FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

After hiking for thirty minutes Scyther, Pecha, and Oran stopped before the mouth of the Indigo Overgrowth. all of the leaves of every tree in their sight was a deep violet hue, almost appearing entirely white from the thick veils of web topping the gigantic plants like a blanket. The air felt strange and clingy to their fur, especially to the Buneary; each pat she gave her excited hairs, the more they crackled and bit at her paw.

"Ow! What's with my fur all of a sudden?" She screamed, while swatting at her fur as if trying to kill an entire family of mosquitoes that chose her for their next picnic.

"I dunno, but it sounds funny," Oran commented. "I wanna touch your fur!"

She took two steps back, and screamed at his approaching paws, "Stay away from me! Go touch yourself!"

"But mine isn't as long as yours; it won't make the funny sounds," he stuttered to her numbly. A slight tingle caught his tongue; the more he smacked his mouth, the more the tingle spread. "I cant feel my tongue all of a sudden," he said to himself. He told his instructor, "Is this what it feels like to be you, Scyther?"

"Look!" He pointed his right scythe in the air, and their eyes followed its direction. A large bolt of lightning broke from the back of the Overgrowth's throat, screaming with electricity, and causing a flock of bird Pokémon to scatter away from the danger in panic. "A Thunder Wave," he told himself underneath his voice, "Dedenne is still here, after all. Guys, we haven't much time," he told his students. "Dedenne is still here. I'll make this quick: we'll have a better chance of success if we all stick together. Ariados aren't brainless, so we need to be careful of our surroundings; for all we know, they've set up the entire area as their hunting trap. And Oran, whatever you do: don't use your Aura Sphere."

Oran threw his arms up in response, "What?! Why? That's my favorite move!"

"Oran, quit complaining," Pecha told him. "Every time you use it, it pops like a bubble."

"Yeah, but every time I use it, I get better at it," he told her back. He looked at his palms, tightening them into fists. He didn't know how to say it, but while looking at his fists, he heard his powers whisper into his ear, promising him they'll succeed this time around. "I have this weird feeling," he said to his sister, "I just know it, I know it's going to work this time!" He said to the Scyther, "Just let me use it this one time; I'll get it to work!"

"No, and that's final," the mantis told him, looking him dead in the eye.

"Scyther, please-!"

"How will we know for certain if you can get it to work?" Scyther asked him. "In a situation like this, we need to be precise; we can't rely on vague gut feelings. I know how hard it must feel, Oran, but the more we argue about this, the more we're letting Pikachu and Dedenne down- and not just them- but the whole guild, too."

"Right, so we don't have time to lose!" Oran charged right into the mouth of the woodlands without a second thought. He had no fear of what's awaiting. He had no interest in thinking it through. His mind had two priorities: find Dedenne, and fight off as many Ariados he can, in any order he wanted.

"O-Oran!" Scyther's heart jumped seeing that boy dive into unknown danger headfirst. He and Pecha took off for their impulsive teammate. Scyther shouted, "Come back! What did I just say about sticking together?! Oran!"

"Oran, what are you thinking?!" Pecha yelled.

Out of sight, Oran's voice echoed through the throat of the woodlands, "No time to lose!"

The bruised and dirty Pikachu sat on Guildmistress Florges' desk back at the guild, in front of the Single Bloom Pokémon and her assistant. As time passed, his heart calmed from its nervous beating, and he regained some lost breath, though his chest still cramped to a degree. "And that's my story, Guildmistress Florges," he told her, looking her face to face. "Three of your guys are already out there looking for my wife."

"This is quite the situation you've brought to me," She thought to herself out loud.

"Guildmistress, what should we do?" Azumarill asked her. "Should I issue more help?"

"I trust in Scyther and his team that they'll get the job done," she told her. "But Indigo Overgrowth, Arceus know if the rumors I've heard about that area is true."

The Pikachu tried hiding his breakdown behind his paws, but the rivers of tears seeped through the cracks of his dam. "I'm begging you, Florges, please, do whatever it takes to save Dedenne!" sniffling, he wiped most of his waterworks off with his arm, "She's the best thing that ever happened to me. I...I don't think I'll ever find someone like her again! I had one happy moment happen in my life, and those Ariados are going to ruin it!"

"There, there, it'll be all right," she whispered to the distressed rodent, running her delicate fingers across his head.

"Th-thank you," the Pikachu whimpered while drying his eyes with his arm. "I wouldn't know what I'd do without you."

"You're very much welcome," she told him smiling. "I just wouldn't feel right denying help to a Pokémon in need."

