FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Chapter 14

We remained under the eyes of the Lucario pack throughout the rest of our journey. I could feel their eyes watching us, and my now improved connection to the aura told me exactly where they were, I would cast glaring glances behind my shoulders at the hills and mountains right where I would feel them. The stares of their eyes would leave then, as they tried to hide from my sight, but every so often, I could catch a glimpse of a tail or ear ducking behind rocks.

At night, I could still feel them, as they dared to try and get closer to our campsite. I laid right next to Zane as he would sleep, my fur enough to keep me warm in this environment. Raze would warn me when they got to close, and I would rise my head just a bit to give a warning growl, and their presence would quickly dissipate in different directions as they ran.

Doing this, I went for three days without any sleep, but I refused to give the pokemon another opening to attack me and my trainer, forcing myself to remain constantly alert. I didn't tell Zane what I was doing, if I let him know he would probably fret over me, and I didn't want that. Only when we finally reached the end of the mountainous path, starting to descend into the forest below once more, and the watching presence of the Lucario stayed in the mountains behind us and stopped following, did I let myself relax.

I started to practically fall asleep on my feet, and was about to actually fall over before I felt Zane's arms and hands catch me.

"Easy there buddy, hehe...you never slept up there did you?" He chuckled in my ears as he slung one of my arms around his neck, with his hand holding onto my paw tightly and allowing me to rest a bit as I walked beside him, blushing softly as I kept my eyes closed tiredly. He let me use him as a body rest, carrying me forward as I was nearly falling asleep, the only thing keeping me awake being how I had to keep moving my feet.

"I wish I could ride on your shoulder still..." I whispered to him silently as I walked with him.

"Hehe, now we really do need to get a bigger tent." He commented back to me and I chuckled lightly, smiling softly.

We just continued down the path at a slow pace, entering the forest. Silver and Fredrick had given me and Zane space, but now they both caught up to us and walked next to us.

"Gracel town isn't far from here, we can get a room at the pokemon center and rest up from all this craziness." He looked at me pointedly.

"All right." Zane nodded, and I suddenly felt a rubbing at my feet as I walked, opening my eyes to see Silver at my feet, as he stared up at me happily.

It was so strange, being evolved, Zane was now the same height as me, our heads nearly level with the others, and the one pokemon I had been the same size as was now barely able to stand past my knees.

This threw my entire emotional plan out of whack. I had thought I could stave off from Zane, and get closer to Silver, under the thought that'd we probably evolve close to the same time. There was no way of knowing when Silver would evolve though, and not much to be done when I was so much bigger than him. I mean, what could I do to love him now? On the other hand, here I had Zane, it had felt awkward when we had done anything together the first time because I was so much smaller than him, but now we were the same size.

I didn't want Zane to stay as my mate, not because I didn't love him, but because I wanted him to be able to have a family of his own, but I felt closer than ever to him now that I was the same size as him, we could actually hug now...

I just wondered what the heck I was going to do about all this really. How could I make sense out of anything?

"Oh bleh..." I thought to myself, "I'm too tired to think about this..." I leaned over and tucked my head under Zane's chin, something I really liked to do now that I could, smiling again as I tried to relax.

__________________________

I flopped down onto the bed at the pokemon center, as Zane stepped right into the shower. It was pretty much exactly the same room as it had looked back in Apec Town. In fact, now that I thought about it, all the pokemon centers looked exactly the same on the inside. That kinda bugged me.

I shook my head, clearing the nonsense thoughts from my head and curling up in the bed, looking at my paws, and the spikes that were on them.

Silver jumped up in front of me on the bed, murring at me softly and I smiled at him.

"It's weird isn't it?" I asked him with a slightly laugh.

He tilted his head at me slowly, a grin slowly forming on his muzzle, "Well yeah it's weird, but you look awesome Ruli."

I smiled at him and reached out a paw, lightly wrapping it around his body and I pulled him closer, kissing his nose lightly as I did and he yipped softly at the touch. I murred and held him against me, being careful not to poke him with the chest spike on my chest.

"Ruli..." he whispered up to me and I looked at him.

"Yes Silver?"

"I know...that um...what we did at the stream um...and I know Zane did it with you too now..." he started to look away from me a bit as he talked, and he sighed lowly.

I chuckled lightly, "I know Silver...I know, but relax all right? I'm not going to ignore you. I'm not going to ignore Zane either. Is it such a bad thing to have more than one lover?"

He seemed to think about that a moment, but as I rubbed his back with my slightly larger paw, he started to murr softly and he buried his head in the tan fur of my chest.

"I love you Ruli...you helped me so much. And all this stuff with the gem you told us back in the mountains..." The day after I had found Zane and the others, I had told them everything about Calamity and the mega pokemon trapped in the gems. "I'm by your side ever step of the way, don't forget that."

