tune in her head, playing to ease herself.

  "He was dirty, and he didn't say much." The woman recalled after some time thinking. "I told Leanne to run him a bath- what does tha-"

  "Dusc!" Shari slaps her hands over her ears as the woman's screams jar her ears seeing the Dusclops crash into the pavement outside after smashing through her front window.

  "Jason!" Shari kicks open her front door and jumps into the street as the Pokémon bursts into a fit of coughing and spluttering, weakly attempting to stand once more.

  What glass remaining attached to the windowsill smashes as Jason leaps through after the Pokémon, raining down on the woman's front lawn as she screams her head off in the back of the Humvee. He lands heavily on one knee, looking down. He stands slowly, staring at the Pokémon vacantly through his shades. He really was an unnerving sight to behold. The shades on their own wouldn't have been a problem, but combine that with the fully bandaged arms and legs, jet black hair and Kevlar body armour, he was a scary bastard. And if that didn't scare people away, the mention of multiple personalities would. And if all of that didn't put them off, the "soul-stealing" lines he loved so much were the icing on the cake. Though, to say he loved such lines was something not to be said lightly. "I have no love" was a line one would hear upon mentioning such a thing.

  The Pokémon lifts its head just enough to see Jason with a growl. Jason cracks his neck sideways, standing upright and tall in that way he does. In one hand palm a little spark jumps from his skin, a silver sliver of light, leaping from palm to fingertips, then back again and all over like a tiny spastic Lopunny. Everyone watches his hand as more and more sparks flash to life, leaping all around in his palm hanging so statically at his side it's as if he doesn't even notice. Then the sparks converge in the middle, washing into his palm and combining into a little silver ball, shining brightly and lighting up silver streaks in his shades, passing over and across the surfaces ominously as if they were the surface of a pool that was his soul, black and empty of anything but raw fury and hate.

  He moves so quickly, it's like he hasn't moved at all, often leaving whoever's watching unsure as to whether he was standing with his hands at his sides or has been standing with that arm outstretched the whole time. But he is; that little glowing ball of silver energy in his palm outstretched towards his enemy.

  Shari stepped right back as she recognised where this was going. Keiomi's long gone by now. She thought with a gulp. This is all that's left of Jason. She referred of course, to the look of cold hatred fixed on Jason's face. His wearing shades was mercy upon all society, because if his shades made people uneasy, his eyes would scare people shitless. Shari had seen them once in this state. Red. Large red irises with black pupils. Not bright red, or glowing, just a dull, empty red so intense that one could become consumed just looking at them as they dominated everything else with their cold extremity.

  Jason took a short step forwards and leapt into the air, higher than any normal human should, flipping around forwards with arms outstretched wide like wings, both holding silver bundles of light glowing, caged in his fingers. The first he threw was the one in his right hand. It left his grasp so quickly, the ball seemed to stretch a metre from his hand, distorting for a moment, then suddenly shooting off at his target.

  The Dusclops rolled clumsily to the right, but the ball collided with the ground just beside it, exploding with a brilliant flash of light and blowing it clear ten feet across the ground. The second blast came ruthlessly, not even giving the Pokémon a chance to settle on the ground from the first bounce on impact before colliding with it and hammering it into the ground with a second explosion, once again blinding anyone dumb enough to be looking directly at it.

  Jason landed on one knee again and stood quite leisurely, cocking his head to look at the Pokémon lying unmoving on the ground a few metres away. He began towards it casually with a disturbing amount of collectedness. He neared the Pokémon's side and hooked a foot under its stomach, then flipped in over onto its front. "See me as I kill you." He commanded, raising one hand high as the Pokémon pried one eye open weakly to see his free hand take his shades by the centre, then slowly slide them down the bridge.

  "Dusc-" Jason's shades landed softly on the grass beside him as his hand lit up black. Shari gulped, and turned away, hanging her head and clenching her eyes shut. "-lops!" She held her eyes shut, body trembling as she gripped her door for balance. That sound was the sound of a Pokémon dying. She knew what was happening behind her back. Jason would be kneeling over the Pokémon, hand phased and in the Pokémon's gut. Bolts of black energy would be sparking and leaping up his arm from the Pokémon's body, and a fine red mist would follow after it, up his arm into his body.