He smiled, wiping one last tear from his eye. "I-I'm supposed to pay you for your service, right? I don't have anything to offer, I-"

"That's all right," she said. "My guild's services do require payment, but we'll work something out. Your wife must be someone special if you're taking her all the way to Cristal Spring." She laughed into her hand, "Ahahaha! Taking her to a place like that, you must treat her like a real queen!"

Pikachu looked away, his red-dotted cheeks glowed with a soothing light. "Ehehe, yeah," he admitted. "She's my cheery, energetic, little queen. She can be just as bossy and abrasive as one, but that's just how she defends herself. When I got to know her, I saw how she really was on the inside- she's just as anxious and soft as I am. And I have no plans of letting go of her."

"Oran? Oran, where are you?" Scyther and Pecha's calling voices cried through the Indigo as they searched for their missing teammate, but with no returning reception. They had him in their sights, and somehow, he stayed evasive to their search- not two Pokémon were in need of potential rescuing.

"Rrgh, Oran, you can be an idiot, sometimes," Pecha grunted to herself. "No wait, you're always an idiot, what am I saying. Do we even have time to look for you?" Wherever she placed her eyes, the more the unnerving chill crawling beneath her pelt grew worse. She didn't notice it back at the entrance, but the deeper she walked through the woodlands, more and more white sacs of tightly coiled silk clinging to the violet trees lined their coarse. Some hung low, almost as if laying on the ground, while the rest hung high above in the branches like fruits. Some were even so thinly wrapped, Pecha made out the dried remains of other Pokémon inside.

"Don't look at them, Pecha," Scyther told her while devoting his eyes to the path in front of him, as if he had eyes in the back of his head watching her soak up the macabre scene

She cleared her throat of its choking pit by gulping it down, "S-Scyther, are they all what I think-?"

"Yes," he replied. "They are what we're trying to prevent Dedenne and Oran from becoming. Don't let it scare you, Pecha- as horrible as it might seem- this kind of sight is normal in the wild. Just stick by me, and everything will be okay."

"Don't look at them, he said," she scoffed to herself. With at least three of the cobweb sacs showing up within her peripheral vision with each step she took, and then three more, it was something of an impossible favor- unless she knew how to keep on coarse while keeping her eyes shut. Her stomach gurgled with an uneasy sensation, and she forced back the urge to cry, though for how long she didn't know.

"Pay attention, Pecha, do you see these?" Scyther asked her, pointing his left scythe at the treeline. Pecha couldn't understand what he was talking about, nor could she see what he was pointing at. But while squinting her eyes, she caught a vague shimmer of sunlight. Several thin, invisible strands of silk dangled from what appeared to be each tree, only made visible by the sun's touch.

"Yeah," she told him, "What are those?"

"Those are how Ariados bait their prey," Scyther whispered to her. "Once one gets on you, it lets them track you down back to your house. The worst part is: you'll never even realize them, until a hungry Ariados shows up to your front door. Just watch where you walk, and you'll be all right."

Her tightly coiled ears shot up and stiffened. She felt every one of her hairs get delicately plucked off of her body by the air, one by one, as if it tried to get her attention about something. But when she ran her paws across her little body, she found her hairs still intact. Her muscles stiffened to the point where even walking became a struggle. She tried telling Scyther about it, "U-uhm, Scyther, I have a really bad feeling about this. My danger sense is acting up. I feel like something's looming over my head."

"It's going to be all right," Scyther told her calmly. "As long as I'm here, you don't have anything to worry a-"

It came from nowhere, right before their eyes a thick string of silk latched onto the anticipating Buneary's back, and reeling her into the branches of the tree above her head with unreal speed.

"AAAAAAAAAGGGHHHHHHHH!" Pecha screamed her lungs out while she was lifted into the tree, watching the ground shrink underneath her feet. "Scyther! Help me! Help me!" The more she struggled to break free from the sticky silk, the more she got herself lassoed and wrapped in its grip.

Scyther cried, "Pecha!"

Pecha trapped herself in the webbing with her entire torso in its bind, and her arms restrained. The more she struggled to free herself, the tighter it squeezed her; she wasted most of her energy in one moment, and had little strength to keep it up. She huffed to herself, "It's no use."

She felt something wet drip on the back of her head; it might just be morning dew dripping off the tree leaves. When she looked up, she wished it was only that: two purple eyes glaring brighter than a candle wisp looked straight at her from the shade within the tree. It had a small red head armed with a single horn as long as one of her ears, and a larger red body with black stripes. The drips she felt came from its two large fangs, which were excessively coated in the stuff. It hung on the side of the tree by its four yellow legs as it reeled her in by the web it spat from its mouth.