I pushed my nose into the fur of his head and smiled, "I won't Silver...I love you too."

We fell asleep slowly together as Zane continued to shower in the room next to us. I was exhausted, I needed to catch up on my sleep like crazy.

__________________________

As I slept, Raze touched my dreams, and I floated in the swirling dark black clouds again while laying on my back, just looking up into the endless space of what was the inside of the gem.

As I laid there, a footpaw stamped down close to my head, and I looked up to see Raze there. Now that I had evolved, I found I could see him in the mess of black clouds. He was literally made of aura. I had spent my nights in the mountains with him while I stayed awake.

"Hey Raze." I smiled up at him and he smiled back down at me.

"Don't get used to that name...I'm still Mega..."

"Yeah yeah..." I chuckled as I sat up. "Am I still sleeping? This is different, why didn't we do this in the mountains and you could've just woke me up if they got close?"

"I didn't know if it would actually work, and you seemed determined to stay wide awake either way."

I stood up to my feet, I still had to look up to him, he was probably still two feet taller than me.

"So whats up?"

"I wanted to tell you...There really is nothing wrong with having more than one mate..." He sighed, eyes closing as he grimaced "Once again, in my anger and shock of this new world, I lied to you...our species is meant to have multiple mates, we're meant to connect to them mentally. It helps in understanding each other, and in combat when we can talk without actually speaking."

I stared up to him silently. I didn't get angry or upset at him. I had taken a great liking to Raze, despite his appearance and his difference in power, he seemed no different than me or Silver or Zane. He was just as capable as emotion as I was, he had only locked it all up in the past because he had a family to look after and defend.

"It's all right Raze. I understand. Thanks for telling me." I wagged my tail lightly behind myself. This solved my issue between Zane and Silver easily. I could have them both, if that was okay with them, which I was sure it would be. We were going to travel together anyways, we had to get along somehow right?

"And...I need to show you everything..." He sighed again but then grinned, "It does seem that it's our species curse to always get involved with humans somehow...your Elder Lucario did...you did...and so did I...this memory was actually the very first day I let the humans join my pack..."

He waved his paw to the side of us, the smoke swirling up into the movie screen from before, and it started on a familiar memory I had seen before, of Raze looking down at the ground of his cave where he sat cross legged, rain pattering outside the entrance to the cave that was in front of him before a few footsteps stepped up to him and the same human whispered to him.

"Mega one?"

Raze looked up to the human in front of him, "What is it?" He growled out and the human flinched a bit.

"Do you mind if I laid by you...it is very cold..." He stepped forward once, and Raze lashed out at him with the palm of one of his paws, the same controlled burst of power sending him off to the side and Raze snarled.

"Get back human! If you cannot survive here, you will die."

This was where the memory had clicked off before, but it continued to go. I looked over at Raze a moment, who had closed his eyes to the memory, his muzzle pulled back in a frown. He didn't seem to like remembering this. I returned my focus to the memory, in which Raze ignored the sniffling of the human that was clear among the other grunts and noises in the cave, as he just continued to stare at the ground again.

Raze's gaze in the memory shifted up after a bit to stare at the human to his right, curled up in a tight ball, shivering and moaning in the cold of the cave. He looked around the cave then. The rest of the Lucario had paired up with the humans, each curled up close to the furry pokemon for warmth. The Lucario seemed not to mind, a few had even reached out and wrapped their arms around the naked humans.

Raze whispered next to me as he focused more on the memory, "I remember thinking about how I thought maybe it was a mistake to bring them into my pack...what if they started trying to mate with us? What kind of pokemon could be created from that? I considered revoking what I had decided and to cast them out."

A bolt of lightning clashed in front of the cave in the sky, causing a loud boom that rattled the very mountain. The cave trembled with it, rocks bouncing a moment. Raze remained perfectly still, but the Lucario and humans in the cave squeezed closer together for comfort. He looked over to his right side again at the lone human. There was no more Lucario for this last human to pair up with it seemed.

As Raze's vision in the memory went back and forth from staring at the Lucario and humans sleeping together, and back to the lone human again and again, he continued, "I noticed how well they seemed to live together. We looked a lot like humans after all, they were only slightly taller than us. I couldn't just cast them out into the dangers of the world again either after offering them sanctuary from the rain..."

With a final gaze at the human in the corner of the cave, I watched Raze get up to his feet and walk over to him, the poor thing shivering in the cold still. Raze stood over him until the human sneezed violently, and then Raze tapped him with his footpaw.

"Get up..." He grunted at the human, and the human slowly got to his knees, and then to his feet, looking up into his eyes.