  She waited, fingers prying the doorframe tightly as her eyes were shut.

  "Shari." Shari tensed briefly at the touch on her shoulder, but recovered soon, opening her eyes once more. "It's over." Shari nodded with a quiet gulp, turning around reluctantly with the kind of nod that says "it had to be done". Jason nodded in confirmation; eyes shaded once again and blotted out behind his heavily tinted lenses. His head leaned left a bit around Shari, looking at the tinted window as if he can see through. Shari figured he probably could. "Our lady friend is unconscious. It would be better if she awoke somewhere else."

  "She said the Pokémon disappeared a week ago." Shari reminded him knowingly, following his gaze eyes unfocussed. "You know what that means, right?"

  "There are more on their way." Jason clarified what both of them were thinking, nodding distractedly.

  "It seems we got here just in time." Shari's gave swung back to Jason, a wan smile breaking the ice.

  "Not soon enough..." Jason's head hung momentarily with a melancholic sigh. "The little girl..." Shari recognised an abrupt drop in Jason's vocal tone, even his entire cold-confident composure dropped to a much more detached one. "She's dead..."

  "Aaaw..." Shari stepped forwards and standing on her tiptoes wrapped her arms around Jason's neck and back pulling him down into her with a big, warm hug. "It's okay..." She croons, stroking his hair and patting his back reassuringly. "Settle down Keiomi... it's not your fault, girl..." Shari tried her best to reassure her friend as best she could. "It's okay..."

  "Mmm..." Jason murmured, wrapping his arms around Shari too, especially tightly at that.

  "Mm-ugh... Keiomi..." Shari reminded Jason with her eyes flying wide open, words coming gurgled as her entire chest was constricted. "Can you please let- go... ugh..."

  "Aaaw, Why?" Jason piped up, a grin humming with pleasure stretched across his face. Shari stifled a curse as his arms tightened further and lifted her clear up and off the ground. "I just don't wanna wet you go!" He murred warmly, squeezing a bit tighter.

  "Kei-i-ime..."

  "Oh." Jason dropped Shari quickly and a shade of red crossed his cheeks. "Sorry." He kicked a stone beneath him sheepishly, hands clasping behind his back.

  "Arceus you're strong!" Shari gasped as she tended to her throat with her hands, rubbing a bit. Jason grinned pleasantly at the compliment. "Here, take your glasses off now." Jason stood still, letting Shari reach up and remove his glasses. "That's better." Shari observed, seeing his eyes light up a bit, deserting that old deep red in favour of a much brighter colour, almost a hint of pinking red in them. "You have such pretty eyes..." Shari observed with an equally pleasant grin.

  "Thank you." Jason replied happily.

  "You know-"

  "Wait-" In a heartbeat, Jason was back. His eyes faded in, deepening and darkening at a horribly quick speed. He snatched his shades back from Shari and spun around, shoulders broad and stance tall and confident once again.

  A stray gust rolled along the street, dragging more urban detritus behind, tumbling and bouncing over and along the cracked pavement. Succeeding that short breeze, doldrums beat down on the street, gripping the world momentarily in static silence, time moving and nothing else following.

  "Can you hear that?" Jason's lips didn't even move, his words just slipped through his teeth with disturbing levelness and calm. "Something's coming, and it's big."

  Shari got the hint in a second, the word "big" registering with her especially quickly, sending her into a mad dash for the driver's door as Jason seemed to linger in limbo, his jump into action delayed by a few more seconds of listening.

  He shot around the back corner of the vehicle and threw up the trunk. He leapt into the jumble of containers and equipment, picking up one long, heavy piece of metal as he spun around and sat with his legs hanging over the edge, facing backwards. He snapped a piece on the bottom of the thing into a clip in the trunk floor between his legs, mounting it in the attachment and dragging a long belt of metal along his side as he did.

  "Shari!" He called, taking hold of the weapon in both hands. "The Viking is ready!" The Viking of course being an MG36 Light machine gun. An ammunition belt fresh with armour-piercing bullets trailed into a heavy-duty metal box at Jason's side, painted army green.

