FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Chapter 7

Waking up in the pokemon center in nearly the middle of the day was surprising to me at first, we didn't have anywhere else to sleep in the small town. I woke up in the same bed I had the day before as I had been healing, and for a moment, I believed the whole incident with the Umbreon had been a dream, until I realized it couldn't have been. My linked memory with Zane confirmed the same thing I remembered.

Zane was snoring in the chair next to the bed, his head tilting back and forth. It looked really uncomfortable. I hopped down onto the floor and shook his leg lightly with my paws.

"ZZhuh?" Zane snorted in his sleep and he sat up straight a moment before he saw it was only me in the room and he slumped again, smiling at me tiredly, "Hey Ruli...sleep well?"

"Yeah I suppose." I rubbed the back of my head, "I'm still kinda upset over what happened I guess..." I sighed lightly and closed my eyes, "I can't stop thinking about Midnight, and the others, his brothers I mean. What's to say if the others are just as worse for wear if not even more so?"

"I know...we'll just have to help them anyway we can. My mom can help Midnight though."

I nodded and sighed again, "What if Steve tries to take me again? I'm scared Zane..." I shivered and whimpered softly.

"Relax Ruli...I won't let anything happen to you." Zane said he stood up and came over to sit next to me on the bed. "Not anymore...I'm sorry you had to go through what my dad did to you, but I promise, I'm not gonna let him lay one more finger on you."

I smiled slightly and nodded again, "All right Zane..." I still felt really nervous, and I knew that it made Zane upset to see me like that. He squeezed me tightly with his arm once, and I giggled slightly and looked up at him with a brighter smile. That relaxed him more and we spent some time simply cuddling on the bed for the next few hours, until it was time to prepare for something quite different from last night.

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"All right!" Zane said loudly as we came in front of the town's gym, me riding on his shoulder as always. "Finally!"

"This is Chrom City's gym." Fredrick said as he came up behind Zane and me, "They use rock, ground, and steel type pokemon that assist the city in its mining operations, your Riolu should be able to easily win, with his Force Palm."

"That would depend on something else I'm afraid." A voice called behind us and we all turned around. Zane and I completely expected it to be Steve, but instead, it was a rounded, large bellied man with a beard and a grin.

"You're here to challenge the gym eh?" He asked and looked at Zane.

"Yes sir, are you one of the people that train here?" Fredrick asked.

"Train? Haha if only! I train others, I'm the gym leader here. Name's Mav, a sort for Marven that I've gained over the few years I've been in charge."

"Oh! Then, I challenge you!" Zane shouted with enthusiasm and I yowled with him.

"Not so fast little tyke." The big man chuckled and asked, "How many pokemon do you have with you?"

Zane blinked and he pointed at me, "Just Ruli."

Mav shook his head then, "Fraid that won't work out, trainer. Gym battles require a challenger to have at least three pokemon."

"What?!" Zane gasped and he deflated noticeably, then he turned his head to Fredrick, "Why didn't you say anything?"

Fredrick put his hands up and shook his head, "Don't look at me Zane, I never bothered to challenge a gym, I don't know their rules."

"Ah...well..." Zane sighed and looked down at the ground, and I could feel his disappointment. This was probably the only thing he had been really looking forward to, something different to take his mind of his dad and about the pokemon he tortured.

"Don't let it get you down. You can come back once you do have three pokemon!" The big man continued, "Nothing says you have to use them, you just need to have three, but then, the one you would use alone would have to be pretty powerful!"

"I see. Fredrick would you-" Zane started hopefully.

"No." He answered quickly and folded his arms.

Zane frowned, "You don't even let me finish!"

"You can't use my pokemon just so you have three. It's dramatizing to a pokemon's psyche to suddenly have a new trainer like that for only a split second and then be returned to their original trainer."

Mav was seeing that this wasn't going anywhere, so he spread his arms and said all cheerily, "Hey now! Instead of a battle, how about a tour of the mining facility to pass some time?"

Zane only sighed and looked at me a moment, and I shrugged. I was just as bummed as he was.

"We might as well." I told him as I shrugged.

Zane nodded slightly and he sighed again, "All right, not like we have anything else to go do now, I don't have any pokeballs to catch any pokemon."