"Come..." He said lightly and put his paw on the humans back, guiding him further back into the cave. They slid past around a corner of the cave, and Raze talked to me again as they went deeper and deeper.

"At first...I only thought...I can't show that I'm equal to my pack, I'm the leader, I have to maintain a higher standing or they would think I was weak. I couldn't let the human sleep with me, so...the only option left..."

In the memory, Raze's eyes adjusted to the light of the darker part of the cave, his paw holding onto the humans shoulder as he stopped him. He stood behind him as his paw kept the human facing away, and he brought up his other paw, summoning a small ball of aura energy in his palm, which glowed and illuminated the walls of the cave around them.

Raze's voice shook now, "The only option...was to put him out of his misery myself..."

With that, Raze's paw struck the human, his attack exploded against the human's back, another small controlled blast of energy, but he aimed it right on the humans spine. The human gasped as his spine made a loud cracking noise, stumbling forward in surprise a few steps before he fell to his knees, and then the rest of his body fell flat on the ground.

Raze stared at the body of the human in front of him a moment, before he turned around slowly. Before he took a step though, a hand grabbed onto his foot.

"Please...Mega...don't..." a voice whispered out in pain. The human was still alive, and had somehow managed to turn around and grip onto his ankle.

"You are weak..." Raze told him without even turning back around.

"Maybe I am...but how can I get strong...if you just give up on me?"

Raze stayed silent in the memory a moment, before he turned his head to stare back at the human, a large black spot on his back as he laid on the ground, his arm reached out to where he had latched onto his leg.

"Why should I give you the chance?"

The human looked up at him, "Because...I have a name..."

"And what is that?"

"Zul..."

"Zul..." Raze repeated, "What does having a name do with being given a chance? Why should I lower myself to the same level of my pack and let you sleep with me?"

"I...I'm not worthless...I am someone, I'm not just something. Do you have a name...?"

"I am Mega."

"That's not a name. It's a title..." The human said and I blinked, that had been the same thing I had said to him when I had told him I wanted to give him a name.

Raze stayed silent, both in the memory and in real life, before he turned around back to the human. The hand on his ankle let go, as the frail human looked up at him from the ground, shaking with effort to lift his head.

Now Raze spoke to me, "I was intrigued...not by his words, at the time, they were just ridiculous to me, but I was interested in how he had managed to not get knocked out from my attack. I had really never attacked a human before, I didn't know they didn't have a recovery state. So I was kind of tricked into thinking there was more to him than it had appeared at first."

"Perhaps there is more to you than I thought..." The Raze in the memory spoke right after and he knelt down, his paw starting to glow a green shine and he started to pass his paw along the body of the human, healing the wound he had just inflicted quickly. It took him only five passes of his paw, before the bruise vanished and the human stirred, able to move again.

"Stand up...if you can..."

The human grunted as he got to one knee, shakily getting up on his feet afterwards. He looked up into Raze's eyes, and Raze told me as they stared at each other, "His eyes showed neither absolute obedience or disobedience to his orders. He wanted to follow me, but not as a lower being. He wanted to be considered just as important as I was. I found it amusing at first."

Raze wrapped his paw around the human's shoulder, "Very well then...you may rest with me...what is your name?"

"I am called Zul..." The human told him as he let himself be guided again, but this time he hung back, walking by Raze's side, to not let himself get caught again like he had before.

"Why do humans take separate names?" He asked him as they returned to the first part of the cave.

"Why do pokemon not?" Zul asked back.

"Well..." Raze started as he sat down back at his spot, and he let Zul lean against his side, giving him the warmth of his fur as he held him close with his arm, "There's just too many of us to name, and we all look the same."

"Not you though, you're so different, you deserve a name."

Raze stayed silent a moment before he said lightly, "Perhaps..."

"Can I name you?"

Raze growled, "No, the moment I let a human name me is the moment one saves my life...now sleep...be thankful I let you do this with me at all..."

Zul fell silent, and the two spent hours together there in the cave in front of the rest of the pokemon and humans.

"I ended up sleeping with him everyday...and then...save me he did..." Raze said and he breifly flashed to a different memory, which showed Raze fighting a large flying pokemon, mega Charizard, I recognized him from before. It seemed as if they were fighting over the land, as the land around them was starting to change just like he had told me it did when the pokemon fought each other, spouts of lava starting to crack through the mountain.

They both seemed badly damaged, scuffed and marked and bleeding, but Raze was more so, his breathing was heavy and his vision blurry while holding himself up on one knee.

"This land is ours! Melt and fade, steel type!" Mega Charizard started to roar in triumph, a large ball of flame forming in his muzzle as he took in a deep breath, before he breathed out and flame shot at Raze, arcing across the air at him.