  "What do we have here?" Came a voice from deep within Jason's mind, resonating endlessly. Not curious, but like a testing question.

  "A Rampardos. The aura has a thick outline with an occasional spike inwards, solid body with little fluctuating, a ring of residual aura is hanging just around the central mass spiking outwards occasionally at one point."

  "Excellent." Came less-than-enthusiastic praise as a dark shape came lumbering around a distant corner. And dark it was, discoloured and black, like the Dusclops, though it was harder to tell, it being usually black.

  "-aaaaarrd..."

  "Yeah." Jason confirmed, nodding a bit as his trigger finger flexed. "That's a Rampardos..." But who the hell keeps a Rampardos as a family pet?

  "A Rampardos!? Are you sure?"

  Jason's face fell, setting in a stony unfocussed stare in the Pokémon's general direction. "No Shari- upon closer inspection- it's a glossy, friendly Magikarp." The vehicle lurched forwards briefly, but stopped short as Shari's mind raced to find a hint of sarcasm in Jason's level tone. "I was being sarcastic." He offered.

  He tightened his grip on the weapon as the vehicle surged forwards again, using it to hold on to so he wouldn't fly out the back of the vehicle. "Don't hit anything!" Jason called over his shoulder as the Rampardos charged after them with a roar, sapphire blue skullcap lowering as it leapt after the vehicle.

  "Don't shoot it in the head!" Shari called back.

  "What?" Jason barked at her. "It's charging head down, of course a few bullets are going to hit it in the damn head!"

  "Well we're racing through a damn city!" The vehicle lurched left to illustrate, swerving around a red car and almost throwing Jason out of the trunk. "Now think next time before you make a stupid-ass suggestion like that!"

  Jason bit his lip and brought his attention back to the charging Pokémon behind them, tightening his grip on his weapon. Cars slammed their brakes on left and right as the Pokémon cut a swath through an intersection with a roar, running a red light even. Out of the 'burbs, the chase was in the central city.

  "A little closer you bastard..." Jason urged, following every huge, leaping step of the Pokémon with the barrel as it closed in slowly, being a fast Pokémon. "A little-"

  "Pardos!" The shadow Pokémon's steps suddenly stepped up, sinking its head down and shooting forwards much more quickly.

  The vehicle rang shrilly as Jason let loose, strangling the trigger with his finger. The city around them exploded into further frenzy as the sounds of gunfire split the air, sending people and Pokémon left right and centre diving for cover wherever they could.

  Jason tracked carefully as the weapon jarred and shook in his hands, twisting and jerking it around to follow the Pokémon in time with Shari's erratic driving patterns as she swerved around other cars at speeds like they weren't even moving, shells streaming steadily out the trunk and landing clattering on the ground, leaving a trail to Jason's destruction.

  The Pokémon's head seemed to take most of the damage, or rather, least of it, every bullet colliding with it sharply bouncing off in some other random direction, shattering window panes with the ricochet and pelting everything in the immediate area.

  "Jason! Aim for the god-damn legs!"

  "I'm aiming for the god-damn legs!" Jason yelled back, words almost lost in the incessant rattling of shells being thrown all about.

  "Well you're a piss poor shot!"

  "I'm a- I'm a piss poor shot? You're the bitch who couldn't-"

  "Don't you dare even bring that up!"

  "I could have even-"

  "I was having a bad day!"

  "You must have been having a fucking terrible day with that aim!"

  "Jason! I will turn this car around-!"

  "Jason! Shari! Focus! I swear you two are such bickerers!" Jason snapped. His head shook quickly, returning to the realisation that his aim had just been spraying lead all over the place without his attention. He swung the barrel back lined with the Pokémon, doing his best to keep the majority of the output on the Pokémon's legs while still managing to swing the barrel up to avoid punching through any car unfortunate enough for Shari to swerve around. Although, those cars were soon enough battered out of the way by the Pokémon behind, in tow like an anchor being dragged by a winch, swinging left and right and smashing through anything to be caught in its path as bullets shredded it all over.

  And the Viking stopped.