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Mav took us away from the gym and towards the entrance of the mining facility, and we rode an elevator with him down into the shafts. We were all given hard hats with a flashlight on them, might felt a little too tight, Mav said that they didn't have very many small sizes for pokemon my size, most of the pokemon that worked in the mine were much bigger than me and would nearly swallow my head whole.

"Chorm City rests right on top of a natural deposit of many different ores and minerals, in fact, the farther we dig, every foot deeper, we have about a point-zero-zero-one percent chance to discover something completely different and new to the world!"

"You'd have to dig to the planet's core to actually find anything with those odds..." Fredrick grumbled under his breath to me and Zane and we snickered.

We continued down farther, taking another lift down. Things started to feel awfully hot all of a sudden.

"I think we're under the mountain..." Zane said as he wiped his forehead free of sweat a moment.

"Aye lad, but there's more under this mountain than we believed, look and see here."

"There's lava under the mountain...?" Fredrick asked in awe a moment, upon seeing a stream of glowing, steaming hot magma flowing through the cracks and crevices. Hundreds of large looking, pig like pokemon were digging at the rocks and walls around the area.

"So many Emboars!" Fredrick gasped again.

"They are all my pokemon, raised from the moment they hatched from their eggs." Mav said with a bright grin, "They mine the deepest parts of the caverns here while we humans mine the caverns closer to the surface." He wiped his forehead himself now, "Ah but it's too hot for us to stay down here long." He started the lift in the other direction.

Suddenly, I felt a sensation tapping at the back of my head. Something was calling to me, it tickled at my brain. I looked back down at the magma flows behind us from Zane's neck, who looked back with me. He could feel it too it seemed. Among the rocks, we saw something bright gleaming.

"Wait. There's something down there. Do you see that?" Zane turned back around to face the ground now and the others did too.

Fredrick looked around, trying to follow mine and Zane's gazes, "I don't see anything."

"Take us back down." Zane told Mav, who looked confused a moment before he pulled the lever back and we descended again.

The heat was forgotten to me and Zane, as the closer we got, the more this feeling tapped at my head, and his from the mental link we shared.

He stepped out onto the hot rock, thankfully his shoes were just enough to protect for now and we quickly made our way to the gleaming we saw.

"Hey! There's nothing there Zane! Come back, it's boiling down here!" Fredrick called after us and Zane shouted back.

"No! There's something there! I see it!"

"Emboar, follow!" Mav called and motioned to Zane, and the closest Emboar followed Zane.

"There!" Zane pointed for the pokemon, and the large brute of a pokemon started to dig vigorously until Zane shouted again, "Stop!" It stopped and stepped back away, a pile of rocks puddled on the ground.

Among the pile of rocks, was a shining blue stone. Zane reached down slowly and Mav called out, "Careful, it could be hot!"

Zane touched the stone, "No...it's...cold to the touch..." He picked it up and we both stared into it. A cool sensation washed over us both, fending off the heat of the caverns. The Emboar backed away from us with a grimace on its face, trying to stay away from the cold it didn't like at all.

As Zane held the stone, it seemed to move, but I soon realized, that inside the stone was some kind of gaseous fog swirling around inside it, the surface was polished and smooth like glass.

"What is this...?" I whispered and reached out to touch it, and another sensation flowed through me suddenly, just me this time, and I felt my conscious being pulled into some kind of trance.

I was suddenly surrounded by the blue gas of the stone, standing in the air. I looked around slowly.

"Hello?" I called out into the air around me, watching the swirling gas.

"You..." A deep and growling voice sounded through the gas, echoing slightly as I heard it, "A user of Aura, finally one of you has found me." The gas swirled around me a moment, before it stopped and resumed its lazy drifting around me, wrapping around me snuggly, as if testing me, leaving only my head outside the fog. I didn't resist, for some reason, I felt completely comfortable in this strange world

"You are too young..." The voice continued, a distinct note of disappointment in its tone, "I cannot merge with you..." The gas drifted away then and I blinked.

"Merge?"

"You must grow stronger, you must reach your advanced form first...." The fog started to roll away, and as it did, I felt myself being pulled back into the outside world.