Raze covered himself with his arms, reading himself for the attack, but another voice yelled out.

"No! I won't let you do that!" And Raze looked between his arms to see Zul standing a few feet in front of him, arms spread out wide. He seemed slightly more muscled than he had in the last memory, some time had passed between than and now.

"Fool human! What are you doing?" Raze tried to move, to grab him and push him out of the way, but it seemed his leg was actually broken, he couldn't stand up to get at him.

Zul just stood there, the flames of mega Charizard's attack engulfing him. He yelled out in pain, but he stood firm, the flames shooting around him, passing by Raze harmlessly into the air.

"Zul!" Raze yelled and he gathered his paws together at his side, a ball of aura energy growing between the palms of his paws.

"Rraaaa!!" He shouted in pain, as he forced his broken leg to move and he jumped up into the air over the jet of flame, throwing the ball at mega Charizard, who could not react in time. He did stop his stream of fire, but the ball slammed into his face before he try to fly or get away.

It exploded and he roared in anger, the explosion pushing him back away and he opened his wings and flapped them, the force propelling him up into the air as he did.

"Grrrr, you've got lucky this time mega Lucario! But there won't be no human around for you to use as cannon fodder the next time I catch you alone!" He roared as he turned and flew off.

Raze watched a moment to make sure that the other mega was indeed leaving, before he turned back to where Zul now laid on the ground, his body burnt red with boils and black scorch marks.

Raze spoke to me as he limbed in the memory over to Zul's body, "I don't know what had happened just then...when he stood in front of me and took that attack for me, something in me just...exploded..."

The land started to return to normal as Raze limped as quickly as he could manage to the human, the lava spouts receding into the ground and the rocks of the mountain sealing back up.

He knelt down and he touched the human's neck, there was still a pulse.

"Oh thank the aura..." He started to whisper to himself, before he growled and barked at the human, "Stupid! Why would you do that!?"

"You needed help..." Zul spoke back and he coughed, groaning in pain.

"Grrrr shut up...you'll die if you speak." He growled again and Raze started to use Healing Pulse on him, using both paws to start healing the human, moving his paws back and forth along his charred body, which slowly started to mend the more he passed up and down his body.

The memory skipped ahead a moment, and Raze and Zul were back in their home cave. Raze was still healing him, trying to get every last burn he could. Zul was sitting up against the rock wall, watching as Raze panted in effort, sweat dripping down his face.

"You can stop you know...you've done enough...the rest can heal on it's own..."

"You humans heal too slowly..." Raze growled back at him and they both stayed silent again for awhile before Zul spoke again.

"So...do I get to name you now?"

Raze looked into his eyes, never stopping his Healing Pulse as he growled, "What?"

"I saved you didn't I? Remember, you said the day you let a human name you would be the day one saved you." Zul smiled briefly and Raze growled again, focusing back on where he was healing.

"I could've survived..." He grumbled.

"You would have sure, because you're a pokemon, but we would have lost our home to mega Charizard. It counts doesn't it?"

Raze was silent a moment, before he sighed, "Fine...You can name me, but you keep it hidden from the others. To them, I am still "Mega"...but I suppose...you've earned the right to call me something else."

"How about Raze?" Zul said right away.

"Raze...?" He looked up at the human's eyes again, "You said that quickly...you already knew what you wanted to call me hmm? Wait..." He growled briefly and bared his teeth at Zul, "Don't tell me you jumped in front of those flames just so you could try and name me!"

Zul smiled still and chuckled, "No of course not Raze." He used the name, which made the mega healing him growl even more, "I did it because I knew, we can't afford to lose this home..."

"We could have found a new one..." Raze said, his growling lowering in volume.

"Yes...but this place is ours. We all have to protect it."

"It's -my- job to protect it." Raze told him sternly, starting to pant again as his focus returned to healing the human.

Zul's hands grabbed onto his paws, pushing them away from his still charred body. "Then who's going to take care of you?" He whispered lightly, and Raze stared at him, his paws stopping their green glow.

"You need to reserve your strength Raze...we do rely on you, but you should rely on us too, you don't have to try and do everything alone...I can heal on my own now, you've done enough for me..."

Raze stared at him still before he laid back with the human against the wall, and he moved his paw to his own broken leg to start using Healing Pulse on himself, but Zul stopped him again with his hand while he called out to a few nearby Lucario.

"Hey, you guys, come here."

Three Lucario came as called, "Yes?"

"Heal this for him, he's exhausted..." Zul told them, and the Lucario looked a bit surprised at first, but eventually they all nodded, and they carefully surrounded Raze, before they held out their paws around his leg and they started glowing green. Raze did nothing to stop them, only watching as his pokemon healed him.

