FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Ch.6

THE OUTSIDE WORLD

Never before had I even imagined the outside world to contain so many wonders, I thought as I just exited the tunnel and looked about myself. The whole place seemed to contain so many wonders that I couldn't seem to capture them all. Everything seemed to shimmer in what appeared to be a great brilliance that made my eyes sting a little at how bright it all was. I'd never experienced such brightness and looked up to see what kind of crystal was so big and bright that could cause such a stinging in my eyes. Though when I did look up it was to quickly avert my eyes at how bright the crystal was. After looking away I rubbed at my eyelids to ease the pain and decided not to look up at the crystal again. After all, there were many other things around me that looked just as unfamiliar and exciting to me.

Once my eyes were back to normal did I begin to explore this strange new world. Tall green things that seemed to sway ever so effortlessly moved with the pulse of the oceans heart, small pebbles on the ground looked like they'd feel great under my hard feet to ease the pain that often would hurt them, and so many other wonders that I couldn't wait to discover. Though before I could do such, I felt a nasty thing pull at the end of my tail and gave out a startled squawk which released all the air that I was holding.

I watched him for a little while, admiring the ocean for the first time, just like I'd done so many years ago. He bobbed there in the water for quite a while looking at everything and anything that came within sight, which all seemed to fascinate him with wonder for seeing these things for the first time in his life. It was only when something there on the sea floor caught his attention did I recall what I wanted to do and quietly snuck up behind him to give him a tug at the tip of his tail, effectively making him release the air he was holding and head straight for the surface.

Air! I need Air! Was my only thought as I clamped one of my hands over my mouth to try and hold onto the remainder of my air that was left in my lungs. Many times I'd seen the surface of my pool when looking up from beneath the surface, so I knew which way it was to fresh air. Though the trip to the top seemed a lot longer and harder to reach as I used every limb, expect the one clamped over my beak, to pull myself towards the breaching point. My lungs begin to burn with the need to breathe but I do my best to hold out, so when I finally breach the surface of the water I suck in so much air that I almost overdo it and expand my lungs past their breaking limit. Once I've gotten my breathing under control I begin to look under the water and try and find the offending thing that decided to grab the end of my tail.

Fear begins to race through me at the thought of it being something like a different thing out there that hungers for things such as I. The bigger me often tells me stories of things in the outside world, and even some of which are things that are even bigger than us. I quickly begin to circle around, trying to make sure that nothing can sneak up on me, until I freeze up and realize that I'd forgotten the most important place to look. Just then something grabs onto my tail from below and yanks me back under the water. Frantically I pull at the water trying desperately for the second time in a vain attempt to get to the surface. It wasn't until I noticed that whatever had my tail was beginning to shake that I took a frightened look back to see what had my tail and saw...damn my bigger me.

He finally stopped struggling when he finally looked down at me. The look of fear that slowly changed to one of anger was utmost priceless. Realizing that he had nothing to fear from me was so funny that I let him go as my sides began to hurt with how hard I was laughing. After a while I saw that he'd disappeared again. I guess I really couldn't blame in that though, I really hadn't made his first trip to the outside world all that glamorous, but by Arceus, he'd definitely remember all of this for the rest of his life for a whole different reason.

I spent the remainder of that day hiding from the bigger me and watched as it spent just as much time trying to find me. Hopefully that'll show it, I thought as I dodged from rock to rock then from swirling green thing to swirling green thing. Though it all was for not as the whole place began to grow dark. Not wanting to be out where I really couldn't see anything, I quickly snuck past the bigger me one last time and headed back into the tunnel then back to the moss nest and was asleep just as soon as my head hit the soft moss.

After a while, he finally got the better of me and finally disappeared. I'd been following him just out of the corner of my eye, but never really seeing him as he would duck behind some seaweed or rock as I would orientate on him, then jump out from behind it to vanish to somewhere else. This went on for the remainder of the day until the sun finally began to sink beyond the horizon and bath the world in twilight. After searching around for a little while longer and turning over a few more rocks, I decided to check the last place I thought he'd hide. Sure enough, there he was, asleep on the moss nest. With a quieted chuckle I joined him on the nest as I curled around him protectively.

Over the next few weeks, the bigger me took me out more and more often to explore the outside world. It would often take me to things that were under the water to explain what the waving green thing was, why the pebbles of the floor of the big blue were so smooth under my feet, etc... I was beginning to finally put it all together and the world began to lose its fascination, but the bigger me was always there, showing me something new each day. "Will Aunty Latias come to visit soon?" I asked her as I'd finally gotten up the gumption to actually, 'talk' with my mother Lugia. "Not today sweaty," she would often reply to me when I asked her.

"Not today sweaty. She has been on a secret mission for me and won't be able to come back for quite some time." She said down to her son which caused his head to droop and his tail stopped wagging around in a hopeful speed. She really didn't like giving him such bad news, but some things had come up and she needed Latias's help in dealing with them, as she really couldn't get away to do them herself. Though what really worried her was the fact that some of the other Legendries were beginning to ask around for her, 'Thanks to Latias for informing her of the things going on in the outside world' as she had inadvertently become her eyes and ears to the world outside.