"Wait! Who are you?!" I called out, but it was too late, my field of vision was sucked back out and I was back on Zane's shoulder again. I moaned and rubbed my head, closing my eyes as Zane looked at me.

"Ruli? What happened? Your mind went blank a moment."

I didn't get to respond, as the cooling sensation from before that the stone had given us had vanished, and the intense heat suddenly hit us both.

"We need to get out of here first." Zane decided and we rushed to join Mav and Fredrick, clutching the stone in his hand as we ascended back to the surface.

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I continued to stare at the stone intently, sitting alone in the room me and Zane had back at the pokemon center once more to rest up from the intense heat. After we had returned to the surface, I tried to explain to Zane what had happened, but each time I tried to explain it, no matter what the words I used, the mental connection we shared would suddenly snap apart and he couldn't understand what I was saying. As soon as I would stop speaking about it though, our link would reform again. It made no sense. Who or what was inside the stone? What was the "merging" it had mentioned? And why couldn't I tell Zane about it?

It said I needed to grow older first, to reach my advanced form.

"Did it mean to evolve...?" I thought aloud as I spun the gem in my paw slowly.

"Hey, Ruli." Zane snapped me out of my daze as he spoke to me.

"I couldn't understand that again..." He said worriedly, "Are you sure our link isn't breaking maybe?"

I shook my head, "It's only breaking when I try to speak about what it said to me. I'm sure it has something to do with what it said too, but well, I can't seem to tell you about it."

"What if you wrote it down?"

"I don't know how to write human words..." I blushed and chuckled.

"Shoot that's right. I forget you're really a pokemon sometimes since we got this mental link to understand eachother."

Zane smiled and he changed the subject, "Anyways! Mav told me he was interested in you and me, and he's willing to bend the rule for a battle with him, a one on one match."

I jumped up at that, wagging my tail rapidly, "Awesome! I'm ready to go!"

My trainer nodded and he motioned, "All right, let's head to the gym again then! Mav said he'd be waiting." Zane pocketed the gem and we got ready to go.

We rushed to the gym in a hurry then, Fredrick was waiting for us already, talking to Mav.

"Couldn't you lose your leadership here if you got found doing this?" He said while folding his arms with that same coolness he tried to shine with.

"Yes, so don't blab about it!" Mav barked, but he kept the smile on his face, "The league doesn't have anyway to check if all the rules were followed at the gym you win your badges at, they assume we follow all the rules set forth by the league rule books. They only check if you have a badge, not if you followed all the rules. I'll break one this one time, what's the chance they'll find out?" He chuckled.

"If you're willing to risk it." Zane nodded happily as we joined them, "Thank you so much for this."

"Hey hey, don't get to uppity yet, who says you get the badge yet? You have to defeat me first."

"We'll show you what we're made of!" Zane grinned and I jumped onto the ground from his shoulder, eager to fight.

Mav chuckled and he turned, "Follow me to the arena."

We followed Mav into the gym building. It looked like it didn't get used very often. The lights were off and doors had been locked tight.

"This place don't get used much if you can't tell." Mav said as he flicked a few switches, and the lights above clicked on one at a time, lighting up the arena in the middle of the building, surrounded by stands of seats nearby for spectators. Tall walls stood in front of the elevated seats, with a near invisible mirror to protect people watching from any stray moves going up to the ceiling. Small holes were cut into the glass here and there, so that people could still cheer and hear the battle well enough.

Fredrick said he would be the referee, and he stood in a box aside the arena area and then he looked at Zane, "Take that corner there." He pointed to a box at the end of of the rectangular area closest to him and he quickly rushed to take his place, and I jumped into my side of the battle field afterwards. Mav walked to his own side slowly, taking his time as he grinned.

"At least we'll have the privacy without having a lot of people watching." He hummed lightly, almost knowingly, before he reached his own side and reached behind himself, his hand coming back with a pokeball and he tapped the button in the middle to make it grow to a bigger size.

"Well, at least for a moment though, but not after the people outside hear this! Rhyperior, make some noise!" He tossed the ball, and a flash of white light erupted from it as it opened, forming into a distinct shape in front of us until a large, orange and black pokemon ten times my size stood there. It's eyes were closed a moment, but it opened them suddenly, reared its head, and roared as loud as possible.