Raze commented to me again, as Zul cuddled up close to him in the memory, and slowly, he wrapped his arm around the human and held him closely, relaxing under the care of the Lucario.

"I felt...odd...that day. He taught me an important lesson. I didn't have to do everything all alone, I could rely on him and the others as well. We all called the mountain our home, we could all defend it together."

"How did you become so injured against a fire type?" I asked him. I know he told me they were a weakness of ours, but I didn't understand, "Why did he call you a steel type?"

"Other Lucario, and me, are both fighting and steel type, Riolus are only a fighting type. When a Riolu evolves, their bones become made of steel. It's nearly impossible to break a Lucario's bones. But, if you superheat metal, it becomes weak, bendable, breakable..."

"I see..." I nodded in understanding, my gaze returning to the memory, "What happened after this?"

"Many things..." I watched as dozens of pictures flashed through the image, only really glimpsing a few of them. Scenes of hard fighting, images of Zul sleeping peacefully next to him, and one that stayed on screen for a long moment of Zul standing before him, holding out an apple in front of him towards Raze. He seemed much more healthy than he had in the previous memories.

"Ah yes...this day..." Raze mumbled lightly.

The memory started to play, skipping a few beats before it began, "Here, I found this." Zul said while smiling up at him.

Raze took the apple, and he looked at it before looking back at Zul, "But...you should, if you found it..."

Zul shook his head, "Naw, I've been growing much stronger now. I can skip a few meals so the others can have energy to get strong too."

"Zul..." Raze said lightly looking at the apple again, holding it tightly in his paw as he growled a bit "You're too kind...you'll end up doing something foolish again won't you?"

Zul chuckled and he smiled up at Raze, "Well...I kinda already did..." He said and motioned for Raze to follow him. They returned to the cave, and Raze gasped at the sight of a large pile of apples sitting in the middle of the cave. The residents of the cave were looking at it eagerly too, wondering if it was there for them to eat.

"How did you carry all that up here?" Raze asked in disbelieve. He had stacked those apples down in the forest below the mountain to carry up later after he scouted around the mountain.

"I brought it all up here while you away, armfuls at a time. I figured while you were scouting I could do the foraging for us."

"I was going to do that when I got back." Raze huffed at him and Zul smiled again.

"I told you Raze" He whispered so that the others could not hear the name, "You don't have to do everything alone..."

Raze blinked at the human lightly, and he looked at the apple again in his paw before he put it back into Zul's hand slowly, the human staring up at him in confusion a moment. Raze looked at everyone in the cave and nodded to the pile. "Eat..."

Everyone hurried to take an apple from the pile, and Raze handed out the extras to those whom he thought needed them, before he returned to Zul, who remained holding the last apple.

"Follow me." Raze told him and walked back out the cave.

Raze led Zul back outside, moving up along some rocks for privacy, and Raze sat down on a boulder. Zul had to jump and scamper up the side of the rock briefly to get up there, but he managed and sat next to Raze. The two of them looked out at the land.

"Why are you trying so hard Zul...?" Raze asked him after a few minutes, "I can do it all myself you know..."

"I know but...it's just...I don't want to just be taken care of...I want to help out, make it easier for you."

"Being a mega isn't about having things easy." He told him and looked over at him.

"Yeah but...does it mean you should take it all on alone too?" Zul looked at him sadly, "You do so much for us Raze...I just want to do a little bit for you too. The others feel the same...I mean, they see how hard you try for us too, how restlessly you sleep sometimes cause you're trying to remain aware of any danger coming to us..."

Raze looked back at the sky as Zul kept talking. "And we're all just kind of waiting around in the cave for you to return. We want to do some of the work too, we all should be helping each other. We can make our home bigger, we can all become stronger, and then we can all protect our home from the other mega together."

Raze took Zul's hand, holding onto his hand at the lightly as he used his other paw to hold the apple as well. He focused, and a small burst of aura energy sliced the apple in half in Zul's hand. As he removed his paws, he took one half, starting to eat it silently and Zul stared at the half in his hand before he started to eat it too.

Raze wrapped his arm around Zul tightly as he finished, and he whispered in the human's ear. "You really are special...Very well...you've convinced me...from now on, you're in charge of the others, I'll let them know. You show us how to work together..."

The memory faded away as the two of them cuddled together on the rock, and I moved my attention back to Raze as he opened his eyes, stopping his trip down memory lane as he sighed, bringing his paw up to wipe his eyes a moment.

"Zul..." He actually whined out loud, and I blinked in surprise.

"Hey..." I whispered and I stepped up and hugged him tightly.