  "Fuck!" Jason swore as Shari spun the wheel hard right, sending the vehicle into a slide around a corner, cutting across in front of a few turning cars and slamming Jason into the left-hand side. Lucky the Viking was empty as the impact with the side released Jason's grip on the trigger, hypothetically filling a family of three full of lead if it wasn't. "Dammit!"

  "What?"

  "No ammo!" Jason called back as the Rampardos sideswiped an SUV in its pursuit, slowing a bit.

  "WHAT!?"

  "NO AMMO! AMMUNITION! BULLETS! ORDINANCE-!"

  "Well do something about it!"

  "I am!" Jason called, dismounting the heavy weapon from its attachment and lifting it in one hand and holding the roof for balance in the other. "Slow down a bit."

  "Why?"

  "Just do it, Shari!" Shari begrudgingly dropped a gear, glancing warily over her shoulder as Jason stood up, carefully crouching to keep his balance and watching the Pokémon as it closed in slowly to the back of the vehicle, black skin trembling with each crushing step forwards. "Ease the gas on..." He instructed as the Pokémon came nearer and nearer, intent on rear-ending the heavy vehicle. "Now you die..." Jason released the trunk and stepped out of the vehicle, jumping a bit on his back foot as he left it.

   He swung his arm down and caught one of the Pokémon's horns as he soared past, swinging himself around onto its back and wrapping his legs around its neck as he hit with a grunt of pain.

  "RAMP!"

  Jason raised the heavy gun high in one hand, holding on tight with the other. "Ramp this, motherfucker!" He swung down with his high arm, bringing the butt of the heavy gun around and slamming it into the side of the Pokémon's face. The Rampardos cried and threw its head sideways, but Jason dropped his gun and grabbed a second horn tightly for grip as he was tossed about like on a Tauros. As the Pokémon lifted its head, lapsing in its wild throwing side to side, Jason lifted one aura-lit hand high, and smashed it into the back of the Rampardos' neck with a ruthless, sloppy karate chop.

  He untied his legs and leapt away to the side as the Pokémon fell forwards from his strike. Its horns hit the tarmac and dug in, throwing the Pokémon head-over-heels and landing difficultly on its back with a loud crack.

  Ahead, the Humvee slid into another slide, spinning around and facing the other way.

  The Rampardos regained its feet with a roar, swaggering unsteadily as its black eyes focussed on the human before it.

  "Rampardos!" It roared loudly, throwing its head up high. Jason ran for it, breaking quickly into a sprint. The Pokémon's simple mind said one thing: Attack. So it spun around to the right, swinging its tail blindly with all its might.

  The Humvee hit at just the right time, crashing into the Rampardos' leg just as it swung its tail away, clearing the way for a solid hit. As the Rampardos' huge body toppled sideways, spinning, Jason leapt up onto the buckled hood of the vehicle as it raced towards him, stepped up onto the roof quickly and jumped off the top, aura spheres glowing in each hand. The first blasted the head, throwing off what little balance it had left and sending it falling backwards, and the second landed squarely in the stomach, hitting the black Pokémon back into the ground heavily.

  Upon landing again, Jason tore at his right palm, scraping the bandages off with his left, then flicked the arm out to his right, all of a sudden clutching a small, white knife, bloody from handle to tip.

  He ran forwards and jumped onto the Pokémon's stomach and ran along it to the neck as it rolled a bit and pried its eyes open.

  Just a little too late.

  It's body convulsed briefly with a sharp stab of pain, eyes going wide, then freezing there, black colour slowly draining back as its life faded away.

  Jason gave the knife a short twist, then ripped it out of the tough, leathery skin. He left his free hand on its neck, allowing energy to gather around it from the deceased Pokémon.

  The Humvee skidded to a stop beside the Pokémon. Shari was out even before it stopped skidding and running towards him.

  "I'm fine." Jason said abruptly, gingerly removing his hand from the dead Rampardos, inspecting his palm curiously and flexing his fingers. "That Dusclops' soul gave me a boost I needed. It was little trouble killing this one. We both know that a shadow Pokémon's defence is usually lacking, and Rampardos are curiously weak for all their size and brute strength. " He inspected one hand and flexed his fingers curiously. "Especially against my aura spheres. They are hopeless against fighting moves."