I covered my paws with my ears and winced until it finally stopped and I was able to open my eyes, my ears ringing slightly. I looked again at the large pokemon and noticed the enormous horn on its head and shuddered.

"Oh man a Rhyperior, I didn't think when he said he was going to bend the rules and go one on one, it didn't mean he was going to go all out too..." Zane mumbled behind me and then we heard the doors to the gym swing open in a rush.

"WHOA! MAV'S GONNA BATTLE!!!" A young boy was in the doorway, apparently attracted by the pokemon's loud roar, and he called outside before we could stop him, "COME ON EVERYONE!"

It took only a few minutes for almost the entire town to flood into the gym, it seemed even the miners had stopped working to come in and see this, and the stands were filled to the brim.

I whined and blushed a bit at all the people looking and pointing at me. Not only was I up against something that could crush me under its foot, but now I felt stage fright creeping up on me.

"Don't pay attention to the crowd too much Ruli, focus!" Zane called to me and I shook my head clear and nodded to him.

"All right..." I took a deep breath to calm myself and focused.

"It's definitely a rock type by the look of it, if we can get a few good Force Palms in on him, he should crumple." Zane told me over the excited crowd.

"Right!" I pumped my fists and ran out into the middle of the arena to face down the other pokemon, stopping in the middle of my square.

Fredrick lifted his hands up into the air, clenching his hands into fists until the crowd became silent and he shouted, "This battle for the Chrom City gym will soon begin. We have the challenger, Zane, and his pokemon Riolu, nicknamed Ruli! This is Zane's first gym battle!"

There was a few cheers from the crowd, and a few "Good lucks!" shouted here and there, it was hard to tell wither they really meant it or were just being sarcastic about the size difference between us.

"And here we have the Chrom City Gym Leader, Mav, and his pokemon, Rhyperior!"

The crowd erupted now, it was quite clear that Mav was well known and liked, it took a few minutes for the crowd to settle down again and Fredrick looked back and forth between both of the trainers.

"Begin!"

"Rhyperior, Rock Throw!" Mav called out right away and my opponent slammed his large hands into the ground of the arena in front of him, heaving out a massive part of the very floor!

"What the-!?" I yowled and jumped back, as the pokemon picked it up into the air above his head and grinned. He could hold that? I thought, It was huge! It was twice the width of his body yet he held it above his head like it was a normal exercise for him!

"Hope you can dodge!" He growled out at me and threw the slab at me.

"Jump to the side Riolu!" I did as I was told on instinct mostly, jumping and rolling to the side seconds before the rock slammed into the ground where I had been standing, breaking into a few dozens pieces. The crowd roared and I panted with sweat dripping down my face already as my heart raced. I was way out of my league here!

"Do it again Rhyperior, this time, two rocks!" Mav called out and laughed.

"Ah right!" The large pokemon roared and dug his hands into the ground again, breaking out another large slab. "RRRRAAAAAA!!!!" He roared and pulled with his hands, a crack starting to snap through the middle of the boulder.

The slab snapped into two pieces above his head, and he huffed a moment, holding each half in each hand. It threw one at me. I dodged again, rolling, and as I looked up, a shadow fell over me and I yowled.

He had flung the second rock as I had dodged, and it collided with me as I landed, burying me under a pile of rubble as it crashed.

"Ruli!" Zane called out to me as I lay under the rock, pain flashing through me almost as horribly as the electricity had been from Steve's machine, but it was fading quickly, leaving most of my body feeling heavy and numb instead. Was I already entering a recovery state just from one attack?

As long as I could move, I could still fight! I struggled heavily and pushed my way out from the rubble, coughing as I seemed to finally find air. The crowd cheered as I pushed my way out on top of the pile, panting and slumped over, holding one arm with my other paw as it felt entirely numb.

"Seems your Riolu has some spirit afterall!" Mav called out and then Zane called to me.

"Ruli! Are you okay? Can you keep going?"

I nodded and let go of my arm, jumping down from the pile of rubble I feel to one knee a moment before managing to stand up.

"All right Ruli! Let's turn the tables, we have speed on our side, get in close with Quick Attack!"