He hugged me back tightly, his large arms and paws covering a good portion of my body, "If only I had realized...how I felt before...before I had fought Calamity and I had..."

"Do you know what happened to your pack after...?" I asked him silently.

He shook his head. "I couldn't sense them from inside the gem, my grasp on aura is limited here. I don't know what happened to them..."

I stayed silent a moment as he calmed down slowly, and I asked him, "Did anything happen between the two of you...? Like with me and Zane?"

He chuckled sadly, smiling briefly, "No, it didn't...but I would've loved to have made a mental link to him...I wanted to every day after that last memory, but I couldn't bring myself to do it, I still clung to that last bit of pride that set me apart from the others. Perhaps he could have found my gem if I had...Now I've got nothing but regret over it..." He put his paws on my shoulders then, and pulled me away from him.

"Besides all this stuff over Calamity...I can't let you go through the same years of loneliness I did. Zane should always be first and foremost...and Silver too, anyone who you make a link to. They are you strength. That is the lesson Zul taught me. You can only do so much on your own."

He smiled and laughed a bit, remembering more, "When he took charge of everyone, things got done in days that I could only do in years. Our home grew so vast inside the mountain, it became a system of tunnels, where nearly everyone had their own little space for their own privacy, even holes were made to allow light through in different places at different times of the day. Our food supplies never diminished, everyone grew healthy and strong, we enforced the mountain with traps, pitfalls, rock slides. Our home was the safest among all the other mega's packs. I was teased by other megas for letting a human tell me how to run my pack, but I knew they couldn't deny it, our pack had become the strongest."

"Zul pretty much became the first ever trainer, and he didn't even need to catch you." I chuckled and Raze nodded.

"Pretty much, but he did capture my heart...it was also funny..." He closed his eyes again a moment, "There was one day he called me Raze out loud, I think he did it on accident, and I knew a few of the humans and others heard it, but they didn't react. I knew that, pretty quickly, they all knew that he had named me Raze, I could hear them call me by that name as the talked to each other and thought I was out of ear shot. Despite that...none of them called me Raze to my face. They still called me Mega. Only Zul called me Raze when he spoke to me...It's another thing I regret, not letting the rest of them call me Raze..."

"It's okay..."

He shook his head, chuckling again, "It's not...I know that now...years of brooding and thinking and getting to watch you and Zane interact have told me this...always remember that Ruli, Zane and everyone else you love come first, always. Do everything you can to help and protect them, but let them help you too."

I nodded, "I will Raze. Thanks for showing this to me."

"I've hid my emotions long enough." He smiled and chuckled, "I'm no different from a normal pokemon after all."

______________________

I slept peacefully for a few more hours after my chat with Raze, laying with him in the clouds of the gem at the same time, the two of us just silently thinking about things, before I felt Zane's hands waking me on the outside world and I let my subconscious return to my body.

I opened my eyes and looked up at Zane as he was shaking me, and I yawned lightly.

"Hey Zane...done with your shower?"

"I was done awhile ago silly." Zane chuckled at me and he smiled, "I've just been walking around town while you rested actually, I found the gym, and I wanted you to come with me so we could check it out. I'm not gonna challenge it yet, we'll wait until tomorrow. I just want to see what kind of leader is in charge there. After Naru, I don't want to have any surprises and get you or Silver hurt."

I nodded and carefully moved around Silver, "All right, I'm with ya. But...we still don't have three members to our team."

Zane frowned, "Man I keep forgetting about that rule..." He sighed and rubbed his forehead a bit, "I suppose...we could stay here longer and try and find a new member in the woods..."

Fredrick burst into the room just at that moment. "Zane! Come out here quick! Something's happening at the edge of town!"

I jumped up with Zane, startling Silver awake with a squeak and we dashed out behind Fredrick, and outside the pokemon center.

At the edge of town, a group of Lucario were trying to get in, attacking other people and pokemon as they made their way through. They hadn't noticed us yet, but as they saw me, one yowled and I saw him too, the leader of the pack, apparently out looking for revenge against me.

"It's the pack from the mountains!" Fredrick told us as he grabbed a pokeball from his belt, "They fucking followed us!"

"Hang on!" Zane shouted at him, "Let Ruli handle them!" He looked at me and I nodded. I could fight, my body wasn't fully rested, but it was enough to suffice.

I stepped up in front of Zane and the group of Lucario, and they all charged at me quickly and I spoke to Raze.

"Are you able to merge again?"

"Yes, I have enough energy!" He said back to me eagerly.

I brought my paw to the collar on my neck, which I noticed was slightly longer and hung down my chest a bit, so that the gem rested just above the spike on my chest. Zane must have replaced the older one as I had slept. As I touched it, I felt it warm against my paw and soon after, the explosion of red and black light shooting out from under my paw and it wrapped around me in an orb form, transforming me rapidly inside it before it burst out and I yowled in challenge in Raze's body.