  The Pokémon was back to normal by now. Black skin, black eyes, all returned to normal colouration.

  "Ring this in before more show up." He ordered, looking around briefly from his high point atop the Pokémon. "I want that street locked down. I can handle the stray early-arrival to the party but fighting a larger force would be suicide, and I'm not dying a third time round." Jason stepped off the Pokémon's body and fell a short fall to his knee, since he always landed as such, eyes facing down through his shades with his coat falling around him and splaying over the tarmac. Without a second concerned look back, he stood and walked for the Humvee, past Shari as if she wasn't even there.

  "Hold up." He stopped short as Shari's hand caught his bandaged wrist. "I saw that, get back here." Jason sighed, and took a long step backwards, standing in front of Shari. As he did, his shoulders seemed to drop a bit. Shari's number one sign of a personality-shift, watch the shoulders.

  "What?" He shrugged defensively. "I didn't do nothing..." He whined innocently. Shari glared at him and lifted his hand up for him to see. The bandage was torn, and where white had once cloaked, there was black. Black fur, matted and greasy grey a bit just in the palm.

  "Doesn't that hurt?"

  "Only a little." Jason said dismissively. "It isn't a problem."

  Shari nodded with a sigh, letting Jason go. "Well, we better get some bandages on that. We can't have everybody seeing all that fur." Jason whined a little and followed after her to the Humvee. Shari stopped and smiled over her shoulder. "Not like that, you fur's very nice." Jason's smile came back again, a little goofy under his shades. "But we don't want people to see it, it's not normal." Jason shook his head quickly, then dashed after Shari to the vehicle.

  As soon as Shari opened the passenger door, Jason eagerly shot past her onto the seat, getting a startled cry from Shari. He simply waved it off with a grin, sitting kneeling on the seat with his fists keeping his balance between his legs.

  "Stop doing that!" Shari blurted before she could stop herself. Jason's smile dropped instantly, and his head slowly fell, that low whine just rising from his throat. Shari facepalmed, cursing at herself. "Please don't do that..." She begged, staring helplessly at Jason. "Aaaw... c'mon..." Jason didn't reply. He just hung his head further as his whine heightened.

  Shari gave in, her will collapsing with a sigh. "I'm sorry..." She conceded and hung her own head in shame, lifting one hand and placing it on Jason's head, tousling his hair a bit. He brightened up once more, lifting his head again and raising his trademark happy grin.

  "You're too easy to play." He remarked cunningly, enjoying the satisfaction of another victory over Shari. He fell into a short fit of soft laughter as Shari's fist connected with his knee and she received most of the impact, swearing and spinning away, shaking the pain off and biting her lip.

  "You've got it easy." She commented as she regained her cool and returned to the conversation. "You haven't got to babysit "Mr Crazy Prototype Hybrid" all day."

  "You make that sound like a bad thing." Jason fell onto his ass and draped his legs over the edge of the seat, hanging out the edge of the vehicle. He looked up quickly with a brief murmur. "Hmm... cops are coming. I can hear them."

  "Dammit..." Shari dashed around the buckled front of the vehicle and leapt into the driver's seat, pulling on her seatbelt as she went. "Let's hope we don't have another incident like Fuchsia if they catch us." She hit the ignition, stirring the vehicle to life.

  "Mmm. Let's hope." Jason nodded. "For their sake."

  I said doldrums three times. That's three cookies for Mysterydude since I read it in "Breath of the sea". He's the only person I've known to use that word, and now I love it. gives three cookies

  This people, is the intro. Just the thing that really introduces Jason as a character. Next chapter will be a little more background on him, then the third should be meeting up with Ben.

  I hope you like Jason, coz when this and the cold mistress' path converge, he's the main character. And yes, as DG42 so kindly pointed out mutters he has multiple personalities (but how many?) and they tend to leak into one another, but that's a backstory I haven't arrived at yet.

  But I've my plot and everything lined up for this, and fuck it gets trippy near the end (but the more I think about it, the more it makes sense). My challenge is going to be filling the space between the beginning and the big, dramatic ending I've got planned. (SO! INSANE!)