I charged forward across the arena, my body's numbness not doing anything to stop the natural energy for attacks at least.

"Protect!" Mav called out and the large boulder like pokemon drew his arms in close, using the long spikes at his elbows like a shield as he held them side by side.

I jumped and jabbed with my paw at his arms, but a sudden barrier of energy stopped me just from making contact with his rock like skin and I was pushed back, yelping as I fell through the air back to Zane. I managed to turn myself and landed on my feet, skidding a few feet. I fell to one knee again, panting heavily with my eyes closed.

Could I really do this? I started to doubt myself even more, whimpering as I began to withdraw into my own mind. The cheers of the crowd were the only thing that I could hear, I couldn't even hear Zane as he called out to, or Mav as he called for his Rhyperior to charge me with Horn Drill. I couldn't hear the buzz of the pokemon's head drill as it started to spin.

"The Aura..." My ears flicked lightly as I heard the voice from the gem now, and it brought me back out from my stupor, "use the Aura..." It echoed away as the rest of the sounds started to fill me ears.

"Move Ruli! Move!" Zane was shouting at me desperately and I heard the loud buzz from the Rhyperior's drill. I opened my eyes and saw him lower his head, pointing the spinning drill at me and stamping his feet before he began to charge forward. My eyes went wide. If that hit me, I'd be K'O'd for sure!

I tried to calm myself and immediately did what had always worked before, and tried to hum my lullaby tune, but for some reason, it did not work! Time didn't slow down, no paths were given to me or visions shown. I panicked and struck out with my paw, the edge of my palm meeting the very tip of Rhyperior's horn and I yowled in pain. A blast of forceful energy exploded from my palm as I used Force Palm in retaliation.

The charging pokemon was blown off course by the explosion at least, the horn leaving my palm and he charged off to the right of me. He tried to come to a halt quickly, but due to his bulky form he couldn't stop in time and he crashed into the wall behind me head first, his horn coming to a halt. He tried to tug his head free, but it seemed his drill had dug really deep into the wall.

I fell to my rear on the ground, crying out in pain and clutching my wrist. Blood was trickling down from a wound on my palm, my entire arm connected to it was numb, and I felt that same prickling sensation in the back of my head as my consciousness was starting to fade, but I forced myself to stay awake, holding onto the last shreds of energy I had. Being a pokemon made sure that the move wasn't fatal, but if that move had continued to hit me and had made this wound any worse, I would've been knocked out for sure. The crowd was going nuts, Zane was calling out to me in worry at the sight of the blood on my palm, and Mav was calling out to his pokemon to get his head out of the wall.

"You have to use the Aura!" The voice from the gem called out to me again as I cried in pain.

"I CAN'T!!!"

"Yes you can! Are you not a descendant of me?! Do you disgrace me with your soft and weak body, and this human whom you share a connection with?! RRRAAAAAHHHHH! STOP CRYING YOU MISERABLE CHILD!!!"

I gulped and sucked in my tears as the voice yelled at me, the voice demanding a form of obedience I had to obey. I fell absolutely silent, and so did the crowd and Zane and Mav. From my sudden silence, perhaps they thought I had passed out while sitting there for a moment.

"STAND UP AND FACE ME!"

I stood slowly, shaking and holding my numb arm, wincing slightly as I turned towards Zane.

"Ruli?" He said softly to me, but I ignored him, focused on the voice of the gem.

"Come..." The gem called out to me a little less sternly, but still very commanding, and I started towards my trainer. The gem in his pocket started to glow, and he looked at his pants and dug out the stone.

"Stop! the pokemon cannot met with the trainer the middle of battle!" Fredrick called out but Mav shouted as well.

"No! Let them..." He watched Zane and I with interest, completely forgetting his pokemon stuck in the wall.

Zane held the stone in his palm, kneeling down silently as I came closer. Staring at me as I focused intently on the stone, reaching out with my good arm and paw as the other one hanged limb at my side.

"Touch me...I can't merge with you, but I can help you discover your natural power." I reached out with my paw, my palm coming into contact with the orb and I gasped suddenly. A surge of power entered me, my eyes glowed brightly as suddenly, the Aura returned to me. I looked around the room, everyone moving in slow motion, dozens of visions and possibilities for the future dancing in front of me each passing second.