The Lucario did not stop coming at me, the leader yowling back in rage at me, dashing ahead of his subordinates to fight me himself, the others hanged back.

I remembered that Lucario did not fight other Lucario using moves, so I held back my initial reaction to use a Force Palm on him as he drew close and jumped into the air, kicking down with his foot.

I swerved, the long tendrils on my head flowing behind me as I dodged to the side and he landed on the ground behind me. I danced back, keeping one paw behind me and one in front of me in the same fighting stance the other Lucario had taken as they watched on the sidelines.

The leader howled out again as he charged at me again, and this time I didn't move, letting him come closer and he drew a fist back to punch at me. As I acted, the aura activated for me instantly, slowing down time as I moved at a normal speed. I shoved his arm down, and I punched him in the face as hard as I could. As soon as I did, time resumed as normal, and he flew back through the air past his pack in a rush of air that ruffled their fur.

He landed way back at the entrance to town. Once again, completely knocked out from just one attack from me. The other Lucario stared at me, in surprise and shock. To them, I had moved so quick they couldn't follow my movement, and as I stood back up and lowered my arm and paw from the punch, each of them slowly brought up their paws. Apparently they were going to gather their courage and take me on all at once.

One of them stepped towards me, and the others followed, and they quickly picked up into a run, each of them howling as they came at me.

I could only grin, as I brought my paws up again and we engaged each other in a flurry of paws, feet, and shouts. I dodged every blow, time slowing for me once more in my focus and as the aura assisted me, tilting my body this way and that way, jumping up over feet, ducking under kicks, spinning to the side.

But suddenly, as I spun to avoid a punch, I felt the back of my head get slammed by a kick, and I stumbled forward in surprise, the nearly healed injury I had gotten from the rock throbbing painfully a moment. The Lucario jumped back as they realized they had hit me, jeering at me with yowls as I shook my head clear from the surprise hit. Being in this form didn't make me all powerful as I had thought, the aura couldn't tell me everything all at once. I was still vulnerable, just more powerful than normal.

"Well." I said as I stood back up and rubbed the back of my head, "That's a lesson learned for me too Raze...I have to rely on others as well." I knew he couldn't talk to me as I was using his power, but I felt he would agree with my statement.

I took a fighting stance again, as the Lucario moved around me slowly. A few towns people were watching us now, Zane, Fredrick, and Silver watched from the side, and I grinned as I looked at the Eevee.

"Silver, why don't you come help me out?" I asked him as I looked at all the Lucario.

"Wha-What?! I can't take on that many."

"Oh come on, you're not gonna let me take all of them on myself are you? Not even I can dodge everything, just keep me protected all right?"

"O-okay..." He said nervously but he jumped into the circle past two of the Lucarios, surprising them by his sudden intrusion to their fight.

They growled at me and one thought to me in the aura, "You ask for help? Then this is no longer a battle of fists!" He brought his paws back together and a ball of blue energy formed in his paws, and he quickly threw it at Silver.

"I don't think so!" I yelled and I ducked down, catching the ball of energy before it could hit my friend, who had cringed and closed his eyes, expecting to be hit. The ball of energy he had thrown landed in my paw, and instead of exploding, I was able to take control of it, using my natural connection to the aura to command it, and I threw it back at him.

It hit him in the chest, exploding onto its original owner and he yelped out, flying back and landing in the dirt of the town path. He leaned up shakily a moment, before he sighed and fell back down, letting himself faint.

The other Lucario didn't back off though, they had hit me once while trying to engage me in fist and feet, so they jumped at me once more. Again the aura assisted me, slowing time as I dodged and jumped over every kick and punch that I could, but I couldn't keep up with it all again, and I went wide eyed as I saw a kick coming right for my face, but before it could land, Silver jumped up to intercept the attacker, head butting the Lucario in the gut and they tumbled to the ground as I kept dodging the others.

After a bit, I saw another attack that would have connected on me, but again, Silver caught it and kept me safe. This continued, as I kept the Lucario distracted and Silver head butted or tackled them each time he saw one of them getting on my blindside. We both slowly whittled them down together, one by one as they gave up and passed out in the middle of town.

As he tackled the last one, he stood on top of him as the Lucario groaned and he looked at me tiredly before he closed his eyes and went limb, there was a loud cheering as the towns people clapped for us.

"H-Hey!" Silver grinned as he looked up at me, hopping off the Lucario, "We did it!" he panted tiredly and I grinned, panting a bit myself from all the movement.