Though what really troubled her was how insistent they were becoming. Latias had told her that they were really beginning to press the issue of meeting with her, and some of the tasks that they needed done couldn't be completed by just Latias, but herself do to the extremity and necessity of her much more intense powers. In other words, Latias's powers couldn't compare with the fine-tuned ones that Lugia had. The pressing of the issues at first hadn't been all that bad, but when Latias had said that one of the tasks was to quell an argument between the three legendary birds, she knew that she could only put that off for so long. Latias couldn't play peace maker for too long and she knew that given enough time that the bird's argument would grow out of hand and she'd have to step/fly in to deal with it herself.

'I'll have to ask Latias to watch over my son while I have to deal with those three feather heads.' She cursed under her breath as she knew how loose lipped Latias could get from time to time and she definitely didn't want the truth about her son's origin being spilt to her own son, (As it'd almost happened on more than one occasion). "Tell you what. Mommy has to go and take care of some...errands. I'll ask Aunty Latias to come by and watch you while I'm away. Can you be a good boy and behave for your Aunty Latias while I'm gone?"

My tail instantly went back to its blurry speed of swishing around as I heard my mother mention that Aunty Latias would come by and baby-sit me while she would go out for a while. Very rarely would this happen and whenever it did, I was only that much happier for it. Aunty Latias was a blast to spend time with and she knew some of the most interesting things about the things outside of the cave and a lot of games...the games were the best, especially when it came to playing hide and seek with her. She would often use her special ability to go invisible when I'd just about found her, then sneak up behind me to give my tail a nice pinch, then it'd be a game of chase right after. The only problem would be that she would just fly up and out of the water whenever I'd get to close, and that was a bit unfair seeing as I still couldn't fly yet.

The next few days went by fairly quickly as there wasn't much to do other than swimming lessons in deeper and a bit more...dangerous underwater currents. Then it came to one day that mother was visited by Latias again and was told something that made her quite upset. After her little talk with Latias she turned to me and told me that I needed to be a good little boy for Aunty Latias as she needed to go and run some errands for some of the other legendries. I could distinctly hear her mention, under her breath, about something to do with the three legendary birds that seemed to have gotten into some kind of fight again.

"Hopefully I shouldn't be gone for more than a week, at most. So make sure that you're on your best behavior again for Aunty Latias. Do what she says and don't cause any mischief for any of the Pokémon out there." She said to her son as she couldn't put off the request for assistance with dealing with the quarreling birds any longer. 'I swear. Those three can't go a few months without quarreling about the most petty of things. 'Moltrez melted some of my home...Zaptose threw a lightning bolt up my rear...Articuno froze up my hole mountain again...etc...' She took another long sigh and shook her head. 'They are just like a couple of hatchlings, even though they are at least as old as I am.' She took another long sigh and looked over to Latias who was looking innocently down at her son. She knew that look and it wouldn't be long before the two would be off, chasing each other around in some strange game that they'd concoct in mere moments.

'At least he's never bored when she's around. Though I still have that nagging feeling that she's going to let that secret slip one of these days.' After shaking her head and giving Latias a knowing look, to which she looks a bit scared at receiving, she nods and she heads for the exit pool. "I shouldn't be gone more than two weeks. Those bird brains are utterly hopeless when it comes to keeping a level head about petty things that should be above them." With a few nods from both Latias and my son, I jump high into the air; give my son a wink as I know he loves it when I do these acrobatics, then splash into the water/pool with hardly any splash as I make myself smooth enough to enter the water easily.

I watch as my mother disappears into the pool with her graceful form and smile to myself in thinking how cool it is that she can also enter the water without causing a tidal wave when she enters the pool. The wink that I also saw let me know that she was watching me watching her doing this, and that she got some sort of pleasure out of doing this for my entertainment. 'I hope that I can do something really cool for her that will really impress her.' I smile to myself as I go over to the pool and look down into it to catch the last glimpses of her tail disappear out the bend at the bottom of the pool.

I watched there for a moment or two to see if she'd come back to surprise me with another wink, but what I got instead was something else, that for sure I wasn't expecting. A mere moment after mothers tail had disappeared into the tunnel, something sharp poked me in my behind. I was so surprised at that that I jumped fairly high in the air while grabbing my backside, let out a yell of surprised pain, and then splashed clumsily into the pool, to which I began to frantically swim/splash about as I'd forgotten again how to swim. After getting my barring back, I looked out of the pool and could see that Aunty Latias was lying on her back, rolling about while roaring in laughter at the sight of what she'd just done to me. Needless to say, all this just ended up getting us into another long and drawn out of tag that lasted for several hours.

"Aunty Latias. Can you tell me more about...humans?" I asked her as she seemed to know a lot about those two legged beings that seemed to be everywhere in the world or at least that's what she claimed. This seemed to catch her off guard as she reared up for a moment then looked guiltily around, then turned back to look down at me.