"Yes...you have felt this before...but only slightly...only for the purpose of battle and in the heat of the moment right?" The voice in the gem chuckled lightly "You see now as it is, the living energy of everything around you. All the humans in the stands, you see how each of their arms wave this way and that way, one frame at a time, infinite possibilities of movement as they sit still...Look at your opponent."

I looked with my glowing eyes over at the large pokemon, his head still stuck in the wall, one of his eyes staring at me in shock as he saw my eyes glowing.

"Now, fill yourself with the desire to win, and watch as the Aura shows you his most likely future movements, and the way you can win." Pictures and frames flashed in front of me, of the Rhyperior ripping his horn free, him turning towards me and ripping another chunk of ground out of the floor, and then I saw myself in my vision, and as I watched the rest, I suddenly understood.

"Act on it!" The voice commanded again and I let go of the gem, my eyes fading back to their normal color as I felt the surge of power fade from me and I nodded at Zane.

"I know what to do now." I smiled and moved towards my opponent again, who pushed against the wall with his arms quickly and ripped himself free. The crowd started cheering and hollering again, and I heard more cheers for me this time as I was able to pay more attention to them.

The large pokemon scowled at that, and Mav called out, "Rock Throw, hit him one more time and we got this!"

"I'm gonna pour all I got into this one, runt!" He growled at me as he shoved his arms into the ground again, and he started heaving up the biggest slab of ground yet. It practically spawned about a quarter of the room.

I growled loudly as he called me runt, and grinned as he held up the slab, panting slightly from the sheer weight of it. "That's what I'm hoping for..."

"Grrr! Rah!" He held the rock high and pushed his arms back before throwing it as hard as he could.

I didn't move at all, Zane stayed silent as he watched, trusting me to know what I was doing here. The rock hurtled toward me, and I waited until it was only a few feet away before I jumped up, letting it slam into me. I grunted in pain, still holding on just barely to my mind as I turned my body so that I laid flat on the slab as it hurled through the air towards the far wall. I pushed out with my arms, forcing my numbed one out as best I could with my last bit of energy I could muster to prepare myself for my last ability.

I slammed into the wall, my arms taking the whole force of the attack, stopping me from fully crashing. I felt and heard my bones snap and break, and I yowled out in both pain and effort as I took all the force the attack had just done to my arms, absorbed it, and pushed it back out with my arms once more, using the physical force of crashing into the wall to turn this special attack into a physical one and using Counter. The wall cracked and broke open from the force as I blasted backwards with all the energy.

Me and the rock went flying backwards, straight towards the original point it had been thrown, back to Rhyperior. The large pokemon tried to bring up his arms in defense to use Protect, just like my vision had shown me too, but he was too slow, and the double power from my Counter also had the rock flying at twice the speed he had thrown it to begin with.

It crashed into him with a loud crunch, striking him right in the middle, his half closed arms only serving to partially catch it and force more damage on him and a pillar of dust exploded as he hit the ground. I fell with the rock into the resulting rubble, eyes closed tight as I landed and yelped in pain, my arms broken.

As the dust settled, I had believed I had fallen onto a part of the rock, as my vision had showed at first, but instead, I found myself laying on my opponent's body. I was barely holding on, I knew I had to last until he passed out first to count as a win, but with my arms now broken, my body screamed to heal, and was dragging my mind down into the depths of sleep. The crowd had fallen silent again, everyone staring at the sight of me laying on top of his belly.

The Rhyperior groaned and coughed up blood suddenly, his rock like body was cracked in multiple places, small lines of blood seeping from the cuts and cracks. He looked up at me from where he laid, and he groaned again.

"Not quite...a runt afterall..." He breathed out and sighed, closing his eyes. His head fell back as he let out a long breath.

"Rhyperior was the first to be knocked out!" I heard Fredrick yell out over the hushed crowd, "Zane and Riolu are the winners!"

I smiled brightly to myself. I had did it, I won. As I passed out soon after him, I heard cheers and shouts explode all around me, and through it all I heard Zane the most as he yelled out to me, and then the voice of the gem last as I lost myself to sleep.

"Well done little one...well done."