"Yeah we did. It's easier to take on challenges together." I said and then one of the towns people ran up to us. She had long blond hair, and her dress was green and white colored, and she wore green gloves, shoes and socks. Obviously, she liked the color, the white of her dress was probably to offset it so it would actually look nice.

"That was amazing!" She beamed at me and then to Zane. "Is this your pokemon?"

Zane nodded as he came up and stood next to me, "Yes he is. He's Ruli."

"What kind of pokemon is he?! I've never seen anything like him. He looks like a super charged Lucario." I realized I was still in my mega form and I told Raze to take it back, and I felt him pull it from me, the red and black colors zipping back into the gem as I changed back to my normal form.

"It'll be a few days before we can do that again..." I heard him pant to me then as Zane tapped my shoulder.

"He's just Ruli." He chuckled and smiled at me, and I smiled at him.

"Oh my gosh he IS a Lucario!" She screamed out in surprise and I grimaced a bit, folding my ears back slightly. She had a really, really high voice when she shouted.

She held out her hand to Zane, "I'm Rosy! I'm the gym leader here!"

"Oh uh, Hi!" Zane said and he shook her hand a moment, "I was just going to come see your gym, but then well, this all happened." Zane looked at all the Lucario fainted on the ground.

"Oh it's no problem, I was coming to take care of them myself, but you did it for me." She grinned, and she turned to some other people that came with her, they were wearing the same green uniform she was in, "Take these pokemon back to the mountains before they wake up."

"Hopefully they'll stay there this time." Raze growled at me as I watched the trainers grab hold of the arms and legs of the pokemon, picking them up carrying them out of town. It took three of them to lift up the leader by the town entrance.

Rosy stayed back, still grinning, "Are you here to challenge me? I'd love to fight that Lucario of yours and test out that form he's got."

"He can't use that all the time." Zane said truthfully, looking at me and I nodded. "But we'd love to challenge you as well, but I don't have three members on my team yet."

"Oh? But you came here from Apec town? Did you challenge them there?"

"Yeah but well. It's all really complicated. I have two badges, but the first one I got because he bent the rules for me, and the second one I had a temporary third member." Zane rubbed the back of his head, wondering if we were going to get in any trouble.

It didn't seem so, as she just shrugged and grinned, "Hey, in the end, they don't check up on us. They only check if you won the badge or not." She looked at me again and she tapped her chin, turning away from us a moment and she hummed.

"I tell you what," She said and she turned back to us while putting her hands on her hips, "If you do something for me, I'll bend the rule as well, and we can have a two on two battle!"

Zane grinned, "What do you want us to do?"

"Well, recently there's been a nasty fire type along the path out of town...he keeps attacking travelers and our pokemon. It's a Charmander. Normally, a pokemon its size wouldn't be that big a deal, but everyone here only uses grass types, and its Ember and Flamethrower attacks are really dangerous for grass pokemon..." She groaned and continued, "If you can stop him so our trainers can move him to a farther location so our grass types can be safe outside, I'll battle you two on two."

Zane looked at me, he knew now that I was a Lucario, I would be weak against fire type attacks too, "Ruli's weak against fire too though." He told her.

"Well yeah, but not as much as a grass type!" She pointed out and continued, "Besides, it'll test your ability, I'm not just gonna bend the rule and risk my leadership being terminated for no reason am I?" She grinned and I could see the point she had.

"Let's do it Zane." I told him and he stared at me as I spoke, and he was about to speak back, but Rosy gasped again for some reason.

"Hey! Are you able to speak to him!?" She clapped her hands together and Zane looked at her, nodding slowly.

"Oh...my...gosh!" She squealed and jumped, clapping her hands more, "Now you really have to do this! Your bond is like the one I have with my pokemon!"

"Wait," Zane started and he blushed, "You know about how Lucario make connections..."" he asked and she giggled at him.

"No reason to be shy about it really, most trainers know about how Lucario make mental connections."

"Hey I don't!" Fredrick shouted, and he asked, "How do they make it?"

She only grinned as Zane blushed even more, it was hard to tell why he blushed. Either because she knew about it, because Fredrick was asking, or because he was thinking about how she was hinting that she did the same things with her own pokemon, "Anyways, come on! You gotta do this for me!"

"Well...all right then..." Zane nodded as well and she jumped up in excitement. She turned and lead us away from the center of town, while Fredrick jumped close to Zane.

"How did you make the connection...?" He whispered and Zane blushed again even brighter, and I pushed him away from Zane with my paw as we walked close together.

"What?" Fredrick said after my push and he stopped, looking confused. "What?!" Silver walked by him, looking up at him and shaking his head with a grin.

"What?!" Fredrick repeated and he hurried to catch up to us.