"Why would you want to know about them?" Latias asked in a shaky tone, but tried to hide the fact that she really didn't feel comfortable about the topic. "They are nothing more than a race that's just running around outside. You don't really want me to..."

"But you said the last time that they were something special." I said interrupting her in mid-sentence. Looking up at her as she floated there for a moment, she seemed as if a lot of things were running through her head and she kept on avoiding my eyes as there was something in them that she didn't like. "You also said that they have these magical balls that can capture us and then they use us for a whole lot of things." I looked down at the ground a shake/shiver a bit. "If they have these magical things, I want to know how to avoid them and try and see..." I didn't get a chance to finish what I was going to say as a claw came down and lifted my chin up to meet that of Latias's gaze.

She seemed to have a kindness to her eyes that surprised me a bit. Just a second ago she was trying at all costs to avoid the topic, but now it was like a memory of something pleasant in her past was surfacing. Could it be that it was just one of those moments that something like that happens, or was it something else.

"It may be true about that, but there is more to it than that." She smiled down to the baby Lugia and guided him over to the nest to have him lay in it. "I want to tell you a story of the time that I was captured." She said with a bit of a mix between that of regret and longing.

To say the least I was quite surprised. "You were caught in one of those balls? Weren't you scared that the human would do bad things to you?"

She chuckled a bit as she leaned down and gave the little one a kiss on the middle of his noggin. "Not in the least. I was actually treated very well by the person who caught me." She said in a happy tone as she recounted her experience/journey with her human companion. "He never kept me in my ball; we traveled all over the place together, and had many very grand and exciting adventures together."

"Then what happened? Why aren't you still with him then?" I asked as the story of her and the human peaked my interest. 'Mother always told me that these humans were something to avoid, something to be feared. She said that they used others of us to battle each other and do cruel things to us. Can she be wrong?' I looked deep into Latias's eyes and could see that there was no hint/glint of unhappiness from the tale she told of her time with her human. What's more, she even said that he tried to release her several times.

That's when I saw her look down at me and give me a strange look. The look was like something that I'd never seen before and that it kind of, made me nervous. She then reached down and rubbed my head a bit as she gave me a smile.

"He went away. He went somewhere where I couldn't follow him. Even though the two of us were as inseparable as can be, he had to go away." A small tear ran down her cheek as she continued to rub the head of the little Lugia. "Though in some ways, he'll always be near me."

I then shook off her rubbing, as that was something that mother loved to do to me as she knew how much I really didn't like to be babied. "Always near you? What do you mean?" I asked as I looked about the room in fear to halfway expect him to come out from some kind of shadow and battle us. That's when Latias giggled and I looked back up to her with my head cocked to the side in confusion. I saw her then place her right clawed hand over her chest and smiled to me a gain.

"The memories of the times we spent together will always be special to me, and I keep them locked away in here." She gently tapped her chest, right where her heart was. "That way it seems that he's always close to me and that's something that can never be taken away from me." She then turned to look towards the pool and a smile spread across her lips. "Come to think of it, there is someplace that I agreed to go," she then turned to look down at him and saw that he seemed to be interested. "Would you like to come along with me and meet some of his Pokémon?"

To say the least I was a bit taken-aback. On one wing, I had a chance to meet and get out of the cave to see this place that these humans called home as well as meet some new friends of Latias's. On the other wing, mother had always stipulated that I'd never leave the safety of the area around our home. 'But mother said that I could trust Latias and that she would be a good guardian to me. She would protect me from other Pokémon that say fit to hurt me and...she did say that I should do what I'm told while she was away and Latias was here to watch over me.'

Though the prospect of going out and meeting some friends that Latias thought very highly of, was something that I really couldn't pass up. She did say that they were very nice, for friends of the human that she thought so highly of. Though there was only one real problem with that, "I'd love to, but I don't think I can swim that far. Plus, mother said that I should stay around here where it's safe. Wont she get mad at you again Latias if you take me to far away from here?"

Latias could only giggle as she gently tapped the baby Lugia on the tip of his beak. "That's the beauty of it. Your mother isn't here and won't be back for a week or more. As the old saying goes, 'As the Delcatties away, the Rattata will play.' As for the distance part, carrying you on my back to where my friends are awaiting me wont tire me out at all." She then reached out and forcefully rubbed his head which he squawked in annoyance at. "So what do you say? Would you like to some along with me and meet my friends?"

I looked towards the pool of water, half expecting mother to come in and bust the two of us for even thinking this, then back up at her. 'Mother did say that I'd be safe with her, after all.' Taking another quick look at the pool, a shiver ran down my spine and made my sensor flaps on my spine go up then lay flat against my back again. Turning back to her I gave her a nod and she let out a happy squeal of joy.

"That settles it then. I'm going to take out into the world and give you my own person lesson on it." She smiled as she picked him up and twirled him around for a bit, then quickly zoomed towards the pool and dove into it while clutching the little, squealing, guy tightly to her chest.