"S-Scyther," Pecha cried once more, "Scyther! Help! Help me, I can't get free!" Meeting face to face with her predator breathed some new life in her struggle. But once again, all attempts for freedom tangled her more in the string.

Before the spider claimed its meal, Scyther severed the silk with a single swing of his right scythe, cutting through it like paper across his sharp bladed appendage. Before the Buneary ever had a chance to fall he held out his left scythe, and Pecha's stringy cocoon stuck to its flat surface. Using his beating wings to slow them down, he landed on his feet with a soft thud. The spider backed itself deeper into the shade of the tree line when Scyther spotted it looking up. "Hold still for a sec," he told the frightened Buneary.

"A-already ahead of you." She had no choice but to trust him. Scraping her off his scythe was the tricky part, it always latched back on when he touched the string with his other scythe. With some fiddling, Pecha finally plopped to the ground. With a swift swipe down her back, Scyther severed her natural binds. "Ew, ew, ew, ew, ew, ew." It seemed like the stuff had a mind of its own while she scraped herself away from its clingy mess, reacting to every little movement she made as an excuse to spread all over the place. But she managed to crawl out of it, crumpling it all into a ball that only claimed a handful of her hair. After tossing the nasty sight into a nearby bush, she held herself tightly. "Wh-wh-what was that thing?" She asked Scyther.

"That was an Ariados," Scyther stuttered. "That one just so happened to be one of the patient ones. Are you okay?"

"I..I..." Her knees had the structural stability of a Ditto, and the uncontrollable wobbling sent her crashing to the ground. She lost all restraint to her stomach, emptying it all over the ground as a yellow-ish pile mixed with various chunks of berries. She cried into the puddle of mud she created, huffing and puffing without catching her breath. In the silence of her catching her breath like they were hiccups and wiping her face clean with her arm, she whimpered to her instructor, "Scyther, I don't wanna do this anymore. I wanna go home, where I won't be eaten! I can't handle any of this anymore!"

Seeing the crying Buneary reminded Scyther of what he used to go through as a new explorer. He once felt her pain of inexperience, wanting to give up the first instant the world challenged his innocence, and made his stomach tie itself into a knot. This is what he wanted- an experience that would help them absorb his lessons- but why does he feel so guilty about getting what he wanted? If only he had hands he'd give her a needed, warming hug. He crouched down to her, "Hey, Pecha, it's gonna be all right," he told her lovingly.

"No! You, you keep saying that, but I know it's not going to be," Pecha screamed. "I told you something awful was about to happen, but you didn't listen to me! I'm, I'm just a Buneary- all I'm good for is running away! At least you can defend yourself- you're big, and you have blades for hands; I am the preferred snack for all the Pokémon bigger than me!"

A yellow flash lighting up from inside the belly of the Overgrowth caught Scyther's sharp eyes. "Aaaaagggghhhh!" A faint shriek followed it, one too feminine to belong to Oran on first hearing; its owner's cry reminded him of the little time they have left.

Pecha sniffled while wiping the streams from under her button eyes, "I'm done playing explorer; I'm not cut out to actually be one. I never was. I don't know how Oran can just be fine with all of this, but I...I just wanna go home."

"You can't give up, now," Scyther pleaded. "Don't blame yourself for feeling like that; if anyone's to blame, it's really me." He took a short moment to think about what to say next, "I should have realized something like this was going to happen. But instead, I was too caught up in the thought that an experience like this would help you two absorb my lessons a little better. I shouldn't have endangered you and your brother like this." He rose from his knees, looking down at the weeping Buneary, "But we've made it this far, and we can't look back, now; all we can do now is move on, and rescue Dedenne. You're right to feel afraid, and you're right to want to run- but you're letting those feelings control you. You may be just a Buneary, but you're the bravest Buneary I know."

Pecha sniffled, "Do...do you really mean that?"

"I wouldn't be saying it if I didn't," he told her. "You mustn't run away, Pecha. Everyone's counting on us, on you. Do you want to let them down?"

Despite hearing what Scyther had to say, her gut instinct opposed his words. It kept telling her, "Run away. Run away. You'll be safer, then." She considered taking its advice, and even thought of letting the instinct drive her and take her to safety. But no matter how much more sickened her stomach became, she choked it all back down. Against her own desire she stood back up to her feet, wiping off her tear-drenched fur. "Okay...okay," she sniffled one last time to Scyther in a calmer tone. "I won't be afraid anymore. I want to help out the best I can."

"Alright! That's my Pecha," he praised her, softly tapping her on the back with his right scythe. "I'm proud of you for doing this." He picked the fragile bunny off her feet, and plopped her right onto his right shoulder. "Let's go save some Pokémon!"